Tenant Evicted to Make Way for Required On-Site Manager

By Jorge Casuso

Jan. 30 - On Thursday, a tenant will involuntarily move out of his rent-controlled unit at 726 Idaho Avenue and a building manager will move in, opening a legal door that likely will be tested by other Santa Monica property owners.

The eviction of the tenant from the 16-unit apartment building came after a Superior Court judge tentatively ruled last month that the landlord could evict the tenant to comply with state law, which requires an on-site manager in apartment buildings that have 16 or more units.

The judge ruled that state law supercedes the just-cause provision in the Santa Monica Rent Control law, which does not include the eviction of a tenant to make way for an on-site manager as the basis for eviction.

"In essence, a city cannot prevent a landlord from evicting a tenant to comply with the requirements of the state law," said Gordon Gitlen, the attorney who represented the landlord.

The case was filed after the property in the trendy Wilshire-Montana neighborhood changed hands and the new owner found that there was no manager on site and no vacancies, Gitlen said.

"This posed a problem because the new owner did not want to hire an existing tenant to be the manager," Gitlen said.

Although the ruling is tentative, landlords hope to make it a precedent by testing a similar case in an Appeals Court.