The Second Appellate District of the California Court of Appeals ruled against the AIDS Health Foundation (AHF), which had sued the City of Los Angeles over the approval of four housing developments on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
“We conclude the trial court correctly found AHF cannot assert a cause of action under the FHA and FEHA based on its alleged disparate-impact theory of liability and affirm the judgment on that basis alone,” wrote Justice Anne A. Egerton in the June 15, 2020 opinion. “AHF did not allege a policy was an artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary barrier to fair housing.”
The FHA makes it unlawful federally to refuse to sell or rent a dwelling based on race, color, religion, sex, family status, or nationality while the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibits job and housing discrimination across the state of California.
According to the decision, the AHF alleged that each of the developments would disproportionately displace Black and Latino residents who would no longer be able to afford to live in the neighborhood due to gentrification of the surrounding community.
“The Projects' operation will lead to rising rents and increase the likelihood that current residents will be displaced from their homes in the neighborhoods around the Projects without housing affordable to these residents within the Projects themselves,” the AHF alleged in the litigation.
But the appellate court found that the four buildings would add affordable housing units to the area’s existing supply and that AHF’s lawsuit, if victorious, would not make affordable housing more available to minorities, according to Steven Maviglio, spokesperson for Californians for Responsible Housing.
“Michael Weinstein maintained that if the four high rise buildings weren't there, affordable housing would be built but there was no evidence that affordable housing was happening,” Maviglio told the Southern California Record.
Michael Weinstein is president of AHF whose headquarters are located at 6255 Sunset Boulevard.
“AHF doesn't propose to build anything ever although they have acquired some buildings that they're not using to build housing,” Maviglio said in an interview. “Weinstein acquired some properties to make it look like they were developing housing but never did. At the end of the day, that's what solves the housing crisis is building housing.”
According to an expose in the Los Angeles Times, housing units owned by Weinstein’s AHF are reportedly not well-maintained. Weinstein blamed the Department of Water and Power for allegedly delaying inspections that were needed to move forward with renovations.
The four high-rise apartment buildings in this case are slated to be built near AHF headquarters.
“There’s a huge housing shortage in the state for everyone,” said Maviglio. “This project is not based on providing affordable housing. It’s about providing housing, period.”