Tenants, Landlords in West Beach Reach Compromise Amid Conflict

For nearly a year, the back-and-forth battle between the few remaining tenants at 215 Bath Street — a 52-unit apartment complex in the sleepy West Beach neighborhood — has been a whirlwind of eviction notices, City Hall debates over alleged “renovictions,” stop-work orders, criminal charges filed against the landlord, and a civil suit filed by the landlord against the city in response to the criminal case. 

But a bright spot has emerged amid the conflict after the city’s Rental Housing Mediation Program got tenants and landlords to come to the table and reach an agreement that would allow all remaining tenants their choice between a one-year lease or a substantial relocation sum of more than $30,000 to vacate their units. 

While the lease offers an encouraging sign, issues still remain unresolved. The Legal Aid Foundation’s Managing Housing Attorney Alex Entrekin, who helped the tenants navigate the often-confusing landscape of housing law, said, “Is everything resolved? No. Harm was done when 40 families left months ago, but ownership’s recent offer marks significant progress for the parties. The tenants appreciate ownership coming to the table and recognizing that the path forward comes through mutual recognition of the rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords.”

Criminal Charges & Civil Suits

The group of owners of 215 Bath LLC — James Knapp, Chris Parker, Austin Herlihy, and Timothy Morton-Smith — have been adamant that the aging property’s 70-year-old knob-and-tube electrical wiring is a safety hazard to tenants, and that substantial renovations require tenants to vacate for at least 30 days.

When they took over the property in September of last year, Knapp issued 60-day notices that the city later ruled to be insufficient, leading to an updated ordinance regarding just-cause evictions. This required landlords to provide permit information to tenants along with eviction notices. But by then, many of the original tenants had already left, either accepting relocation checks or finding new housing altogether.

[Click to enlarge] Photos show ten boxes of blankets that arrived June 12 at the property addressed to “EF International Language Campuses” at 215 Bath Street; representatives of EF said that the boxes were sent by mistake, and that student housing was no longer being pursued at the site “in light of the ongoing dispute between the landlord and some tenants.”

---

On January 31, Knapp issued eviction notices to the remaining tenants, citing in the notices two electrical and plumbing permit numbers.

However, the property was already on the radar of city code compliance officers, according to internal emails obtained by the Independent. The same day the eviction notices were served, January 31, city inspectors met on-site with the owners to go over the scope of work. The city’s Interim Code Compliance Enforcement Supervisor Pete Mikelson compiled a report based on this visit, which pointed out that all the permits required revisions to match the work already underway.

In March, the city notified the ownership group, verbally and in writing, “that they may not conceal work that has not been covered by permits issued and that has not been inspected.” The city’s Building and Safety Inspections Supervisor Michael Rubin warned the owners several more times between April and May, while the group worked toward revising the permits. During this time, Knapp was insistent that the city allow them to keep the same permit numbers as the ones listed in tenants’ eviction notices.

By the summer, things heated up when Assistant City Attorney Denny Wei filed three criminal charges against Knapp, alleging that the landlord terminated a tenancy without just cause, failed to comply with the city’s eviction ordinance, and failed to serve a proper copy of the permits with the notice. Just a few weeks later, Knapp’s attorneys filed a suit against the city, alleging that the city doesn’t have the right to get involved in an eviction process.

Knapp’s attorney, longtime landlord lawyer Robert Forouzandeh, said that the criminal charges against his client are a “blatant example of prosecutorial misconduct” on the part of the city attorney’s office, which he alleges has been “used as a political arm of the Tenant’s Union and Legal Aid.”

“The case against Mr. Knapp has no legal basis either in law or fact, yet he was prosecuted to be made an example that housing providers who try to evict tenants to make their buildings safer will face criminal prosecution,” Forouzandeh said in a statement to the Independent. “This has been done to divert attention away from the fact that the true cause of the high rents in this community are caused by the housing shortage, which is directly attributable to the city’s failed zoning and land-use policies.”

A Sudden Change?

The August 14 offers for year-long leases with an 8.8 percent rent increase or relocation sums between $30,000 and $40,000 (depending on the size of the unit and amount of back rent owed) didn’t happen overnight. According to the contract, the owners determined “after much deliberation and planning” that the work necessary to complete the renovations could be done while keeping tenants on the property, by relocating tenants to empty units in another building.

It was the first time the owners acknowledged that the work could realistically be done without displacing all of the tenants, and was in stark contrast to the landlords’ previous reluctance to even meet with the tenants. Prior to the lease offers, the ownership group had never spoken to tenants personally.

The recent offer of close to $34,000 is nearly 10 times the original relocation amount, and substantially more than is required by state law, but even with this potentially large sum on the table, the remaining 14 tenants now living in 10 units are all planning on signing the lease and staying on the property.

Lisa Haworth, a longtime Bath Street tenant, said this experience has actually brought her closer to her neighbors. “We just want to stay here and live in peace.”

Other tenants, including a Spanish-speaking couple who have lived at the property for more than 23 years, are just relieved to be able to stay in the neighborhood where they have built their lives together. 
Corina Svacina, a tenant in an upstairs unit, said it’s been her belief that the evictions have “never been about safety and habitability…. This project is about reducing the availability of workforce housing and increasing the supply of short-term, by-the-bed student housing.”

The ownership group has not yet publicly confirmed the plans for the rest of the units. However, on June 12, 10 boxes were delivered to the property at 215 Bath Street, addressed to Bev Garth, Executive Director of EF International Language Campuses. The boxes, which contain more than 80 blankets, caused concerns for the remaining tenants, who were worried the new ownership was planning on taking advantage of a tax break available for properties that offer all units for student housing.

In an email response, EF spokesperson Shawna Marino explained that the boxes were “mistakenly shipped” and delivered to the address. Marino said that EF “started exploring an option to lease some of the units” at 215 Bath Street several months prior. “However,” she continued, “in light of the ongoing dispute between the landlord and some tenants, we are not moving forward at this time.”

Legal Aid’s attorney Entrekin attributed much to the remaining tenants’ actions. “The crisis that motivated them to organize — waves of termination notices and months of chaotic construction — did not overwhelm them,” he said. “They took responsibility for their neighborhood, took care of each other, and fought for the right to remain in Santa Barbara.”