Forced-out tenants could see more money

Ann Silver's landlord must pay her $500 to move out of the apartment she's lived in for nearly 16 years -- an apartment that's about to become a condo.

But if her landlord knocked down the building and built a new condominium tower, rather than converting the apartments, Silver would get at least $2,664.


		Karen Ducey / P-I
	Ann Silver is being forced to move out of her Capitol Hill apartment, where she has lived for 16 years, because it is becoming a condo.

That's because state law governs payments only to lower-income tenants displaced by building conversions, whereas Seattle has jurisdiction over other projects.

"I saw that part of the law, and I was shocked," Silver said Monday. "What's the difference whether it's torn down or improved or whatever?"

Workers started renovating her building over the summer -- before she got notice of the conversion in September -- creating dust, fumes and disruption, said Silver, who is deaf, and communicated orally, through writing and with the help of a translator.

Situations like Silver's led state Sen. Darlene Fairley, D-Lake Forest Park, to draft new requirements for those converting apartments buildings to condominiums. The proposal will be considered when legislators convene in January.

Silver's corner apartment, on Capitol Hill, is large and relatively cheap, with views of Puget Sound and the many new condo buildings downtown. She has filled it with Japanese collectibles, books, equipment for her art business and, more recently, moving boxes.

Construction dust littered hallways of the building Wednesday, while paint fumes lingered in the air. Silver traced a line through dust on her TV.

"Every day I wipe it off," she said.

The dust fouled her health and electronics, including her fax and text-telephone machines, she said.

Silver had two bowls full of water in her kitchen sink and a note taped to the tap to remind herself that the water was cut off -- as it is most daylight hours. The laundry room was gutted to make way for a fitness room.

Silver said workers try to be accommodating, and the landlord cut her rent by 15 percent and provided transportation to a coin-operated laundry.

The city limits noise and working hours, but not dust or general inconvenience.

Living in the middle of construction is the most common complaint Jim Metz, Seattle's housing ordinance supervisor, hears from tenants. Standard leases say landlords must provide for "quiet enjoyment" of apartments, but enforcing that requires tenants to sue.

Fairley's plan would ban construction, remodeling or repairs during the required advance notice period for conversion or until at least 12 hours after the last tenant moved out. It also would increase the minimum payment to $2,500, then adjust it each year for inflation.

It would allow cities to cap the number of apartments that could be converted to condos each year and extend the notice period from 90 to 120 days.

Fairley, who acted at the request of City Councilman Tom Rasmussen, said it might make sense just to do away with the state requirements and let cities handle the issue.

"It probably would be easier, but you know there's the perfect and then the doable," she said. "This appears to be doable."

Various cities and states have a range of rules governing conversions.

Florida, for instance, requires allowing tenants to stay at least 180 or 270 days, depending on how long they lived in their apartments. Counties may extend this another 90 days if their rental vacancy rates are 3 percent or less.

San Diego requires landlords to pay tenants three months' rent, based on the city's "fair market rent."

San Francisco limits conversions to 200 units a year, and decides who gets to convert units through an annual lottery. Landlords must allow tenants to remain for one year after the conversion (or for life if they are over 62) and pay tenants who elect to move within 120 days after conversion up to $1,000 in moving expenses.

Seattle law grants $2,664, the bill split by the landlord and city, to tenants displaced by demolition, substantial rehabilitation and change of use (other than to condos). Officials raise the requirement each year for inflation.

It's about enough to cover the costs of renting a new place, setting up utilities, renting a moving truck and buying a pizza, Metz said. "Nobody's making money on it."

Michele Thomas, community organizer for the Tenants Union of Washington State, called the current state compensation requirement "not nearly enough."

Silver called it "insulting."

"It should be $3,000," she said. "It is expensive to move."

She also thinks the notice period should be at least six months, and that changes to the state law should apply retroactively, to help people like her, and go beyond a cap. "I think there should be a law against condo conversions, period."

The Tacoma-based Gintz Group owns Silver's building and has renamed it Vertigo Condominiums.

"Yeah, it's a mess right now, but it's going to be beautiful," Chief Operating Officer Ron Gintz said, noting the apartment tenants have first crack at buying the condos for 60 days after the notice of conversion. But many tenants in converted buildings, including Silver, cannot afford to buy or at least cannot assemble the means in the allotted time.

"It's not the best of circumstances, because we're working under a very, very tight schedule," Gintz said. "But nobody's trying to make anybody's life miserable."

Putting work on hold until tenants move out or requiring more compensation would add to the ultimate sales price of the condos, Gintz said.

"The reality is the condos have become the starter home for young people," he said. "I don't know that one person should underwrite the moving expenses of another."

Warren Ballard, vice president of Williams Marketing, which works on conversions, said raising the required payment to $2,500 would make converting apartment buildings "financially impractical."

Developers tearing a building down to build a new one can recover more relocation costs because new buildings typically have more units and new condos sell for more, Ballard said.

The proposal to mandate holding off on renovations until tenants move out infringes on landlords' basic right to work on their buildings.

"It's a clear taking of property rights," he said.

And a cap to preserve apartments is unnecessary, because rising rents will discourage conversions and many buildings are not suited to conversion anyway, Ballard said. "We turn down more people than we advise to go with (converting)."

Most tenants already have left Silver's building, but she has not yet found a new place that meets her needs.

"I'm in denial," she said. "I wish I had the money to just buy the place and stay where I am."

Silver also wondered what might happen at her next apartment. "I don't want to have to go through this again."

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