Hyde Park is a small neighborhood in the heart of South Los Angeles. It’s centered on Crenshaw Boulevard, a thoroughfare that has taken hold as a nexus for black business and culture. It was also the home of late rapper, activist and entrepreneur, Nipsey Hussle, who was killed in 2019 at the intersection of Crenshaw and Slauson. 

Before his death, Hussle championed Hyde Park by investing in and forging a system of locally owned businesses—a mission he and others referred to as “buying back the ‘hood.” The 33-year-old artist wanted to empower the people in his hometown. He was actively fighting against the forces of gentrification that regularly threaten long-time residents of under-resourced neighborhoods—an all too familiar story in LA. 

But a few months after Hussle’s passing, residents of an apartment, just down the street from Crenshaw and Slauson, got wind of exactly what their defender was trying to prevent. That their landlord and billionaire developer Jeff Greene wanted to demolish their homes for a luxury development. 

“We kind of had that feeling of like, ‘They wouldn’t have done this if he was still alive’,” says Jolene Patten, a 26-year-old resident. Her cousin, Zaleeah Jenkins, says that even if they did, Hussle would’ve tried to intervene. “I don’t think he would’ve let it go,” says Jenkins.

The earliest record on file for the development dates to April 2019. But Ellia Thompson, an attorney from Greene’s office, says plans for the development began in early 2018. “The death of Nipsey Hussle in no way factored into our plans,” said Thompson in an email. 

The development would displace all 160 or so residents still living at the apartment complex, Dorset Village. Though tenants are granted a right of return (first priority to inhabit the new units), where they will end up in the years during construction is uncertain. And, qualifying for the new units can also be a hurdle in itself. Though about 141 of the 782 new units would be reserved for affordable housing, Dorset residents—a majority of whom fall under low-income needs—would be forced to find a home somewhere else in a city with a dearth of affordable places to live and a growing homelessness crisis.

“I don’t want to be displaced,” says a resident we’ll call Ms. Z. She wishes to remain anonymous in case of landlord retaliation. “You’ve got too many people on the street. This is not the time to be putting people on the street.” The 75-year-old resident has lived at Dorset for over 25 years and doesn’t know if she can find another home by next year. 

She and 15 or so other residents are gathered under the harsh sunlight on a February afternoon. They’re having their monthly tenants meeting, organized by the non-profit group, Los Angeles Tenants Union. Residents sit on plastic chairs in a circle and share their concerns. “We have people older than me. Are they going to be alive by the time this thing is built?” asks Ms. Z. The tenants and activists are trying to figure out whether or not they can stop one of the biggest projects to be erected in Hyde Park. 

The proposed development is still under review with the city. City Planning Associate Steve M. Garcia says the development’s Environment Impact Review (EIR) has yet to be submitted and could take a year to be approved by the department. In the meantime, tenants and activists are exploring different strategies to block the development from going through, whether it’s through public comment, outcry or other grassroots efforts. Although it will, no doubt, be an uphill battle, residents have won these fights before, and they’re hoping to do it again. 

Rent Stabilization Provides Little Relief In The Face of Eviction

In LA, buildings built before October 1, 1978 are under the rent stabilization ordinance (RSO), which offers certain protections to tenants. These protections include just-cause evictions and caps on rent increases, where landlords can increase the rent by 3-8% per year. Dorset Village, built in 1941, is a rent-stabilized building. 

However, between 2011 and 2019, over 26,500 rent-controlled units were removed from the housing market through the Ellis Act. 

“There’s a finite amount of rent-controlled units and these numbers continue to decrease,” says Paul Lanctot, a member from the LA Tenants Union working directly with Dorset Village. “Meanwhile, the population is typically increasing.” 

Thompson, says the development plans on keeping its market-rate units under RSO, meaning rent increases will be capped year-to-year. Though, that is after initial rents are set to a much higher rate than current rents at Dorset Village.

