LA Squawk Box for Thursday, May 28, 2026

Chinatown senior tenants escorted out by LAPD after meeting with property owner rep, Measure ULA to get heard in committee, and Venice Dell project gets a victory in latest logjam.

What’s happening today?

The heavily debated Measure ULA transfer tax that’s used to fund LA city’s tenant protection and affordable housing programs will be taken up at the City Council’s Rules committee meeting at 1:15 p.m. They have a long agenda, as the meeting is actually primarily geared to discussing charter reform. The Measure ULA issue is also getting its own meeting tomorrow, on Friday, in the ad hoc committee on the subject.

What just happened?

The latest horse-race numbers, with a dash of what voters care about (they care about corruption): Mayor Karen Bass and Council member Nithya Raman are “neck-and-neck” at 26% and 25%, in the latest polling released today, with former reality TV star Spencer Pratt closing in at 22%. Rae Huang, a pastor and housing advocate, has also made gains to 9%, up from 4%. This all comes from a survey co-sponsored by the LA Times and conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. In his write-up on the polling, Noah Goldberg points to another poll that says Trump’s endorsement of Pratt last week could dampen his appeal among Democrats.

The survey’s data also revealed that 77% of likely voters overall think waste, fraud and corruption is very important. And it’s very important to 100% of the people who would vote for Pratt.

Tenants, many who primarily speak Cantonese and Spanish and are seniors, demanded a meeting with the building’s owner, Kheir Clinic. They managed to get in a short meeting in the lobby before they were escorted out by half a dozen LAPD officers. (Photo by Elizabeth Chou, The LA Reporter)

LAPD officers called in, as low-income Chinatown tenants seek meeting with their landlord: Tenants of a low-income Chinatown building, many who primarily speak Cantonese and Spanish and are seniors, went to the offices of their landlord on Wednesday, to demand a meeting to discuss a litany issues they’ve had, chief among them were illegal rent hikes, multiple fees, and harassment by their management company.

The owner of the building, Yale Terrace, is Kheir Clinic, which has their offices in Koreatown. The tenants who are part of the Triumph Tenant Council were accompanied by volunteers from the Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCEDLA) and members of the LA Tenants Union, who helped to translate their demands to representatives from the clinic in the lobby, before LAPD officers showed up to escort them out.

Fanny Oyang, a spokesperson with CCEDLA, told The LA Reporter after the brief meeting that the tenants live in a building where the rent increase is limited. The building’s rent has been raised by as high as 16% in the past, but that has been rescinded down to 8% after tenants submitted petitions to management, protested increases and conducted rent strikes. Meanwhile, the rent has been frozen pending a court case decision to set the proper rent increase rate. Oyang said they’re hoping for local leaders to step in to create and support state legislation to give enforcement rent increase regulations more teeth. [NOTE: Correction has been made to accurately reflect the dispute over rent increase, and to add names of participants.]

Judge rules LA city transpo board didn’t have the power to deny Venice city parking lot’s use as affordable housing: The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles announced on Wednesday that they had won a victory on their case challenging the Board of Transportation Commissioners’ decision to not allow the developers of the Venice Dell affordable housing project to use a city parking lot. The housing project, originally approved by the City Council in 2021, has been delayed for years, with neighbors and some elected officials resisting the project. A Los Angeles County Superior court judge said in a ruling put out Tuesday that the transportation board exceeded its authority, because while the commission can decide how the lot is used for parking purposes, it doesn’t have that authority when it comes to building affordable housing there. The parking lot, known as Lot 731, is the latest source of the logjam on the Westside project. Opponents of the project, including the area’s council member, Traci Park, pushed instead for using that lot for a “mobility hub” during the 2028 Olympics — although in a recent report from the Transportation Department laying out a timeline that said it might not be possible to get it done by the Games happen. The ruling can be read here.