Archinect - News

LA City Council orders graffiti removal on infamous unfinished Oceanwide Plaza towers

2024-02-12T13:33:00-05:00

City Council Members in Los Angeles have issued a mandate to owners of the graffiti-tagged Oceanview Plaza development in Downtown to remove the artwork weeks after its unfinished exterior became a national news item and the latest flash point in a debate over the citywide housing crisis that has lingered for a number of years.

By a vote of 14-0, Council Members approved Kevin de León’s motion calling for the city to foot the bill for cleaning up the stalled $1 billion towers if China-based developer Oceanwide fails to meet their February 17th deadline for removal. (CoStar first reported on the motion this weekend h/t Bizow.com.)

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The internet sensation was covered in tags last month by artists apparently inspired by an early December operation in downtown Miami and able to bypass the security detail on site, which has been embroiled in a payment dispute with developers since last ye...

Kadre and Lehrer Architects team up for a new transitional housing community in Los Angeles

2024-01-04T12:50:00-05:00

A new supportive housing concept in Los Angeles has been introduced by LA-based practices Kadre Architects and Lehrer Architects. The design teams shared it can become a new model for design resourcefulness and occupants’ dignity at a time when the city, as do many others in America, faces a desperate need.

The new 95-unit Cypress Park New Beginnings Community was inaugurated in early December after first breaking ground in May of 2022. The new housing scheme aimed to serve “displaced populations and environmental and/or socio-economic crises.”

Image courtesy of Kadre Architects.

Their brief called for the construction of 350-square-foot micro-housing units on a disused plot between the Arroyo and Golden State Parkways. Site conditions for the 35,000-square-foot development were extremely challenging in an echo of Lehrer’s previous work on the Tiny Homes Villages in different parts of Los Angeles.

Image courtesy Kadre Architects.

Faced with this challenge, the design team responded ...

New Terner Center for Housing Innovation paper unpacks five years of SB 35's impact on the California housing crisis

2023-08-21T18:05:00-04:00

The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has released a statewide assessment of the development of housing five years after the implementation of California's Senate Bill (SB) 35 began in 2018.

The bill eased the barriers to housing production for builders, in some cases removing the required review process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other policies that had been targeted as key impediments to the effort to meet a crisis that has become the defining issue of the time for embattled local governments, residents, and planning officials.

Statistics revealed that 18,000 new units were able to be developed thanks to the streamlining of nearly a thousand multifamily infill housing projects as a direct result of SB 35. The rate of successful developments peaked in 2020, with a noticeable dip recorded in the past year. The study also found encouragingly that most projects covered by SB 35 were considered 100 percent affordable.

Related on Archine...

AXIS/GFA's record-breaking Weingart Center supportive housing development tops out in Skid Row

2023-07-21T12:34:00-04:00

A record-breaking supportive housing development in the overburdened Los Angeles market is one step closer to completion this week after AXIS/GFA Architecture + Design’s new 19-story Weingart Center Tower 1 project topped out near Skid Row.

Once completed, the development will provide a total of 228 studio and one-bedroom apartments reserved exclusively for people who had previously experienced homelessness. Proponents say it will be the largest single-addition housing project of its kind in the city.

Los Angeles is currently in the midst of a crisis caused in large part by state and local policy failures, the lack of financing, and a compendium of related issues, including developers' reticence, corruption, and the resounding absence of low-income housing countywide. New Mayor Karen Bass recently signed an ordinance that makes it easier to realize constructions under 49 units, but the hope and need for larger developments is also glaring. Therefore the project stands as a new high...

LA exempts affordable developments from Site Plan Review process as housing needs grow

2023-07-10T11:40:00-04:00

Mayor Karen Bass on Thursday signed into law an ordinance updating the city's zoning code to exempt all affordable units from the time-consuming Site Plan Review process that often delays final approval of much-needed housing projects. The city's existing building code required all housing developments of more than 49 units to undergo Site Plan Review, which can add months to the completion of a project and increase expenses.

Bass had promised to alleviate the burden on developers as part of her mayoral campaign and has since cut down the city’s end of the approval process and added a new Deputy Mayor of Housing to the administration, though structural problems within the political apparatus still remain.