A majority of units in Hyde Park were built before 1979 and are protected under RSO. But new developments like Greene’s threaten their limited existence and risks putting more people on the street. The diminishing number of affordable units could further exacerbate an overwhelmed homeless and housing crisis.

A Decade of Rising Evictions in the City of L.A.

Although RSO buildings provide much-needed rent relief to tenants, the Ellis Act, at times, undercuts the benefits. It allows landlords to evict tenants if they are planning on going out of the rental business. The Ellis Act was originally enacted for mom-and-pop landlords who want to leave the rental market, but it has since been taken advantage of by developers and for-profit landlords. In Dorset Village’s case, tenants will be evicted under the Ellis Act, not because the landlord can no longer afford to keep his building, but because he wants to build a more profitable development. Situations like this add to the rising number of evictions in the city. 

Dorset Village, with about 160 of its 206 units occupied, is home to a majority of low-income households. The median income of Hyde Park is around $45,000 per household. However, Lanctot says that, through anecdotal accounts, most residents at Dorset Village make closer to $25,000 per year. One of the reasons tenants can afford their current rents in one of the most expensive cities is because of the rent caps under RSO. Some of Dorset’s long-time residents could be paying rents as low as about $800 per month. Since they’ve lived there for decades, chances are, these tenants are older and continue to stay in their rent-stabilized unit because they can’t afford to go anywhere else.

However, opponents of rent control argue that it prevents building owners from turning a good profit and, in turn, discourages investment, leads to improper maintenance and a decaying of the housing stock. 

But low-income tenants say they need rent-control to survive.

Ms. Z, who is retired, says she can’t afford to move out to a market-rate unit. The average price for a one-bedroom market-rate apartment in L.A. can range from around $1,500 to $2,500, which would eat up her income. 

“I wouldn’t have anything else to live on because my check is not that far beyond that,” she says. 

Ever since she retired, Ms. Z has been looking for a new place. She put in applications for senior homes five years ago, citing the lack of heat and insulation in her decades-old unit. 

But, so far, her requests have stagnated in a bottleneck of applications hoping for the same relief. The waiting lists are several years long and one home—Buckingham Senior Apartments—reportedly has a 15-year wait.

“People don’t move out you know…I guess they wait for people to die out,” she says.

Dorset Village and Nipsey Hussle’s Lasting Legacy

When Dorset residents found out about the development in July of 2019, the news cut deep. Hussle’s intent to “buy back the ‘hood” was so strong that some wondered if he wasn’t gone, would they still be facing the possibility of displacement. 

“There’s no way you can talk about this place and not mention the impact of Nipsey Hussle,” says Patten.

Dorset Village, which is just two blocks away from the storied intersection of Crenshaw and Slauson—renamed to Nispey Hussle Square—was a regular hangout spot for the rapper. 

Patten, who grew up around Hyde Park since she was a child, frequently saw Hussle around the neighborhood. At that time, he was still selling CD’s out of the trunk of his car. Four years ago, Patten moved into Dorset Village with her mom and, this time, saw Hussle shooting his music videos. 

Hussle shot the video for his 2016 song “Queston #1” at Dorset Village. A drone shot of the blue, green and yellow buildings can be seen with the caption “The Villas.” Hussle emerges from one of the apartment buildings and greets a mix of residents in the courtyard. He raps about how hard it can be for youth who are forced to walk the line between a ‘normal life’ and one of gang banging. “The vill” as Hussle calls it, shows up again in his last song “Higher”, a collaboration with the artists DJ Khaled and John Legend. In contrast, this song is brighter, the blue buildings a vibrant teal color to match his silk suit, and it feels more like an homage to the place. 

“He made this place and the people in this place a part of his journey,” says Patten. 

Hussle left many legacies in Hyde Park. He popularized the Crenshaw logo with his own Marathon Clothing Store, bought out the popular burger joint Master Burger for locals to enjoy, and funded the repairs for his old elementary school.

One of his most ambitious projects is Vector 90, a “CoWorking space, cultural hub and incubator” that provides educational and professional tools for the community, bridging a gap between the inner city and the tech spaces of Silicon Valley. With each of his initiatives, Hussle wanted to provide opportunities to his community. 

