Beyond Repair? : Landlord to Evict, Not Fix Up Units

Several dozen tenants living in dilapidated, vermin-infested housing in Solana Beach face eviction because their Beverly Hills landlord has chosen to demolish the buildings rather than bring them up to code.

Leon Perl, who owns the 11 housing units at 204 S. Sierra Ave. and 201-209 S. Highway 101, goes to trial Dec. 14 in Vista Municipal Court on an 83-count criminal complaint filed against him by the Solana Beach city attorney, alleging violations of municipal housing, health and safety, and fire codes.

The violations range from leaky roofing and damp rooms to cockroach and rat infestations, broken showers and toilets, deteriorating floors, electrical hazards and a lack of hot water, according to the complaint filed Aug. 21.

Perl since has decided to demolish the cottage-style structures, built in the late 1920s as a motel, rather than attempt to bring them up to code.

Catherine Rodman, a Legal Aid Society attorney representing the tenants, said other legal actions might be taken to ensure that the city compensates the residents for loss of the low-income housing, situated in a redevelopment area.

Tenants, many of them families who have lived in the units for years, also plan to sue Perl to recoup rent they paid for the substandard housing and for retaliatory eviction, intentional negligence and infliction of emotional distress, Rodman said.

City Atty. Dan Hentschke met Nov. 9 with Rodman and an attorney for Perl to discuss compensation to tenants and plans to assist them in their search for other housing, but he would not comment on those negotiations.

The city’s handling of the matter, however, will likely test the City Council’s recently touted commitment to affordable housing, City Manager Michael Huse said. It will also test a recent judgment that low-income housing destroyed in the city’s redevelopment area must be replaced or the residents compensated.

“We are certainly concerned about the fate of the existing tenants, and we will certainly do all we can to assist them in finding housing if they are forced to relocate,” Huse said. Although comparable low-income housing in Solana Beach is virtually nonexistent, Huse said the city could help tenants obtain housing subsidies and might be able to offer them other financial assistance.

Under regulations now being developed, Perl might have to pay to finance other low-income housing when he destroys the structures, Hentschke added.

Meanwhile, residents are living day to day, uncertain when they will be forced out or whether they will be able to find comparable rent in the upscale beach community.

Perl’s attorneys did not return phone calls, but, if Perl is convicted, each misdemeanor count of the criminal complaint carries a maximum six-month sentence and $1,000 fine, Hentschke said.

Perl issued 30-day eviction notices Sept. 8, and, on Nov. 9, his attorneys filed “unlawful detainers” against the tenants, who found the eviction papers taped to their cracked wooden doors last Friday. Residents were given a 14-day extension Wednesday to respond to that action, Rodman said.

“On my part, the only thing I’m fighting for is that he helps us look for a place to live--a place with similar rent,” said 39-year-old Miguel Zamora, a Guadalajara native who has lived in one of Perl’s one-room studios for three years with his wife and four children.

Zamora and his family spent several years living with other families at the complex before that.

“It’s logical that they would want to tear it all down, but we’ve all been here a long time,” he said. “The kids are in school here. We work nearby.”

Most two-bedroom apartments in Solana Beach cost more than $800 a month to rent, he added, an expense Zamora cannot afford.

The sink and shower in Zamora’s bathroom do not work, and, since he moved in, he has repaired the plumbing, installed a water pump, and re-keyed his door--all at his own expense.

“He never did anything, or paid us back for the work we did,” Zamora said of Perl. “I’m the one who has repaired it all.”

Next door, 16-year-old Isaac Basulto Pulido contemplated the hefty legal document taped to his door and wondered when he family might have to move on. His father, he said, has lived there 15 years.

Like Zamora, Basulto’s father has done most of the repairs, taping leaky plumbing in the kitchen and setting traps for the mice that infest their one-bedroom cottage.

“They came three or four months ago and fixed the hot water, but we still have problems with mice and cockroaches,” Basulto said.

Complaints by tenants were ignored, they said.

“He said if we didn’t like it, we should leave,” said Graciela Montano, who now lives in a $700-a-month, two-bedroom unit with her husband and three children, and another family of five. Montano had lived for three years in a back unit, but, after the bathroom was broken for a month, Perl decided to board up the studio cottage that rented for $375 rather than repair it, Montano said.

Three months ago, they moved in with the family of Macaria Playa, who has lived there nine years. But her home is also plagued with plumbing problems, cockroaches and hot water that comes out at a trickle, she said.

Although Perl has only owned the property since the late 1980s, Rodman said Perl is “not the first in a long line of negligent landlords.”

But Perl alone has amassed an enormous file at the city’s code enforcement office.

The first inspection request was sent to the city in January, 1991, and the inspection was carried out three months later, said code enforcement supervisor Jeffrey Tarski.

In April, 1991, health, fire and building inspections were carried out together.

Perl’s alleged intransigence resulted in the 83-count criminal complaint, filed in August of this year, Tarski said.

Tarski said Perl put some tar paper down on the roofs, installed smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, but made no major repairs.

“He made some modifications to the structures, made some corrections, but not enough,” Tarski said. “No doubt about it. This is the largest case that the city has had, by the mere number of violations that exist on the property. To my knowledge, it’s the only one involving residents being moved on, or an eviction process.”

Rodman said civil actions filed against Perl for back rent and negligence will probably wait until the more immediate issue of the eviction is dealt with.

Hentschke added that Perl may have violated laws regulated fair business practices by profiteering from substandard rental housing.