Advocacy

Los Angeles Artists Unite to Save the Santa Fe Arts Colony from Developer

The SFAC Tenants Association is fighting to save the historic Santa Fe Art Colony — a vital live/work artists’ community in downtown Los Angeles. The new owner, Florida-based Fifteen Group, more than doubled the rents and initiated eviction proceedings for 21 studios that paid the rental amount prescribed by the California State Rent Cap law that went into effect Jan. 1, 2020. The residents are currently fighting this action. The Tenants Association has also made a purchase offer — a right provided by California’s Affordable Housing Preservation Law — to keep rents affordable and preserve this important cultural asset for current and future artists. SFACTA has filed a lawsuit (Santa Fe Art Colony Tenants Association, Inc. v. Art Colony Property LLC, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. 19STCV43221) to enforce its rights to attempt to purchase the Property.

The Santa Fe Art Colony — established in 1986 with public funding — is LA’s only rent-restricted Artist-in-Residence complex. Its historic brick buildings house 72 intergenerational and ethnically diverse artists. Annual “Open Studios” have attracted tens of thousands of visitors, providing value to the public. For 30 years, residents have played a critical role in shaping LA’s cultural landscape.

Over the last decade, DTLA’s Arts District — a once-thriving community of 1,800 fine-art artists — has been decimated by catastrophic rent increases. SFAC is now the last large group of working artists left.

Act now to prevent Fifteen Group from destroying this vibrant artists’ community! In a city that prides itself on being “The creative capital of the world,” what does it say to have an “Arts District” without artists?