He saw the potential of his hometown before outside developers could.

TRANSIT-ORIENTED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Rendering: HKS Architects and Courtland Studio (photo from la.streetsblog.org)

The proposed development does attempt to offer some relief under the Transit Oriented Community program. Greene, in a telephone interview, touted the development as a fixer for both LA’s affordable housing crisis and carbon footprint. 

Greene is referring to his development’s categorization as a Transit-Oriented Community (TOC) project, a program that started in September of 2017. TOC developments allows developers to build more units and higher than regular zoning laws allow depending on its proximity to public transit. In addition, a certain number of affordable housing units need to be included. 

“The city is asking us as owners to comply with their requests to build as many apartments as possible to get the cars off the road,” says Greene.

In theory, this two-fold solution sounds like a great idea and, according to city planning reports, succeeds in generating affordable housing units. Between 2017 and 2019, 10,365 TOC units were approved and about 24% are reserved for some level of affordable housing. Los Angeles City Planning also states, “As of 2019, 56% of all TOC projects have been located on commercial or vacant lots, meaning that they will not result in the loss of any housing units.”

“I love the idea of a smaller carbon footprint,” said Greene. “What we’re doing is we’re solving all kinds of problems and of course no one likes being evicted from their place, but…they’re getting compensated.”

Yes, tenants will be getting compensation under the Ellis Act. Depending on income level, household size and years of occupancy, tenants can receive between $8,200 to $20,450 to relocate. However, tenants and activists have said, time and again, that this is not enough. If people can’t find another affordable place to live, that money will dry up fast. 

Also, the overall success of the TOC program doesn’t mean that it’s perfect. The stats presented by the city glosses over situations like Dorset Village, and the portion of TOC projects that do cause loss of housing units, where residents will be displaced. 

Dorset Village is a mere two blocks away from the Crenshaw Line—the corridor that will connect Hyde Park and neighboring South LA cities to LAX slated to open late 2021. Dorset Village’s close proximity to a major transit line means the proposed TOC development is classified as Tier 4, which allows for the densest amount of building. This also requires a greater number of affordable housing units to be built.

However, the total number of affordable units set for the new development still falls short of the existing 206 rent-controlled units at Dorset. Adhering to the TOC Tier 4 guidelines, 141 units out of 782 will be affordable. Here’s the breakdown of those affordable units: 87 units will be reserved for extremely low income, 17 for very low income and 37 for low income.

Even if the remaining households at Dorset Village qualified to return to the affordable units, there would not even be enough to accommodate them.

Though the developer plans on keeping the remaining 641 units under RSO, as mentioned earlier, the base price of these units will most likely start at a rate that is unaffordable for Hyde Park residents.

Residents and activists also worry about long-term effects of introducing more and more market-rate developments to a neighborhood. As people of a higher income bracket start moving in, the thresholds for the area median income—which determine thresholds for affordability—can start to change as well.

Another incentive for developers to build TOC’s is a reduction in required parking spaces. Because Greene’s development is classified as a Tier 4, it technically does not have to provide any parking, as the idea is to encourage residents to use public transit. However, according to the TOC form, Greene is still proposing to build 713 parking spaces. As far as the TOC guidelines go, there is no limit to the number of parking space developers still want to include.

As much as we’d like to be optimistic about programs that target the housing crisis, the dent they make is hard to tell. A 2018 report from the California Housing Partnership and the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing says that “568,255 new units are needed to satisfy the demand of lower-income renters,” in LA County. A more recent state analysis from 2019 indicates that Los Angeles is not building enough affordable housing.

Greene argues that part of the reason housing isn’t being built fast enough is because cities are actually making it “difficult for developers to build anything,” by requiring relocation assistance to tenants, impact fees and other extra costs.

However, in a cruel, Catch-22 twist, these extra costs are actually used to build more affordable housing. Thus, one of the biggest challenges this city faces is balancing the profit motive of developers and the needs of low-income citizens.