The city has approved 22 new developments in the calendar year with the aim of aiding a 9% growth in homelessness and an economic situation where nearly a third of all renters are considered "severely cost-burdened” countywide.

Los Angeles gets a new Deputy Mayor of Housing

2023-02-03T08:30:00-05:00

New LA Mayor Karen Bass has elevated current City Planning Commissioner Jenna Hornstock to a newly-created post as the Deputy Mayor of Housing, according to the city's announcement on Wednesday afternoon.

The appointment aligns with Bass’ comprehensive shakeup of the city’s existing multifaceted housing apparatus. It will create an office that is accountable for efforts to address the dual crises of affordability and homelessness that have become hot-button political issues for Angelenos over the past decade.

Honstock comes to the position with experience as the acting Deputy Director of Planning and Land Use for the Southern California Association of Governments and was a former aide on the Housing and Business team of former Mayor James Hahn. According to her Linkedin page, she is also the current board of advisors member for the Urban Land Institute and holds an MPP in Urban Economic Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Related on Archinect: Political disorder is...

Frances Anderton says LA must end the stigma of apartment dwelling to survive

2023-01-12T17:38:00-05:00

Anderton’s book provides further powerful evidence that density is not something to be scared of, but is fertile ground for architectural invention, creating more neighbourly, walkable communities, and ultimately making Los Angeles a more livable city for all.

The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright joined Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles author Frances Anderton for a walking tour of select historic apartment buildings that included Richard Neutra’s 1937 Strathmore Apartments in Westwood (noteworthy as the first apartment Charles and Ray Eames rented after they moved to the city in 1941) and the Irving Gill’s 1910 Horatio West Court, whose new neighbor is a just-finished transitional housing project from Brooks + Scarpa.

“There’s still an ingrained cultural stigma here, that renting an apartment means you haven’t quite made it," Anderton reminds us. The city's broken political culture, meanwhile, isn't making the issue much easier.

The former host of KCRW's popular radio show, DnA, has been a frequent collaborator on Archinect. Anderton joined us in December 2020 on the Archinect Sessions podcast to talk about her career and "the backstory behind her transition from architecture student to journalist to radio personality."

Lis...

Political disorder is impeding much-needed housing progress in Los Angeles

2023-01-10T12:54:00-05:00

To ease Los Angeles’ crushing housing shortage, the city needs a lot more new homes, especially affordable ones. Yet the City Council has been sitting on two community plans that would make it easier for developers to construct housing and boost the number of low-income units in downtown and Hollywood. What’s the holdup? Politics and scandal.

One of the plans, the Downtown Community Plan, which aims to add 100,000 new homes to Los Angeles’ downtown core through 2040, was put on hold after an audio recording surfaced revealing three council members making racist and offensive comments about their colleagues and constituents. Two of the council members involved, former LA mayoral candidate Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, helped shape the plan but are now unavailable to push it forward.

The Los Angeles Times highlights the problematic nature of the political structure around development, in which council members have total control over land-use decisions, which, in the case of the Downtown Community Plan has backfired. This, along with the Hollywood Community Plan, which is also experiencing a prolonged delay, is designed to make the approval process quicker for mixed-income developments.

If the City Council doesn’t act on the plans by May, the documents will expire and the approval process will restart.

...

LA Mayor Karen Bass announces first round of reforms aimed at expediting the construction of affordable housing

2022-12-20T17:24:00-05:00

New Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass is wasting no time dismantling the regulatory process that’s long been held up as the source and exacerbator of the city’s intertwined homelessness and affordable housing crises.

Declaring that the “time for useless regulations is over,” Bass went to the construction site of the new 49-unit Boyle Heights Lorena Plaza development last week to announce an executive directive mandating all city departments involved in the review and approval of new housing and shelters to complete their portion of the process within 60 days.

The directive will also waive the discretionary review process of all developments not requiring zoning changes. These types of developments are often curtailed to 49 units or less in order to get under the review and public hearing process, which requires all developments of 50 units or higher to be subject to them. According to reporting in the LA Times, there are currently 31 projects in the city that will be affected by the ch...

