Dilapidated Building Seized by City Can be Razed, Judge Rules

By Lookout Staff

May 5 -- A Superior Court Judge this week gave the go-ahead to tear down a three-unit building in Sunset Park that was seized from its owner by the City after years of chronic code violations.

The building, located at 2438 Ocean Park Boulevard, had been turned over in January to a receiver, who recently advised the court that it was too costly to repair the building and bring it up to Code and that the property would be worth more without the structure.

Guillermo Gonzalez, who owns the property he has lived in for three decades, will be allowed to remain until a court rules on an appeal of the court’s decision earlier this year to appoint the receiver, Century City-based attorney David Pasternak.

It is not known how long the appeal process will take, said Deputy City Attorney Adam Radinsky, who heads the Consumer Protection Unit. Judge Cole set a status conference in the case for August 11.

The property -- which City officials said was illegally used as a flophouse -- was in a chronic state of disrepair and had become a dangerous blight to the community, the City argued in court.

Gonzalez had failed to make the necessary repairs after two previous convictions resulted in time served at Los Angeles County Jail, Radinsky said.

Gonzalez, who was renting out beds by the week, was charged with violating a lengthy list of code violations for, among other things, having an outdoor dining area, no heat, illegal wiring and being "overrun with garbage, flammable materials, and junk," according to the City Attorney’s Office.

The City had already filed criminal charges against Gonzalez in 1997 and again in 2002, to compel him to bring the building -- which for years had been the site of chronic criminal activity -- up to code, Radinsky said.

Both times Gonzalez was convicted and served time in county jail -- nine months in 1999 and several weeks late last year -- for refusing to make the needed repairs.