(a) The City Council of the City of Los Angeles hereby finds that the providing of essential public utilities to residential real properties is essential to the health and welfare of the residents occupying the residential real properties, contributes to the usefulness and value of residential real properties and when such essential public utilities are not provided the health, welfare, and the public safety of the residents are placed at risk due to the fact that the failure to provide essential public utilities causes premises to become uninhabitable by law (Civil Code Section 1941 et seq.) as well as hazardous and substandard, causing the creation of a nuisance pursuant to Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 91.8902.
(b) The City Council of the City of Los Angeles further finds that the providing of essential public utilities services to residential real properties constitutes a special benefit to such real properties and to the owners thereof.
(c) The City Council of the City of Los Angeles further finds that tenants of these residential real properties pay rent with the reasonable expectation that the utilities will be paid by the owner and that when an owner or owners of real property are unwilling to pay the costs of providing essential public utilities services to residential real properties the termination of utilities to these properties would create uninhabitable premises and constitute a direct threat to the health and safety of the residents of the properties. Such a threat would in fact be a nuisance placing the health and welfare of the residents of the properties at risk. In such cases, the cost of providing essential public utilities services, as well as the unpaid cost of such services provided to properties in the past, under the same ownership, should be assessed to such real properties, made a lien upon such properties by the City of Los Angeles pursuant to its authority to abate nuisances, and thereafter paid in the same manner as payment is made for other essential public services furnished to and benefiting real properties.
SECTION HISTORY
Chapter 8 added by Ord. No. 162,383, Eff. 7-23-87.
Amended by: Subsec. (a) and (c), Ord. No. 170,164, Eff. 1-19-95.