Neighbors' Testimony Puts Motel on the Ropes

by Tim Chapman and Ann Nomura

On Monday, May 12, forty or fifty Dimond neighbors attended a hearing at City Hall on the blight and crime spread for many years by the 50-unit Hillcrest Motel at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard. The Dimond Improvement Association, both the Dimond and Bret Harte NCPCs, and nearby property owners turned out to give testimony in a model hearing led by the Neighborhood Law Court run by City Attorney's Office staff before hearing officer, [name to be supplied].

Councilmember Jean Quan, with her aide, Arturo Sanchez, provided the leadership necessary for this test of the efficacy of the Deemed Approved Hotel Motel Ordinance. A determined neighborhood provided the energy.

Immediate neighbors, who recently won five nuisance claims against the motel in Small Claims Court, told of the rowdiness, drug dealing, prostitution, child abuse, and assaults that are daily occurrences at the Hillcrest.

The owner of an adjacent rental property read letters from his tenants ending their tenancy because of the problems at the motel.

The motel owner's former security company, Len Montalvo, testified that the motel did not properly train its employees to handle problem tenants, did not screen out troublemakers, and did not always evict tenants who were disturbing the peace of its other tenants and the surrounding community.

The Dimond NCPC, which has listed the Hillcrest among its top three priorities for the last couple of years, told the hearing officer about the many meetings it has held on this issue; and a DIA representative urged the hearing officer to use the Deemed Approved Ordinance to place all the proposed conditions of approval on the motel because that would be the only effective way to hold this business accountable to the neighborhood, given its history of broken promises.

The hearing officer said that if the motel and the city couldn't reach an agreement on the proposed conditions of approval before May 22, she would make a ruling pursuant to the Deemed Approved Ordinance.

The use of the Hotel Motel Ordinance combined with the tremendous coordination of Jean Quan's office with the city attorney's office, code compliance, the police, and neighbors may solve what has been a 20-year problem for the Dimond.

Special thanks to Jean Quan and her policy analyst Arturo Sanchez, the city attorney and his staff, Pelayo Llamas, Esq., and Hali Papazian, Esq., Lt. Eric Breshears, officers Morrow and Jackson of OPD, Building Inspector Supervisor John Stuart, Monica Lamboy (author of the Deemed Approved Hotel Motel ordinance), and the many neighbors and small businesses who have worked on this problem.