Gentle reader,
Last June, we spotted a troubling case on the city’s planning portal: the proposed subdivision of the rent stabilized, Los Angeles landmark Scott Avenue Bungalow Court into individual tiny houses that could be individually sold out from under the tenants on short notice with no compensation.
Our social media post was unwelcome news to people who live there, some for decades, and they’ve had to spend much of the past year anxiously cramming to learn about Los Angeles land use in an effort to protect their housing.
You may have read about the Scott Avenue tenants’ campaign in the Larchmont Buzz or the Eastsider LA, or seen the petition.
We feel passionately about bungalow courts as an ideal form of dense, architecturally pleasing, community-serving, naturally affordable housing, and maintain a map of this type of housing in Los Angeles, noting when they are illegally demolished, set on fire by deranged landlords, knocked down for speculative redevelopment, held vacant or otherwise not valued.
We’ve seen Ellis Act evictions at bungalow courts before, but subdivision to make it even easier and cheaper to get rid of longterm tenants was a brand new threat, and an alarming one. If the city let this happen, it would be open season on tenants in any desirable historic multi-family building, since individual units could be sold for much more than they’re worth as rentals.
So we’re sharing audio from yesterday’s nearly two-hour-long Zoning hearing for VTT-84475-SL. the proposed Scott Avenue Bungalow Court subdivision. The testimony from residents, neighbors, preservationists, nearby landlords and other concerned citizens is remarkable, as is the unexpected determination after all these nearly 100% supportive public comments that no decision would be made for three months.
It’s a powerful couple of hours of passionate, articulate Angelenos telling the city why they love their home, their neighbors and their community, and what it would mean to lose all these things.
We made a public comment, too, expressing our concerns about damage to the landmark should it be split into one building owned by many different people, and the high probability that the units would then be listed on Airbnb. Our remarks start at 01:12:13.
If you’ve got the time, give this interesting hearing a listen—or skim the transcript.
But what we particularly want Angelenos to hear are the astonishingly hopeful comments from Emma Howard, Community Development & Planning Director for Council District 13 (Hugo Soto-Martinez). Her remarks begin at 01:29:30, and the transcript of what she said is at the bottom of this email.
“The city cannot be in the position of forcing citizens to become housing and land use lawyers just to stay in the units that we have adopted all of our policies around preserving.” - Emma Howard
How goddamned refreshing it is to hear a representative of an elected official for a working class neighborhood that has been decimated by illegal Airbnbs, Ellis Act evictions, predatory cash for keys offers, unpermitted demolitions and the emptying out of entire city blocks of rent stabilized apartments by the wife of indicted councilmember Curren Price, call out the city planners for accepting and processing a harmful, sketchy project that, if it is allowed to proceed, would not just displace 10 households in Echo Park, but has the potential to set a precedent that could displace thousands of tenants all across Los Angeles.
Thank you, Emma! Keep it up!
These terrific comments almost make us forget the agony of watching the beautiful Melrose Avenue bungalow court also in Council District 13 emptied out, tagged up, then knocked down to become a vacant lot filled with feral cats… but not quite.
We’re looking forward to the tenants at Scott Avenue getting their lives back, and to city planners not recklessly inflicting such harm on the citizens who pay their salaries and their very generous pension packages. Maybe it’s fun to pretend that Los Angeles is a SimCity game, but it’s not right, and it needs to stop—now, with this beautiful bungalow court and the lucky folks who call it home.
New tours! We’ve filled out calendar in through September, including the very popular Know Your Downtown LA: Bradbury, Basements, Dutch Chocolate Shop (6/21) and the debut excursions of Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends (7/26) and Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles (8/23). And this Saturday, it’s a romp along the Arroyo, from Lummis House to Heritage Square, with some fabulous landmarks and freaky oddities along the way. Join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING WALKING TOURS
• Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (5/17) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (5/24) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (5/31) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (6/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (6/14) •Know Your Downtown LA: Bradbury, Basements, Dutch Chocolate Shop (6/21) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (6/22) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (6/28) • Film Noir / Real Noir (7/12) • The Real Black Dahlia (7/19) • Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends (7/26) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (8/9) • Weird West Adams / Elmer McCurdy Museum (8/16) • Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles (8/23) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (8/30) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (9/6) • Film Noir / Real Noir (9/20) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (9/27)
EMMA HOWARD’S COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSED SUBDIVISION OF THE SCOTT AVENUE BUNGALOW COURT (5/14/2025) - I'm Emma Howard. I’m the Director of Community Development and Planning for Council District 13, Council Member Soto-Martinez. I'm here today to express the council member's absolute opposition to the proposed subdivision of this bungalow court on Scott Avenue and all other projects similar to this one in our district.
