City Council to debate condo conversions

Those of you who don’t immediately peruse the Long Beach City Council agenda the moment it appears each week might have missed this–but at tomorrow’s 5 p.m. meeting, the Council will consider sticking up for apartment renters.

As the Press-Telegram’s Paul Eakins reports, the Council will debate whether to limit the number of apartments which may be converted into condos when the percentage of rentable apartments in the city falls below 5 percent–and whether to call for additional protections to keep renters from being condo-converted out of their apartments.

(If I were a framer, I’d be getting steamed right about now–and that’s not good. Nobody wants a steamed framer.)

Ah, you say–framers, drywallers and spacklers need not worry; Long Beach is full of empty apartments. There are plenty left to magically change into condos. Really?

City folk–the people who work for the city, not our elected representatives–oppose limiting the number of condo conversions. Among other things, they point out that with housing prices as high as they are, buying a condo is the only way many people can own a house. (Even if it’s a condo.)

But even the most city-friendly statistics put the number of vacant, rentable apartments in the city at just 4 or 5 percent of the stock, according to the Planning Commission.

A Census Bureau study which Eakins cites claims the inventory actually declined to 3.7 percent last year. And, adding the possibility of further obfuscation, Eakins says an independent study claimed the empty apartment inventory this year would fall to just 3.2 percent.

Which is how many apartments? Long Beach, Eakins says, is believed to have 91,000 rental units, and 5 percent of that is 4,550 empty apartments–still a large number.

Or is it? Should be an interesting discussion.

Tags: apartments, California, condo conversions, condominiums, Long Beach, Long Beach City Council, Paul Eakins, Planning Commission, press telegram, renters, renters' rights, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas