With her cane, Tracey Ellis can just manage the 20-foot walk from her apartment to her garage.
She’s unsteady on her feet, with severe pain even after short walks, so the parking spot included in her lease is crucial for her daily needs, enabling her to drive to doctor’s appointments or the grocery store.
But recently, her landlord alerted tenants that a new apartment would be built over their garages, eliminating parking during one to two years of construction and possibly beyond.
“Parking in this city is a lifeline for people, and to take away their parking — why don’t you just take half my house or apartment?” said Ellis, 70, who has lived in the eight-unit, rent-stabilized building near the Sunset Strip since 2001. “It’s my freedom.”
In Los Angeles, an increasing number of landlords are converting parking spaces and garages into accessory dwelling units under a new state law intended to help ease California’s housing crisis.
But some tenant advocates say that taking away the parking spaces violates leases and particularly harms the city’s most vulnerable: senior citizens and those with disabilities who aren’t mobile enough to compete for street parking, as well as those who can’t afford to move.
The clash appears to be most pronounced in dense L.A. neighborhoods including Koreatown, Pico Union, Silver Lake and Hollywood, where street parking is extremely limited and many buildings are rent-stabilized, according to attorneys tracking the issue.
“We’re seeing more and more people — almost every week — with this,” said Larry Gross, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Survival, which runs tenant rights clinics. “Many people can’t continue to rent there without parking.”
But Matthew Lewis, communications director for the pro-housing group California YIMBY, which was a key co-sponsor of the state law in 2024, said the urgent need for more housing trumps the need for parking. The city of L.A. should help tenants with special needs who are affected, he said, possibly through parking subsidies, more handicapped parking spots or better paratransit access.
“Is parking more important for Angelenos, or housing?” he said. “Los Angeles doesn’t have a parking shortage. It has a housing shortage.”
L.A. city planning officials said that they are “sympathetic to tenants” who may lose parking but that the city must approve permits for the ADUs, since it “cannot override state law.”
“The creation of new housing and reduction of auto reliance and parking are also important policy goals of both the city and state,” they said in a statement, noting that many tenants who lose their parking would be eligible for a rent reduction and, if applicable, they can also request a new handicapped parking spot on their block.
Some tenants are taking the battle to court. A lawsuit filed on behalf of low-income residents of a rent-stabilized Hollywood building challenges the city’s issuance of permits to convert 20 parking spaces into nine ADUs.
In court filings, the tenants argue that the city failed to consider their rights and caused an unlawful, unilateral change in their leases. As a remedy, they want the city to stop approving ADU permits that would allow construction on parking spaces that are in use and included in leases.
“Our position is you are evicting somebody from their rental unit,” said Sabrina Venskus, an attorney for the tenants, citing the city’s rent stabilization ordinance, which defines parking as part of a rental unit. “Giving these tenants compensation is not sufficient.”
Jacob H. Zadeh, an attorney representing the building’s owner, said that converting parking into housing is the most practical and humane way for L.A. to address its desperate need for housing.
While the owner, Lexi 26 Properities, managed by Yousef Benpourat, is not a defendant in the lawsuit, Zadeh has argued in court documents that eliminating the building’s parking does not amount to an eviction.
“I do feel sympathetic for the tenants losing parking,” Zadeh said. “But what is the other option, tearing down the whole building?”
In May, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge halted construction of the ADUs until the case is fully argued. The city attorney’s office declined to comment on the litigation but has argued in court filings that the city’s tenant protections do not “prevent conversion of existing parking space into ADUs as mandated” by state law.
In the past, ADU development in many areas was more difficult due to zoning limitations and requirements to add new parking spaces. But as the need for housing grew, state legislation has expanded construction opportunities while dramatically limiting parking requirements, particularly in urban areas.
The new state law, SB 1211, has continued that trajectory, increasing the number of ADUs that can be built on certain multifamily lots, particularly those that include spaces not considered “liveable,” such as garages or storage units. It restricts local agencies from requiring replacement parking if a parking space is lost to an ADU.
The law does not provide details on what types of parking spaces would qualify for such ADU conversions.
“Rather, landlords and tenants should consult laws related to residential lease agreements,” the California Department of Housing and Community Development said in a statement about the implementation of SB 1211, which went into effect in January 2025.
Many tenant advocates argue not only that cities are misinterpreting SB 1221 but also that the law is poorly written. Only unused parking spaces should be eligible for ADU construction, they say.
Gross and others have presented their concerns to City Council members and state lawmakers. State Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank), who wasn’t in the Legislature when SB 1211 passed, said he plans to look closer at what he said may be its “unintended consequences.” The original sponsor of the bill, former state Sen. Nancy Skinner, did not respond to requests for comment.
“If it’s being used as a weapon to displace people,” it needs to be reconsidered, Schultz said.
Ellis said she won’t be able to fight for street parking in the busy Hollywood area around her one-bedroom apartment, much less walk home from a faraway spot, especially carrying bags or in the dark.
She also worries about her neighbors. She said that one comes home from work late at night, one stores crucial job equipment in the garage and another needs to do school drop-offs between work shifts.
Ellis lives on a fixed income, and her rent is just over $1,600 a month. Residents were initially offered a $100 discount to make up for the loss of parking, but she said that’s not enough to cover the rides she would have to pay for instead of driving. She fears she would have to move out if her landlord’s plans move forward.
She said she has requested a parking accommodation from the landlord, Alex Goodson, but hasn’t heard back.
In a statement to The Times, Goodson said he’s “trying very hard to do this the right way: to follow the law, and at the same time to take care of the people who live in our building.”
“Our goal has been to add new homes in a neighborhood that badly needs them, without taking anything away from the people who already live there long-term,” he said in a statement. He said that the new three-bedroom ADU will be built over the parking area, “rather than in place of it,” and that the parking spots will be returned to the residents once construction is done.
He said he takes “California fair housing and disability laws very seriously” and is working with residents who have asked for accommodations.
In Silver Lake, Karen Numme’s landlord recently told her that her garage parking will permanently disappear to make way for two new ADUs.
Numme, 83, who has mobility issues, worries about parking on the neighborhood’s steep streets and about how she’d get home safely at night. She blames state legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom for passing and signing the bill “without thinking about the repercussions.”
In September, Numme sued her landlord, alleging that the elimination of her parking violates California’s fair housing and disability laws, as well as city tenant anti-harassment laws.
A representative for the building’s owner, listed in court records as Jakobovich Holdings, did not respond to a request for comment.
Numme, who has lived in the rent-stabilized apartment building since 1995 and pays $1,333 a month, has requested a reasonable accommodation for the loss of her parking, which her attorney said they are discussing with the landlord.
“Build all you want, that’s OK with me,” said Numme’s attorney, Frances Campbell. “Landlords, make as much money as you can — but don’t make it on the back of old and disabled people.”
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