Many residents who are being ousted from their homes in the Lower Topanga Canyon area may receive $50,000 to $60,000 each in relocation fees from the state, which is buying the land that tenants now occupy.
Residents in Lower Topanga, across Pacific Coast Highway from Topanga State Beach, currently pay an estimated average of about $850 a month in rent. Under the relocation law, the state is obligated to help people they evict from their homes to find a comparable place to live and also help them with an allowance to pay the difference between their current rents and higher rents when necessary. The law sets a limit of $5,250 spread over a period of 42 months.
That would hardly be enough to bridge the gap between comparable housing elsewhere along the coast, where rents in the neighborhood from Santa Monica to Malibu are considerably higher.
But there exists an out in the relocation law.
Barry McDaniel, vice president of Pacific Relocation Consultants (PRC), said a “last resort” clause in the law allows the state to ignore the cap when comparable housing cannot be found at the current rents tenants are paying. PRC, a private firm, is handling the relocations for the state.
As a result of the last resort clause, tenants in Lower Topanga are negotiating much higher settlements. Not just in the $50,000 range, but “some much higher,” said McDaniel.
“Our lawyer, Frank Angel, told us we should at least hold out for at least $100,000,” said Berent Capra, a 21-year resident.
Capra admits that the $1,000-a-month rent he pays for his five-bedroom house is “a very good deal,” but he says there have been tradeoffs. “The landlord provides no maintenance,” he said. “If the roof is damaged, or the septic tank needs repair, or if I’m flooded out, I have to make all the repairs.”
In fact, Capra said his house had been flooded out and abandoned in 1980 when he agreed to rent it “as is” and clean it out himself. Also, the five bedrooms include a separate guesthouse, which he built himself and will lose if, and when, he is evicted. “It was a risk many like me were willing to take to live here,” he said.
There are 49 occupied residential properties at the foot of the 1,659-acres of land that the state is acquiring from LAACO, parent company of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, which has owned the property since the 1920s. Many residents have lived there for decades. Some had long-term leases at the beginning, but most of those had been reduced to month-to-month rentals by the 1990s, and a tenant could be removed at any time. The state is buying the property for parkland at a cost of $43 million, with an extra $5 million for relocation and other administrative costs.
Like Capra, many residents are resisting the move, but McDaniel said some two-thirds of them had by now filled out individual, private surveys and done interviews with PRC staff regarding their economic abilities and their choices for relocating.
“We’ve found quite a few matches in the Santa Monica-Malibu area” that will be affordable with the new and much higher supplements, said McDaniel.
Capra indicated it might not so easy with some residents. Not only is he going to negotiate the price, but also, “If I have to go, I want them to give me three years to locate the right property and negotiate for it.”