I would like to remind this body that the council member is nearly always supportive of new housing in our district. Our opposition is extremely rare and it is reserved specifically for harmful projects where no mitigation appears available.
To help assist with your decision making, our office has provided an in-depth letter with our concerns and objections, citing the relevant portions of the municipal code, the replacement unit determination, the no net loss determinations, and the goals and policies of the housing element, as well as the statement of significance for the historic cultural monument.
I cannot repeat all the points here today in the interest of time, but I will say we believe strongly that our letter demonstrates substantive evidence for denying the project.
I also need to object to the staff report description of the site as two lots with SFDs and duplexes. The site is not a scattering of SFDs just being divided up into smaller chunks of SFDs. The site is two lots sharing one cohesive designed and interconnected multifamily housing, which was built as one part, part of a very special housing typology, the bungalow court. Taken together, they are one 10 unit complex under the rent stabilization ordinance.
My points today are two.
First, the deputy advisory agency is empowered to deny a tract map after investigation when it determines that said map does not substantially comply with the various elements of the city's general plan. This is one such project.
After all the work that the state and the city have undertaken to ensure that we grow our stock of all types of housing, specifically affordable housing, and prevent the loss of housing that is naturally occurring affordable housing for Angelenos, prevent the loss of our RSO units, after the recent passage of SB 8, which built and refined the laws that give tenants protections from displacement first established in the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, after the passage of the Resident Protection Ordinance, after the provisions of 1295-2-F6, all of this was intended to stop the swapping of affordable units, older units for new sale market units without some consideration of the rights of tenants.
And after all this work, we still sit here headed on the path of doing the wrong thing without any consideration of this larger picture.
This project should not have been allowed to file.
It should not be recommended for approval.
It must be denied.
The only reason for the application and the only thing that will happen from what is a no-build project is that six units of RSO will be immediately lost. with none of the standard processes we apply to ensure a minimum of review to ensure that does not displace vulnerable residents and further contribute to the cycle that has created our housing crisis.
A minimal condition about relocation assistance in the staff report will do nothing to solve what is being taken from our tenants.
This SLS application is a clear loophole and one you do not have to approve. There's no net gain to the city's housing stock and immediate loss to the exact type of protected units under the housing crisis act and the resident protections ordinance, which we can least afford to let go.
The city has denied prior conversions like this in the past. There is precedent here to do the right thing.
Secondly, it is most important that behind all the laws, there are real people that are being harmed.
The tenants are here today. Community members are here today. You can hear what this decision means to all of them. The tenants at Scott Ave are an intrinsic part of Echo Park. They are educators. They are artists. They are parents. They are friends and chosen family to each other and many other people. Many of them have lived here for a long time, and they rely on the protections of these specific RSO units, which are irreplaceable.
They are here to tell you what their home means to them. They have had to spend too much time learning what is happening to them and organizing to prevent it. This is time that they should have spent living their lives. They and many other tenants deserve so much better than this.
You heard today from the tenants at Melrose who are about to have the same thing come for them and who we also support. It is overwhelming the support you hear today.
The city cannot be in the position of forcing citizens to become housing and land use lawyers just to stay in the units that we have adopted all of our policies around preserving.
I personally find it very hard to believe that any of you here today who work for the city chose your job intending to inflict this kind of harm.
And so the last thing I will say today is that Councilmember Soto-Martinez supports these tenants. He supports the larger principles this case stands for. He and our whole team continue to stand by them if you make it necessary for them to continue this fight. We hope that that will not be necessary and you deny this project for all or any of the many specific legal reasons we have provided to you in our letters and in the letters of public comment you have received. Thank you.
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