The Newest Tool in the Affordable Housing Toolbox: Eminent Domain

"[Los Angeles] Councilmember Gil Cedillo introduced a motion today asking city officials to make recommendations for how to acquire the Hillside Villa apartment complex in Chinatown using the process of eminent domain," reports Zoie Matthew. Located in a hot bed of development activity, "the building has been the subject of a heated battle between tenants’ rights activists and the property’s owner, Tom Botz, who has indicated that he plans to raise tenants rents to market rate once the property’s affordable housing covenants expire in September," according to Matthew.

The residents of Hillside Villa are far from alone among apartment complexes facing expiring covenants, so the Councilmember Cedillo has also floated the idea that eminent domain could be used in other situation sin the future.

The history of eminent domain in Los Angeles is full of examples of the power working to evict, not protect from eviction, notes Matthew. "In the ’50s, it was used to forcibly remove residents from the largely Latino neighborhood of Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium. More recently, officials threatened to use it to clear out the remaining residents of Manchester Square to make room for LAX development."

Follow up coverage of this dramatic development in the narrative of displacement and affordable housing in Los Angeles is also available from David Zahniser for the Los Angeles Times.