MISTREATMEANT AND MISHANDLED MAINTENANCE

During meetings with the LA Tenants’ Union, Dorset residents often spoke of maintenance issues and a failure to resolve them effectively or in a timely manner. 

Patten, who moved into a newly renovated unit in 2016 said that mold began to appear underneath the layer of new paint when she used a humidifier in her room. “Just because you paint over it doesn’t mean it won’t affect people,” says Patten. “Before I was in my room, my younger brothers were in there.”

SCEP Inspection Records show that broken garage doors were noted in August-September of 2019

Another prevalent and peculiar issue at the property is missing garage doors. Several garage units had fallen into disrepair, but instead of fixing the doors, the management decided to completely remove them. Because of this, tenants have lost adequate storage space since there’s no way to protect what’s inside their garage. 

Residents also talked of a disappearing laundry room, which has made the simple act of washing clothes that much harder. 

Velasco, reached by phone, declined to comment on the maintenance issues and methods of resolving them. 

District 8 representatives Kristen Gordon and Lamont Cobb urged residents to continue to file their complaints if demands were not met. Systematic Code Enforcement Program (SCEP) records show that when Cobb followed up on Dorset Village’s mounting cases the day after the tenants’ meeting, he was informed that previous violations, which encompasses the garage door issue, were “reasonably complied with”.

Ms. Z says that living at Dorset Village hasn’t been perfect. “It’s had its issues. But, like I say, I stayed for the affordability,” she says.

Many residents echo that sentiment. Affordability, convenience, community—these are all things that, once taken away, are hard to find again and rebuild.

Lanctot says displacement is more than an affordability crisis: “This is also their homes. This is where they’ve been for all these years, where they likely have their jobs, where they go to work, where their kids go to school…you’re ripping apart that community.”

WHAT CAN THE CITY DO FOR DORSET?

When asked what the city is planning on doing, Harris-Dawson’s Communications Deputy Antwone Roberts, said, legally, there wasn’t much the council could do in terms of stopping the project—that, like in most cases, it was largely left to the tenants and community organizers to create public outcry.

“Essentially the project he’s trying to do is entirely by the book, it’s entirely by-right,” says Roberts. By definition, by-right projects do not require discretionary review by the Los Angeles City Planning Department, making the permitting and administrative process much easier for the developer. 

City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, whose jurisdiction encompasses District 8, says they will make sure to enforce the rules that they can. In an email statement, Harris-Dawson writes, “My role is to ensure that existing residents have access to affordable housing and that any new housing does not displace them [...] I will, of course, make sure that the City enforces the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, which provides the right to return and relocation assistance to tenants.”

Lamont Cobb, Harris-Dawson’s Capital Projects Aide, also says they hope that tenants continue to put any housing complaints in the record to build their case against Greene. He says one possible strategy they’re looking at is the experience of Rolland Curtis Gardens—an affordable housing property in South LA that Greene owned in the early 2000s. Two housing non-profits were able to take ownership of the property after Greene reneged on a deal to keep the units affordable.

However, even though the non-profits TRUST South LA and Abode Communities, acquired the property, the tenants were ultimately displaced due to “underlying challenges in the rental market.”

Among the bureaucracy, whims of the housing market and motive of developers, L.A. has yet to figure out how to invest in a community without displacing its long-time residents. 

“It is a challenge and it’s something we’re acutely aware of,” says Cobb.“We’re concerned about getting new developments that serve the people who are here and providing housing for our historic black residents.”

If redevelopment and revitalization of a neighborhood is inevitable, there needs to be better social and economic safety nets so that low-income and long-time residents aren’t forced to the margins of society. Residents of neighborhoods like Hyde Park are finally seeing their community thrive and shouldn’t have to worry if they will be able to stay. 

“I’d like people to understand the fairness that we’re just seeking,” says Ms. Z. “Nobody has to be displaced. Everybody has a reason why they’re still here.”