Four Fires in Four Empty Buildings in Ten Days

Dear readers, your intrepid blogger is angry enough to burst into flames.

1422 South St. Andrews Place burned yesterday.

Between 718 W. 30th Street, 425 N. Lake Street, 3455 W. 8th Street, and now 1422 S. Saint Andrews Place, that makes FOUR fires in FOUR empty buildings (three residential and one commercial) in a span of just TEN days.

There is NO - ZERO - excuse for any of this.

1422 S. Saint Andrews Place last sold in September 2022. The listing notes that zoning allows for subdividing the lot and building two duplexes.

Which, according to a permit search, seems to have been the buyer's plan.

And thanks to public records, I can tell you that code enforcement was actively investigating unpermitted work from last year. And I can also tell you that there was a complaint about the building being abandoned and left open to the public. More recently, there was a complaint about the building being in danger of collapse.

I do wonder where the tenants went, too. 1422 S. Saint Andrews was a 20-bedroom, 11-bathroom property in a lower-income area; it must have housed multiple people (if not multiple families).

LAFD is investigating, of course, but isn't it an awfully convenient coincidence that yet another empty older home went up in flames when the owner of the property already had plans to redevelop it?

Why won't the city hold property owners accountable?

Why?

1422 South Saint Andrews Place, Harvard Heights.

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