Over the last four months, a growing number of apartment buildings in Koreatown are joining together to stop landlords from a new way of pushing out long term tenants: ADUs.

Across Los Angeles, tenants are facing the loss of essential parking spaces as landlords build Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) in parking lots of existing multifamily properties like apartment buildings and condos. While ADUs are often presented as a solution to the housing crisis, in practice these new laws, loosening requirements that protect tenants’ rights, create new loopholes for landlords to make more money and push long-term tenants out.

These new laws, among them California Senate Bill 1211 lets a landlord/developer turn parking spots into ADUs without replacing them. The law took effect on January 1, 2025.

Even if tenants of an apartment building or condo have parking guaranteed in their lease, they can have it taken away so ADUs can be built in its place. There is also no requirement to replace that parking by giving a street parking permit. 

*** LA COUNTY MEMO ON NEW ADU LAWS ***

These laws do not provide safeguards for existing tenants, ultimately ceding more power to landlords to maintain the right to control tenants' lives. We have experienced how this lack of requirement only encourages landlords to disregard existing requirements. Landlords are ripping up stop work orders, plowing through construction without permits, barging into apartments at their whim, refusing to fix corroded pipes so water is brown if running at all, harassing elderly tenants - the list goes on.  

This law affects vulnerable tenants. For many residents — especially those who work nights, the handicapped, parents with children, seniors, and people undergoing medical treatments — reliable parking is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Instead of supporting the renters of Los Angeles, these ADUs primarily serve landlords’ profits.

These new units will not be affordable and there are no rules in these specific laws that force ADU owners to keep units affordable for low-income households. According to a South Bay Cities Council of Governments survey the average rent on ADUs does not qualify as affordable in California.    They do not benefit current residents in high density neighborhoods, and in many cases, merely function as a form of constructive eviction — pushing rent-controlled tenants out of their homes by stripping away essential amenities.

When tenants in rent-controlled apartments leave, landlords are then able to rent units at market rate, reducing the number of affordable housing units. But older tenants who have lived in rent-controlled buildings for 15+ years are facing an inhospitable housing market and cannot afford to leave.  

We call on Los Angeles City Council to take urgent action to protect tenants (many in high density, low income areas) from losing parking to ADU construction and allowing landlords to do whatever they want to make more money. Tenants should not be forced into unsafe situations or pressured out of their homes under the guise of development.

Please join us in urging Los Angeles City Council to stand with tenants and stop landlords from removing parking spaces to build ADUs and pressure them to create actually affordable housing, invest in reliable public transit, be held accountable to their misuse of funds to support the unhoused, and to stop giving out millions of dollars to bail out exploitative landlords.

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FIND YOUR CALIFORNIA REPRESENTATIVES HERE:

https://www.laforward.org/who-represents-me

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We have been featured by the following news outlets:

Los Angeles Public Press - October 6, 2025

LA Times - September 9, 2025

KNX News On Demand - September 8, 2025

NCB4 LA - September 2, 2025

*** Link to view​ ​NCB4 LA - August 28, 2025   ***

Fox 11 Los Angeles - August 27, 2025

***  Article on The Korea Times - August 29, 2025 ***