Landlords wants LA City Council to help pay for expensive earthquake retrofits

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A controversial plan to reduce the earthquake risk for thousands of older apartment buildings was discussed at a Los Angeles City Council meeting Wednesday.

The plan, if approved, would mandate retrofitting of thousands of older buildings across the city and the cost will be paid by landlords and tenants. But some said they simply cannot afford it.

The 1994 Northridge earthquake caused widespread damage, but officials said the big one could be much worse.

"We stand to lose hundreds of thousands of housing units. How do we keep our workforce in place if they don't have a place to live?" said Lucy Jones, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

A big concern is the so-called soft story buildings built before 1978. These buildings have parking structures underneath that could pancake during an earthquake. There are 16,000 of these buildings around Los Angeles, and retrofitting is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

"If you're willing to pay for this retrofitting, I'm all for it. I don't have the money, and I'm willing to go to jail," said Estelle Telenbaum, a rental housing provider, during public comment.

Mandating the retrofit means landlords can pass the cost along to tenants, which would lead to higher rents.

James Clarke from the Apartment Association of Los Angeles said most small rental owners cannot afford these costs.

"We don't want to gouge our customer, the tenant, because we don't want to lose them," he said. "They've been living off the rents, and again, the money is in the building, not the banks so they will have to get loans before they do these projects."

City council members said they understand the dilemma and are trying to figure out ways that owners can finance the repairs. That could include state money and property tax relief.

"It's to give the property owners a tax incentive, a tax credit off of their property tax bill if they show and they can prove they did the retrofitting work," Councilman Mitchell Englander said.

Los Angeles isn't the only city with older buildings as many cities are dealing with the same problem. Several city council members are heading to Sacramento next week to try and figure out a statewide solution for the upgrades.