Pinnacle Realty Management Company, the Seattle-based firm that took over the Ticino Apartments at Sixth Avenue and Yesler Way last month, may have sparked the first test case of the city's new landlord retaliation ordinance. The law, brought to you by Council Member Judy Nicastro and passed March 26 [In Other News, Josh Feit, March 29], says landlords cannot keep tenants from holding meetings in common areas. That's precisely what Pinnacle is trying to do.

After Pinnacle told residents at the low-income building that they had until July to sign a new lease stipulating drastic rent increases, the residents scheduled a meeting with the Tenants Union in the building's lobby. On Saturday May 5, tenants and organizers posted notice of a May 8 meeting on residents' doors. By Sunday the building's manager, Rachel Kortas, posted rival fliers in hallways, saying that the meeting would not take place. Jeff Miller, a property manager for Pinnacle, points out that the lobby is small (which it is), and serves primarily as a mailroom and gateway to the elevator. "Let's say every resident comes to the meeting. It would be physically impossible," he says. "We're not telling people not to meet." Miller says tenants may use the stairwell. (There are 45 units in the building.)

Nicastro aid Jill Berkey says, "Unless there's some building rule that says there is no meeting in the lobby, it looks like a violation."

As Erin Fitzgerald, a six-year resident, walks the Ticino's white hallways, now littered with rival posters, she says income from her full-time job as a meat wrapper in Seward Park will not cover the new rents, and she, like many residents, will be forced out.

"We're not the very poor here: They're taken care of. It's the in-between, who make $20,000 to $30,000 a year [who live here]. The working poor, I guess," Fitzgerald, 35, speculates.

Rents at Ticino are regulated by the state's Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, which pegs rates to 60 percent of King County's median income [that would be $867 rent for a family of two]. Under the previous owner, Hapi management, rents were not increased to match rising median incomes. Now, Pinnacle plans to charge the maximum allowable by law.

For example, as of March, Fitzgerald's studio cost her only $460 per month. Pinnacle plans to charge her the maximum $712 per month after her low-income utility rebate. Total increase: 65 percent! (Landlords have 60 days to announce rent hikes of 10 percent or more, but there are no legal caps on the size of a rent increase.)

"It looks like the tenants are just screwed. These people are going to lose their homes," says Scott Winn, Seattle organizer for the Tenants Union.