Priced out: Inglewood struggles to protect longtime residents amid wave of development

With a $5 billion sports complex under construction and hundreds of millions more spent on residential and commercial real estate investments, Inglewood has been transforming fast. But it’s not to the benefit of everyone.

Many of Inglewood’s predominantly black and Hispanic residents who lived through the city’s struggles now find themselves getting priced out and pushed, according to the Los Angeles Times. The city is struggling to find ways to protect those longtime residents.

About two-thirds of the city’s residents are renters, making them extremely vulnerable to rent hikes associated with gentrification, according to the report. Some landlords have more than doubled rents at their properties and the city has had to step in on a case-by-case basis to negotiate better deals for residents.

Tomisha Pinson rents a two-bedroom apartment near the under-construction L.A. Stadium at Hollywood Park, the future 70,000-seat home of the L.A. Rams and L.A. Chargers. She received a notice from her landlord, Santa Monica-based Malin Asset Management, that rent would spike to $2,725 from $1,145. There were similar increases at another Malin-owned property in the city, the Times reported.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts got wind of the increase and negotiated a deal that allowed residents to choose gradual rent hikes or $10,000 in cash to move out by April.

In March, Butts and the City Council also instituted a 45-day moratorium on rent increases above 5 percent. The moratorium didn’t address evictions and in some cases, landlords have evicted tenants without cause or without a notice of a rent increase, the report said. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch