City Attorney Sues Owners of Problem Apartment Complex to Ensure Safe & Humane Living Conditions

This month I filed a lawsuit against the owners of a large East Oakland apartment complex where tenants have struggled for years with inhumane living conditions and rampant crime.

The Neighborhood Law Corps unit in my Office filed the lawsuit against the Walnut Creek-based owners of the Hillside Apartments, a complex with nearly 100 rental units in two buildings. The Oakland Police Department says the complex, at the end of Hillside Street where it dead-ends into the back fence of Castlemont High School, has become a base of operations for a violent gang known for robberies, drug sales, shootings and other crimes in East Oakland.

Hillside owners Grant Alvernaz and Douglas Moore, along with the company they hired to manage the Hillside complex, have allowed the property to become a major public nuisance by failing to perform their fundamental, legal duty to maintain basic standards of habitability and security. 

Landlords have a responsibility to their tenants and our community to make sure their properties are a public asset, not a public nuisance. Every family that rents a home in Oakland has a right to safe and humane living standards, whether they live in the Hillside Apartments or a condominium in Montclair. The City of Oakland will not tolerate property owners who refuse to maintain basic standards of habitability jeopardizing their tenants' health and safety.

Safety and blight problems have plagued the Hillside Apartments for years. When the current owners bought the property in August 2010, they entered into a settlement agreement with the City that required them to hire security guards, evict problem tenants, maintain humane living conditions and provide safe and clean property. At first the owners met their obligations under the agreement, but by 2011, they allowed security and maintenance to collapse, reducing the property to a blighted nuisance state.

The Neighborhood Law Corps worked with the Police Department's Area 5 Problem Solving Unit to document evidence for the lawsuit. According to police, Hillside is notorious for criminal and nuisance activity. Stolen vehicles are often stripped, abandoned and sometimes burned in the parking lot. Officers say that robbery suspects flee into the complex, where they can duck into apartments and hide from police. Gang members openly carry firearms and intimidate tenants on the property. According to the police, at least one shooting has occurred on or near the apartments every month during the four months leading up to our filing of the lawsuit in August.

In addition, the owners and property manager, Parawest Community Development, have failed to maintain even basic standards of habitability for tenants. Debris dumped at the property has remained for long periods of time. Units have broken plumbing and heating, and the majority of fire extinguishers were missing during inspection. Parawest has failed to evict tenants who are responsible for violations, as required by the owners' settlement agreement with the City, and tenants say the company often does not even collect rent.

The City's lawsuit charges the owners of the Hillside Apartments with failing to hire a sufficient number of security guards and failing to maintain security lights, fencing, gates and other barriers around the property as required by their settlement agreement with the City.

The ongoing blight, loitering and inhumane living conditions are violations of the owners' agreement with the City and their legal responsibilities as landlords. This negligence has contributed to living conditions that are dangerous to tenants and a public nuisance to the neighborhood.

More info

Introducing the New Neighborhood Law Corps

The Neighborhood Law Corps has been a highly effective program since it was launched in 2002.

• Closure of two hotels that operated as centers of prostitution and sexual exploitation of minors
• Filing lawsuits to force slumlords to clean up their properties
• Initiating an illegal dumping enforcement program with the City Administrator's Office that uses evidence submitted by citizens to penalize violators, and
• Winning a record-breaking $15 million judgment against a company that defrauded immigrant families in Oakland.

Report to City Council: City Attorney Saves Millions on Outside Counsel 

Last week I reported some good news to the City Council about a multi-year effort to save taxpayer money in the City Attorney's Office.

Like other major cities, Oakland hires outside counsel each year to handle some of the litigation and other legal work that the City Charter mandates that the City Attorney perform. Outside counsel costs vary from year to year based on the number and types of cases and matters the City is addressing. But over the last decade, the cost of outside counsel has increased significantly -- by millions of dollars -- due to deep cuts to the City Attorney's in-house staff.

During the decade preceding the 2011-12 fiscal year, the City Attorney's Office lost more than a third of its staff (19 attorneys and 14 support staff). These are actual "bodies" that went out the door, not vacant positions or transfers of employees from the General Purpose Fund to other funds.

Despite the loss of in-house staff, the demand for legal services has remained the same or increased, forcing the City to contract out legal services and hire outside attorneys for work that would have been performed in house for less. In fact, the City  spent far more on outside counsel than it saved by laying off in-house attorneys.

We have repeatedly requested for years that the City Council restore legal staff to the City Attorney's Office to save money on outside counsel. We are pleased to report that the Fiscal Year 2013-14 budget, proposed by the Mayor and adopted by the Council, restored two attorneys and one support staff position; outside counsel costs fell by approximately $2.39 million during that fiscal year. That's 3.6 times the annual cost of the three new positions, including salary and benefits.

These are vital dollars that the City can spend to implement City policies and programs to protect residents' and taxpayers' rights, health, safety and quality of life -- such as libraries, parks and recreation, public safety and maintenance of City streets and sidewalks.

Illegal dumping enforcement continues to be a top priority for my Office. The City Attorney's Office is using photos and other evidence from the public to build cases against illegal dumpers, and the City is issuing major fines.

Results so far: 

• Total number of citations: 84
• Total number of warning letters issued: 104
• Total amount collected in fines: $22,475
• Total number of cases settled: 24

To report incidents of illegal dumping, go to:

Public Works on line service request page, or

SeeClickFix: http://www.seeclickfix.com/oakland.