L.A. City Needs A Real And Meaningful Affordable Housing Policy (And Residential Hotels Are A SCAM!)

I got a real earful from the General Manager of one of the hotels, who showed up at City Hall yesterday for the public hearing on residential hotels downtown, and a moritorium that would require hotel owners to replace each unit of affordable housing with another unit, somewhere else -- if they convert the unit to daily rooms or something else.

HERE'S THE BAMBOOZLE: The hotel GM I spoke with said his hotel has about 600 units. Some are earmarked for long-term, affordable residential units (some people living there for 20-30 years); mixed with daily hotel rooms for tourists.

The owner wants to re-furbish the old downtown hotel; by taking two (sucky) affordable residential units and turning them into a nice hotel room to rent for about $120 a night. Which would not only provide a decent priced hotel for people in the heart of Downtown (which is badly needed)...but will kick money back to the city in the form of the bed tax.

BUT, the City has deemed the hotel 100% residential and will not allow hotel to move ahead with the plans for the $120 affordable daily rooms because, "The city only cares about the 'quantity' of units, not 'quality' of housing. We (the hotel) are forced to be all residential because the City wants to keep from losing numbers (of affordable housing).

So I said to the G.M., "I like your hotel, wish I could stay there, but I could never afford it." He says, "We have rooms for $500-$600 a month." I say, "Available." He says, "Yeah. Stop by."

So I stop by today, and say, "I spoke with your G.M. He told me you have monthly units." The receptionist quickly snapped back, "No, only daily." I said, "Gee, I thought you have monthly residentials, too." A manager nearby butted in to say, "We don't do that anymore."

BOTTOM LINE: So you have the city deems a hotel to be "residential only" and may not be a daily hotel...so they count all 600 units in the "affordable housing" column. AND THEN, when someone shows up, they say, "Sorry, daily rates only." And then you wonder why there is a homeless problem and they can't get people off skid row.

WHO IS THE FIRST COUNCILMEMBER WHO IS GONNA GET ZUMA DOGG IN ONE OF THESE AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS TO PROVE THEY ACTUALLY EXIST...CAUSE NOW I'M DONE PISSED OFF...AND I'LL SEE ALL OF Y'ALL ON FRIDAY! THE CITY NEEDS TO HEAR WHAT A BUNCH OF FULL OF SHIT ASSHOLES ALL OF Y'ALL ARE!

zumadogg@gmail.com
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