The lawyer pointed to an email sent by Douglas Emmett CEO Jordan Kaplan to city housing official Mercedes Márquez in May 2023, just days before the eviction notices were filed, as evidence that the company intended to re-rent the units.

"This project is likely to take many years and assuming we bring the rental units back online within 10 years (which is a very good assumption) they will still be subject to the RSO," Kaplan wrote, referring to the city's rent stabilization ordinance.

In his arguments on behalf of Douglas Emmett, Gibson pointed to that same email as evidence that the company wasn't trying to evade rent control.

"I personally assure you we are not doing this to remove Barrington Plaza from the RSO," the email said.

Installing fire sprinklers and making other safety upgrades is a multiyear project, and the apartments will be removed from the market during that time, he said.

The law allows owners to use the Ellis Act to "take the property off the rental market for a longterm period," the company's lawyers argued in a trial brief.

The Ellis Act does not require owners to remove the properties from the rental market forever, he said. Only that they do not "conduct a sham removal" in order to evade rent control.

"This is not one of those sham situations," Gibson said.

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