Tenants protest loss of parking spaces to ADUs

A K-town apartment building plans to turn garage into housing. Renters push back.

- BY CHRISTOPHER BUCHANAN

TENANTS hold sit-in to protest state-approved plan to turn parking into ADUs.

Faced with having their parking spots removed to make way for additional housing, a group of tenants in a 22-unit apartment building in Koreatown have launched a protest by occupying their own parking garage.

The owner of the apartment building on the corner of 5th Street and Kingsley Drive plans to remove several parking spaces used by longtime tenants and convert them into five accessory dwelling units. The conversion has the blessings of state and city government officials.

But that doesn’t appease the tenants who say a reserved parking spot in Koreatown is more than just a luxury — it’s a necessity.

“People can’t find spots here after dark... I know people who have family that will save spots for them,” said Koreatown resident Faith Jung. “If you can’t, you have to be ready for a ticket.”

Under Senate Bill 1211, which passed last year, local agencies are not required to replace parking spaces for tenants if the spaces are demolished by owners and property managers to make way for accessory dwelling units. ADUs are secondary, smaller homes that are designed to create more affordable housing in high-density areas, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Developments.

“Many of our multifamily properties had, whenever they were designed, additional space that they didn’t cover with housing that is underutilized,” former Sen. Nancy Skinner, who authored the bill, told the Assembly Standing Committee on Housing and Community Development last year.

“There is an opportunity to utilize that space with ADUs.”

Still, some residents of the Koreatown apartment building are protesting the proposed ADU construction, saying it will remove parking spaces that are vital, not underutilized.