McMansions are making LA’s housing crisis a lot worse

2022-12-19T12:05:00-05:00

There is another cause of overcrowding and homelessness. It is mansionization, the demolition of older, smaller, less expensive houses by real estate speculators who quickly replace them with spec McMansions: boxy, shoddily built houses that max out the permitted building envelope.

The disincentive to build multifamily and affordable housing is made worse by the popularity of these easily repeatable home designs, which also cost more to construct while taking up more space and using more water and electricity. Certain communities around L.A. County have developed effective anti-McMansion ordinances that work by limiting the size of structures, although loopholes abound.

A possible solution can be taken from LA's 35 existing community plans, which contain some version of language to “protect existing stable single-family and low-density residential neighborhoods from encroachment by higher density residential uses and other uses that are incompatible as to scale, character, or would otherwise diminish quality of life.”

An underutilized hotel retrofit offers inside view of LA homelessness crisis

2022-12-15T14:28:00-05:00

The historic hotel, with its haunted reputation and 600 rooms, reopened in December 2021 as a privately funded permanent supportive housing project. With most of the rooms reserved specifically for those in the bottom 30% of the area’s median income, it’s open to any [...] with a government-funded voucher. Many viewed the project as a promising new model in L.A. because of its size and flexibility. And yet, a year later, two-thirds of the Cecil remains unoccupied.

The rare privately-funded $80 million conversion project for the influential Skid Row Housing Trust is one of many case studies on the issue of vacant single-room occupancy (SROs) in Los Angeles. The city housing authority’s Section 8 director thinks an absence of in-unit bathrooms and kitchenettes is to blame for the empty rooms at the Cecil, but bureaucratic hold-up and a lack of coordination between disparate agencies that serve the vulnerable is the primary factor that’s causing the project to fall short of its weekly move-in targets by 66%.

Los Angeles to convert vacant courthouse into affordable housing

2022-10-27T13:16:00-04:00

A long-closed Los Angeles County courthouse in Sawtelle that was once a popular draw for skateboarders may soon be redeveloped for affordable housing. The County Board of Supervisors voted to buy the former West Los Angeles Courthouse at 1633 Purdue Avenue for a mixed-use, affordable housing development, City News Service reported via KFI AM 640.

As detailed by The Real Deal, a motion to buy the courthouse, which has been vacant since June 2013, was proposed, asking Los Angeles County to source funds to acquire the space from the Judicial Council. The County has reportedly, so far, paid more than $3.5 million to the Council to incentivize development.

Doubling as a popular skate venue since the 1990s, the courthouse site became a legal location for skating following its 2013 closure, in which it’s been dubbed the West LA Courthouse Skate Plaza. Los Angeles County has chosen Arlington, Virginia-based West LA Commons as the prospective developer. The current terms of the project call for the developer to pay the County $32.3 million. The County Board of Supervisors will meet to discuss the project again on November 15th, when the public will have the opportunity to comment on the project.

Brooks + Scarpa reveals Westside LA transitional housing project inspired by Irving Gill

2022-10-24T14:38:00-04:00

Brooks + Scarpa has released images of their recently-completed Rose Apartments complex, a community housing initiative for formerly homeless teenage youths transitioning into adulthood in Venice, Los Angeles.

The 20,900-square-foot, four-story design includes some 35 units of highly affordable residences for young adults who are at risk for homelessness after being separated from the state-administered system at the age of 18.

Image courtesy Brooks + Scarpa

Located nearby Venice Beach's central retail strip, the scheme takes its cues from Irving Gill’s neighboring Horatio West Court apartments and other examples of courtyard housing that predominated the city in the years prior to the Second World War.

Image courtesy Brooks + Scarpa

Per the architects: “The courtyard is only one aspect of a successful design. By including affordable housing for transitional aged youths, it allowed the non-developer to take advantage of California State Assembly Bill AB7...

TALLER announces plans for a first-ever rowhouse development in Los Angeles

2022-10-18T17:39:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based architecture firm Taller has announced plans for what would be the first project built under L.A. County's compact lot subdivision ordinance on a single parcel of land at 925 Brannick Avenue in East Los Angeles. Plans call for razing an existing single-story, two-bedroom house, clearing the way for the construction of four single-family homes.

