Rent-controlled buildings taken out of the market last year rose to nearly threefold since 2013 as they are being demolished and replaced with pricier housing, LA Times reported.
Based on city records, over 20,000 units were removed from the market since 2001, of which over 1,000 units were from 2015. With the Los Angeles property market experiencing a boom, developers and investors want to cash in and are acquiring rent-controlled buildings to demolish in exchange of building luxury homes.
While the figures is only a small portion of the 641,000 rent-controlled units in LA, housing advocates condemn the evictions and demolitions, saying that they are making the affordable housing supply more constraint.
On the defense of the developers, Michael Cohanzad, senior vice president of development and business affairs for Wiseman, said, "The story that gets lost in all of this is that the buildings ... are past their useful life. Many of these homes are asbestos-filled, termite-infested, and are not compliant with today's retrofit regulations. So it's a matter of time that these buildings will be torn down."
Cohanzad said the Wiseman has built five times more new apartments in replacement of the ones it demolished, which he claimed is a big help to the city's housing shortage.
In a previous report from LA Curbed, figures from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department showed that people were evicted in 725 rent-controlled apartments in 2014, more than twice the 308 apartments in 2013. It rose to 1,075 units in 2015.
Among the hard-hit areas in the city are Beverly Grove, Sawtelle and Pico-Robertson, driven by the strong demand for high-end housing in upscale neighborhoods.
The council's Housing Committee is looking into ways on how to address the housing affordability issue such as establishing an annual cap to the number of rent-controlled apartments.