The West Hollywood Planning Commission on Thursday will hear an appeal from the owner of two buildings at 8500 Sunset Blvd. who have been told that its short-term rentals of apartments in one of those buildings violates city law.
The appeal, whose hearing was postponed from a March 15 meeting by the Planning Commission, is the latest move by Korman Properties to resolve a controversy over its proposed use of the two buildings, which Korman and Brookfield Properties purchased in June 2017 from CIM Group, the developer of the Sunset La Cienega project on which the buildings sit.
When Korman and Brookfield bought the two condo buildings from CIM last summer, they announced that all 190 units would be used for short-term corporate rentals. Korman operates 11 other luxury short-term rental properties, including one in Beverly Hills. Korman quickly backtracked on that plan when it discovered that city law bans such short-term corporate rentals in West Hollywood. On July 10 of last year, Korman announced that it would lease the 80 units in the east tower as unfurnished apartments with a minimum one-year lease and rent the furnished 110 units in the west tower for stays of 30 or more days — an apparent effort to avoid violating the city law against short-term rentals. Those rentals began in January.
The AKA website has listed rents for a 31-day stay range from $270 a night ($8,370 for 31 days) for a “studio,” which is a fully furnished, one-bedroom unit with a kitchen, to $650 a night ($20,150 for 31 days) for a “two bedroom premium suite.” That 1,260-square-foot unit includes a kitchen along with a washer and dryer and two “spa-like baths.”
John Keho, the city’s interim director of planning and development services, issued a ruling in November of last year that Korman was using the 110 units for “temporary lodging,” effectively making it a hotel.
Research by the city’s Planning and Development Services Department turned up evidence online that AKA was promoting the West Hollywood building as a hotel and that websites offered users an option to “reserve” a unit, a term typically use to make a hotel room reservation. In a report to the Planning Commission, the department also noted that information found online promotes the building as “a smart way to travel for two weeks or longer” and says the rooms can be rented online at the AKA West Hollywood website, https://www.stayaka.com/aka-west-hollywood. Such online rentals are not typical for apartments, where a tenant usually has to go through a more rigorous application process, including a credit check. The AKA West Hollywood website currently does not accept reservations for stays of fewer than 31 days.
That and other evidence led to Keho’s decision that Korman was operating a hotel and not necessarily renting the units for long-term stays. City officials speaking off the record also have noted that a rental of 31 days or more can be canceled by the renter after a shorter stay, effectively making the unit a short-term rental. Keho’s decision was that Korman is in violation of the development agreement that CIM Group had reached with the city and the required environmental impact statement, which didn’t anticipate short-term rentals.
The Planning Commission has received emails and letters from managers of most of its major hotels supporting Keho’s decision and asking that Korman’s appeal be denied. Those hotels include the Ramada Plaza Hotel, the London West Hollywood, the Chamberlain West Hollywood, Le Montrose Suite, Petit Ermitage, the Andaz West Hollywood, the Jeremy, the Mondrian LA, the Standard Hollywood and the Sunset Marquis.
“The city has more than 1,000 new hotel rooms that have either opened, are under construction or in planning, more than doubling the current inventory of rooms and more new hotel rooms are being opened in Los Angeles than in any other city in the United States,” said Rod Gruendyke, vice president of the Sunset Marquis. “Aside from the clear legal impediments of their strategy, AKA should not be permitted to shift the balance in the city from residential to transient use for a brand new residential project they purchased knowing full well both the permitted (and unpermitted) uses for the site.”
The Planning Commission will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., south of Santa Monica. Parking is free in the five-story structure behind the Council Chambers with a ticket validated in the lobby.
The “ISSUE” Of ‘Short Term Rentals’ in WeHo seems never ending. Since we have apartment, condo, home, & hotel rooms, why not an appropriate number of short term.
I recently met and spoke with a woman who was living “short term” on WeHo BECAUSE HER HUSBAND WAS UNDERGOING MAJOR TREATMENT at Cedars.
She explained how as a modest family, Hotels we’re too expensive & had almost no other options (she got a friend of a friend to rent out an extra bedroom for however long her Husband is in serious care (a live or die situation that is traumatic enough)