The plan is one of a series of novel attempts to deliver to market the much-needed stock of "missing middle" housing brought on by developer recalcitrance and new zoning laws that incentivize multifamily development more heavily. The residences range between 885- to 1,118-square-feet and will be constructed using an insulated panel system that TALLER says is 30 percent stronger than typical stick-framed designs.

"[The] Brannick Homes are a deliberate investment into a working class neighborhood with deep roots in Los Angeles," the firm describes in a statement. "The homes are state-of-the-art projects that prioritize contextual aesthetics, sustainability, great design, and—of course—attainability. They have been thoughtfully wrought to maximize efficiency in order to keep building costs low, allowing for the new homes to enter the market at below-median prices and still remain profitable to our investors."

An open letter to LA's next mayor outlines 10 proposals to speed up the production of affordable housing

2022-09-30T13:20:00-04:00

The Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|LA) has released an open letter to mayoral candidates Rick Caruso and Karen Bass suggesting 10 fixes to zoning requirements and the approval processes that would positively impact citywide efforts to tackle an ongoing housing crisis that has taken center stage ahead of the November election.

Echoing the tone of a recent LA Times op-ed, Koning Eizenberg principal and AIA|LA Government Outreach Committee member Brian Lane wrote on behalf of the organization, saying that, as the system is currently arranged, there are "a thousand ways to 'no.'" Their letter claims that city bureaucracy gets in the way of the design community's efforts and that production can be significantly increased via the proposed set of solutions.

"Dear Mayor," the text begins. "It takes about $600,000 and 5 years to build one affordable housing unit. That’s one person or family moved off the streets of over 69,000 experiencing homelessness in LA...

'Despair is useless': Mike Davis reflects on California, the climate crisis, life, and legacy as he faces his own mortality

2022-09-13T18:44:00-04:00

I’ve seen miracles happen. I’ve seen ordinary people do the most heroic things. When you’ve had the privilege of knowing so many great fighters and resisters, you can’t lay down the sword, even if things seem objectively hopeless.

The terminally-ill City of Quartz author sat down recently with The Guardian to discuss his waning health and look back at prescient early warnings of the state’s slow-motion social and ecological demise that has taken three decades to manifest. True to form, Davis was critical of everything: from “fascist” LA novelist Raymond Chandler to Governor Gavin Newsom’s penchant for arrogating his administration’s response to the climate crisis that has been exacerbated by even increasingly harmful and foolhardy attempts to mitigate the housing crisis in Los Angels and other non-urban areas across the state.

Related Feature Interview on Archinect: Meeting Mike Davis

“Our ruling classes everywhere have no rational analysis or explanation for the immediate future,” he said. “A small group of people have more concentrated power over the human future than ever before in human history, and they have no vision, no strategy, no plan. It’s not just global warming, and drought, it’s the fact that two...

LA County may soon have a new dedicated agency to address its affordable housing woes

2022-08-30T10:00:00-04:00

The ongoing housing crisis in Los Angeles County may soon become the subject of a new dedicated government agency after the California State Assembly voted on Wednesday to approve SB 679.

If signed into law, the bill would authorize the county to create an entity called the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (or LACAHSA) that seeks to address the crisis through a consolidated approach the bill’s author, Democratic State Senator Sydney Kamlager, described as “clear, focused, [and] integrated” when compared to the current system’s diffuse and ineffective nature.

A recent LA Times editorial op-ed mentioned that the bill was amended to include provisions for union contractors in line with the city’s Project Labor Agreement as well as an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which is often used cynically as a means of preventing such developments. The editorial also pointed out that funding for the agency, to which the bill allocates a tota...

California's inventory of disused strip malls may be an overlooked option to shore up its housing stock by 2030

2022-05-02T12:35:00-04:00

Converting empty or underutilized strip malls and shopping centers into mixed-use residential and retail developments could help solve California’s housing shortage crisis and allow stores to stay afloat amid the shift to online shopping, said housing experts and industry leaders during a panel at the Urban Land Institute’s spring meeting last week in San Diego. However, that transformation will require cities to change their land-use policies.

