In Los Angeles, a metropolis determined for homeless housing, one undertaking that may fill a few of that want has been unconscionably delayed for years. The Metropolis Council has already authorized it twice, most lately two years in the past. This week, metropolis officers have an opportunity to indicate they’re critical about getting that undertaking constructed.
On Wednesday, the California Coastal Fee will take up the Venice Dell Group undertaking, which can present 117 items, together with 68 for homeless supportive housing and the rest for low-income inexpensive housing, on a city-owned 2.65-acre parking zone in Venice not removed from the seaside.
Fee workers already recommends the undertaking obtain a coastal improvement allow. The Coastal Fee ought to approve that.
And any official from the town who exhibits up at that assembly ought to assist the undertaking. Not doing so could be a shame.
The Venice Dell Group undertaking has been within the works for seven years.
After assembly with the group and taking their issues into consideration, the nonprofit builders, Venice Group Housing and Hollywood Group Housing Corp., have been authorized by the L.A. Metropolis Council for a improvement settlement in 2021 and 2022. The location is simply the type of surplus metropolis land that advocates and metropolis leaders covet for homeless housing. However someplace alongside the way in which, metropolis officers appeared to neglect that.
Within the time since their settlement was signed, the builders have designed and redesigned — and redesigned once more — the general public parking storage that replaces the misplaced spots within the unique lot on the strategies of the town’s Division of Transportation.
They misplaced time on the undertaking final yr throughout an eight-month interval when Metropolis Lawyer Hydee Feldstein Soto, lengthy an opponent of the undertaking, informed metropolis departments to stop meeting with the developers to work on plans and contracts. Workers members resumed assembly with them solely after Mayor Karen Bass ordered them to take action.
The builders additionally have been set again final yr when the Coastal Commission put on hold its resolution on whether or not to grant the undertaking its crucial coastal improvement allow after metropolis officers couldn’t resolve whether or not they would oversee the operation of the parking construction on the positioning.
And at last, two lawsuits filed by a group group to attempt to cease the undertaking have been rejected by Superior Court docket judges earlier this yr.
Sufficient.
Constructing on a city-owned parking zone is a brilliant plan for homeless housing, and Venice Dell Group ought to go ahead.
The most recent problem for this improvement is a letter from the town’s Division of Transportation urging the Board of Transportation Commissioners, an advisory panel composed of residents appointed by the mayor, to suggest at a particular session on Tuesday that the undertaking not go ahead.
After years of working with the builders on the undertaking, the division officers all of the sudden have a change of coronary heart? The builders have already been via quite a few discussions with the town’s Division of Transportation over parking necessities on the positioning and have made changes to the parking storage. At this level, a destructive suggestion from the Board of Transportation Commissioners could be disingenuous. However it will not be binding — a judge decided as a lot when this problem got here up in one of many unsuccessful lawsuits towards the undertaking — and it shouldn’t be allowed to hinder progress.
What most issues right here is the Coastal Fee’s resolution. The town lawyer has written an absurd letter to the Coastal Fee telling its members to not approve the undertaking as a result of the parking might be situated on the east aspect of the positioning as an alternative of the west aspect, which might be nearer to the seaside. Critically? This undertaking is about creating desperately wanted housing for homeless and low-income individuals, not creating desperately wanted parking. (And Becky Dennison, the co-executive director of Venice Group Housing, says that within the newest design, there could be parking on each the west and east sides of the positioning.)
The town lawyer additionally says she will’t assure that the town will conform to oversee the operation of the parking construction. Uncertainty over such a matter shouldn’t have delayed the Coastal Fee’s resolution final yr and shouldn’t be used as an excuse by metropolis officers to persuade the fee to keep away from approval this week.
This undertaking has some highly effective opponents. The town lawyer is one. Traci Park, the councilmember whose district consists of Venice, is one other longtime detractor. And the mayor has executed little to assist the undertaking although she has pledged to expedite the creation of inexpensive housing. It’s shameful that some elected officers have failed to face up for this undertaking whereas others actively tried to kill it.
The Coastal Fee ought to approve Venice Dell and provides it the coastal improvement allow it wants. And if metropolis officers argue towards awarding the allow to the undertaking, the fee ought to see that transfer for what it’s — a ploy to cease a much-needed housing undertaking on the west aspect of the town, the place there’s little everlasting housing for homeless individuals.
