Poor housing conditions continue at L.A. apartment complex, despite 2,000 citations issued to property owner
Updated 4:20 p.m. | More than a year after the L.A. County Department of Building and Safety began issuing citations for conditions found in about 2,000 dwellings in the Country Hills apartment complex, a judge has yet to decide whether the citations are legally enforceable.
In June 2013, the department issued citations to the country-themed complex for a variety of violations, ranging from improper construction to missing windows and doors, as well as maintenance issues and mold.
As of this week, the complex, which is a few miles south of downtown Los Angeles, still has not received the two citations that were expected by the department’s October deadline. A spokesman for the department told this newspaper that because the property has not yet appealed the citations, the department would be unable to pursue the penalties as a threat.
The violations resulted from a series of problems that the County Councilman who represents the district where the complex sits, Paul Koretz, said he has been trying to rectify for the past year. A representative of the county’s Department of Building and Safety told this newspaper in June that the complex was due to receive a $22,000 settlement of those fines. Instead, the representative said, the department had decided to forego the settlement and instead issue the $1,950 citations without prior notice.
The county has said that the construction errors it is referring to are not a result of an illegal development on the property, and a department spokesperson reiterated that Thursday.
“They have not been addressed for years,” said the spokesman, who wished to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to make public statements on the matter.
The issues in the complex “are not issues that will come up in litigation,” he said, adding that they involve “things that are minor construction and maintenance issues.”
Koretz said he is not surprised by the lack of action. “We’ve been asking the county, they say it’s a legal matter,” he said. “But when I asked them about it, they said it’s a legal matter, and then when I asked them if it’s a legal matter, they said it