Greyfield land may be the most underutilized resource in the state’s harried attempt to create the more than 2.5 million housing units required to meet demands set forth by the Department of Housing and Community Development in March. A bill introduced last week by state rep Buffy Wicks would include them along with disused offices and environmentally unhealthy parking lot spaces in a zoning update that could allow developers to make relatively quick conversions into mixed-use sites with job-site provisions for apprenticeship employment.

With a portion of the state's population moving east, the measure has the most potential in embattled urban areas like LA or San Diego. According to a report from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, around 40% of the state’s 50 largest cities do not allow for residential development on designated commercial plots currently....

TIC townhouses are taking over Los Angeles — but who can actually afford them?

2022-03-23T12:45:00-04:00

An L.A. developer has a new approach to the so-called tenancy-in-common, or TIC, model, in which residents share ownership of the property. Instead of converting old, rent-controlled buildings into TIC properties, the developer is replacing single-family homes with new townhomes. Some real estate experts said the model could help the region’s gaping affordable-housing problem, particularly after a new state law opened more areas to similar development.

S.B. 9 allows for up to four units to be built on plots formerly reserved for single-family developments exclusively. Since the bill was enacted, many investors have begun to demolish single-family units in order to construct the newer TIC model of townhouses, which was supposedly pioneered by a developer called B&A Group.

The actual product of the new buildings, and whether or not their typically under-market rate but restrictive $700,0000–$800,000 price tags are in the end going to displace working-class residents living in cheaper rental units in LA neighborhoods like West Adams is a major concern for people like neighborhood council president Steven Meeks.

“Cheaper for who?” he told the LA Times of costs, which would fall under the category of a mansion in many other places. “What person in this neighborhood is going to afford that?”

...

California demands Los Angeles County rezone for 255,000 new housing units... by mid-October

2022-02-28T18:41:00-05:00

Los Angeles must rezone to accommodate an additional quarter-million new homes by mid-October after state housing regulators rejected the city’s long-term plan for growth. If city leaders do not fix the housing plan or complete the rezoning by the new deadline, they could lose access to billions of dollars in affordable housing grants, officials with the state Department of Housing and Community Development said in a letter this week.

Los Angeles County had previously planned to add exactly 10% of the new mandate in the form of housing specifically for the homeless by the year 2025. It has also given some additional leeway to homeowners wishing to install ADUs, which can play a crucial role in meeting the state’s pressing development needs. (Current estimates have the number of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles at over 66,000.)

The state’s report also derided LA County’s development plan for its overall lack of parks programming and investments into lower-income communities. The punitive measures against the plan seems paradoxical considering the dodges certain communities have attempted in other parts of California. Officials said they will amend plans in time for the next round of funding reviews in May, but that the breakneck pace of development required to meet the new state requirements in under eight months would outstrip even North Korea in terms of its speed and practicality.

“Rezoning the ...

One of LA’s top mayoral candidates wants to create a hub for affordable housing with an updated Civic Center development plan

2021-10-04T16:59:00-04:00

A stalled plan that would have added over 3 million square feet of office space to Downtown LA has gotten a second life thanks to a post-pandemic reimagining that seeks to address a statewide shortage of affordable housing.

The updated Civic Center Master Development Plan (CCMDP) proposed by mayoral hopeful Kevin de Leon would reverse the numbers in the previously approved plan from 2017, adding more than three times the amount of housing called for in the original while reducing the amount of planned office space by about two thirds.

California is under the gun to add over 1.8 million new units of housing by 2025 to keep up with demands, which so far have outpaced supply to the point where the state has now moved to ban single-family zoning in an effort to boost higher density development. LA itself has said it wants to add 25,000 units to the city in the same time period, and de Leon’s motion would go a long way in helping to meet those demands while at the same time consolidatin...

7 steps for ending homelessness proposed by AIA Los Angeles

2021-06-30T12:30:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles (AIALA) has published a set of strategies urging LA city leaders to tackle the city’s homelessness and affordable housing crisis. The“House All Angelenos” Call-to-Action urges officials to adopt seven strategies aimed at accelerating the construction of affordable homes, and facilitate a more diverse, resilient housing portfolio for the 66,000 residents that lack adequate shelter in the region. The strategies encompass changes to zoning, subsidies, definitions of dwellings, and requirements for developers to provide affordable housing in new developments.

