A Nightmare on New Hampshire Avenue
Over a year ago, the elegant El Patio apartment building at 114 South New Hampshire Avenue began to accumulate code enforcement complaints. Three months ago, it had the first of three fires.
There’s no permit application on file for a replacement project, but in my experience, when it looks and smells like demolition by neglect, it usually is.
According to neighbor @des_em:
I live one block from this, and it's been such a nightmare for the neighborhood. They didn't secure the building initially, so it quickly became a hub for gang activity. There's been 3 different fires of varying size and break-ins almost every night. Clearly a demolition by neglect situation, and I feel so bad for the folks who live next door to it because it's become a hazard to that entire area.
I have also wondered what the justification for emptying the building was. If you find out, I would love to know!
Well, waiting to flip to an investor is always a possibility in Los Angeles.
@des_em adds:
The entire system is such a hellish bureaucracy. I’ve reported the building multiple times to multiple departments, and everyone just passes the buck or ignores me. I was already going to start pressing Heather Hutt’s office to fix our damn street lights, so I’ll just add this to my list of grievances.
The building is fenced now, but that doesn’t magically reverse the fire damage or the trouble it’s caused for the neighbors (housed and not).
Rampart Village isn’t a trendy or cool neighborhood, and it does border beautiful-but-troubled Westlake, but it’s also surrounded by East Hollywood, Koreatown, Silver Lake, and a possibly-gentrifying (God, I hope not) Historic Filipinotown. There may very well come a day when it’s the new Echo Park.
If you are dealing with a situation like this in your neighborhood and complaints are going nowhere, please get in touch with your council office planning and housing deputies and demand answers. Can’t hurt, might help.
Contacting the media is also an option. Local officials who tolerate this recklessness and fail to help their constituents deserve to be called out on the carpet and publicly shamed.
I said it three months ago and I’ll say it until I’m hoarse: NO ONE DESERVES THIS.