"On a daily basis, architects create supportive, affordable, and market-rate housing throughout the Los Angeles area. It is our responsibility to share the expertise we have garnered with our region at this time of crisis," says AIALA President Wade Killefer, FAIA. “While these strategies lead to housing for those currently without, they also elevate life for all Angelenos. They imp...

Affordable housing complex by Eric Owen Moss Architects gets approval in Venice

2021-06-02T17:09:00-04:00

A proposal to build dozens of affordable apartments near Venice Beach has been approved, following a vote taken by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission.

Image: Eric Owen Moss Architects

After a long and contentious public hearing on May 27, the Commission voted to approve the construction of the Reese Davidson Community. The $75 million project is a collaboration between the Venice Community Housing Corp. and the Hollywood Community Housing Corp. It would rise from the site of two current parking lots that flank Venice’s Grand Canal and would consist of a low-rise complex containing 140 apartments, approximately 7,400 square feet of commercial space, and a 360-car parking garage for both residents and visitors. The Reese Davidson Community will house formerly homeless and low-income individuals, as well as some work and live spaces for low-income artists and support staff for tenants. A coffee shop on the ground floor and a 3,000-square-foot performance space and community room w...

Los Angeles hopes to cut housing red tape with preapproved ADU designs

2021-03-08T19:00:00-05:00

More than a dozen designs for accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs, will be offered through the city’s ADU Standard Plan Program [...]. The small-scale, stand-alone residences are generally tucked into properties zoned for single-family homes. The idea, says the city’s chief design officer (and former Times architecture critic), Christopher Hawthorne, is to take a weeks-long permitting process and “turn it into an approval that is over-the counter.”

Notoriously plagued by a shortage of housing stock, Los Angeles has launched a new initiative that aims to drastically shorten the approval process — and promote good design — with preapproved accessory dwelling unit (ADU) plans.

The ADU Standard Plan Program will start out with designs by 14 architectural firms, ranging from well-known practices to emerging studios: wHY, SO – IL, Design, Bitches, LA Más, Jennifer Bonner/MALL, sekou cooke STUDIO, Fung + Blatt Architects, Escher GuneWardena Architecture, Connect Homes, Amunátegui Valdés, IT House, First Office, Abodu, and Welcome Projects.

Below is a small selection from the initial roster of plans.

LA Más: 1-story, studio with options (3D-printed home)

SO – IL: 1-story, 1 bedroom with options (693 sf)

Amunátegui Valdés: 1-story, 2-bedroom with covered roof deck and options (934 sf)

IT House: 2-story including mechanical room with options (660 sf)

Design, Bitches: 1-story, 1 bedroom with options (454 sf)

wHY: 1-story, 1 or 2 bedroom with...

LA City Council continues to convert hotels into interim housing thanks to Project Homekey

2020-12-15T14:51:00-05:00

In alignment with Project Homekey, LA County's efforts to provide temporary housing pushes forward as the city uses over $68M in grant funding plus $37M in local matching funds to purchase hotels located in the Los Angeles area. In October, the city had acquired ten hotels located in the West Adams, Exposition Park, North Hills, Reseda, Westlake, El Sereno, Harbor Gateway, and Chatsworth areas.

Initial planning steps were reported in September 2020 by Urbanize LA. The group shared the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted towards the "acquisition and renovation" of properties through Project Homekey. "Under the rules of the Project Homekey program - which provides $600 million in grant funding for hotel purchases statewide - individual jurisdictions are required to provide local matching funds for all acquisition costs over $100,000 per unit."

The county is required to complete the acquisition process of each selected hotel by D...

COVID-19, lapses in federal support delay L.A.'s landmark affordable housing initiative

2020-07-01T10:42:00-04:00

Already sharply criticized for its slow progress and rising costs, the $1.2-billion bond program is in a new slump. A Times analysis of data from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department shows that 57 projects have fallen behind schedule since January. Of those, 21 were pushed back more than six months.

Doug Smith of The Los Angeles Times checks in on the progress (or lack thereof) on a variety of affordable housing projects initiated through the L.A.'s Proposition HHH bill. The report states that delays caused by COVID-19 have been exacerbated in recent months due to a shortage of Section 8 housing vouchers, leaving many projects unable to move forward with design and construction.

John Arnold, a partner with Killefer Flammang Architects, tells Smith that the firm's HHH projects have been impacted by the various slowdowns, explaining, “The general feeling is everything is slow.”

How L.A. corruption kills affordable housing

2020-06-26T12:56:00-04:00

At a news conference Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna cited [a forthcoming project in the Los Angeles Arts District] as an example of “the harm that comes with bribery.” “Thanks to Mr. Huizar, the development would have minimal affordable housing units, despite the fact that this area is desperate for low-income housing,” Hanna said.

Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Emily Alpert Reyes and David Zahniser dig into the fallout of a still unfolding corruption probe taking shape in Los Angeles that implicates sitting City Councilmember Jose Huizar, who was arrested earlier this week by federal authorities.

The probe has ensnared, according to The Los Angeles Times, a development that matches the characteristics of 520 Mateo, a 475-unit, 35-story mixed-use project developed by Carmel Partners and designed by Works Progress Architecture and Solomon Caldwell Buenz that is currently under construction. The project, as well as other high-profile developments implicated in the probe, was approved with Huizar's help while he sat on the city's Planning and Land Use Committee, allegedly in exchange for bribes, kick backs, and other financial favors from developers and other interests, according to federal officials.

Among the favorable terms granted with the project's approval, The Los Angeles Times reports, was a reduction...

Los Angeles housing department head steps down after 10 years

2020-03-13T17:05:00-04:00

The General Manager of the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department (HCIDLA), Rushmore Cervantes, has announced plans to step down from his position at the end of the month.

Cervantes has led the department for over a decade and has presided over a turbulent era in the city that has seen the number of people experiencing homelessness grow uncontrollably despite historic successes in increasing the city's affordable housing supply. HCIDLA, according to a City of Los Angeles website, is tasked with the "creation of viable urban communities by promoting livable and prosperous communities through the development and preservation of decent, safe, affordable housing, neighborhood investment, and social services" In addition, the department works to inspect the city's 760,000 multifamily housing units to maintain building code compliance, administers the city's Rent Stabilization Ordinance, and oversees its first-time homeowner ship and home repair programs, among other eff...

59,000 people are experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County

2019-06-04T17:20:00-04:00

The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase.

Homelessness is surging in Los Angeles County and across California, where most major cities have seen double-digit increases in their share of residents experiencing homelessness since last year.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas told The Los Angeles Times, “At this point of unprecedented wealth in the county of Los Angeles, we are equally confronted with unprecedented poverty manifesting itself in the form of homelessness."

Peter Lynn, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority added, “If we don't change the fundamentals of housing affordability, this is going to be a very long road. If we don't get ahead of affordability, we're going to be very hard pressed to get ahead of homelessness.”

Julia Morgan's YWCA building in Los Angeles to become affordable housing

2019-04-23T16:44:00-04:00

A YWCA building in San Pedro has been sold to a non-profit housing developer and is expected to provide 35 homes and on-site daycare for single women with children, all of which will be affordable.

The organization, which is one of the oldest and most active chapters helping women and families, will be given a low-income housing addition. The new complex will sit adjacent to their landmarked recreation center built in 1918 and designed by Julia Morgan, California's first licensed woman architect who is most notably known for designing Hearst Castle at San Simeon.

YWCA of San Pedro, Historic Julia Morgan Building. Courtesy of SPF:a

YWCA of San Pedro, Julia Morgan house. Courtesy of SPF:a

The Los Angeles-based firm SPF:a has been selected for the task of adding onto Morgan's board-and-batten structure. Speaking of her work, Zoltan Pali, a founder and design principal at the firm, noted the prolific range in Morgan's portfolio. "If you look at Julia Morgan’s work, you’ll see she wasn’t ...