(CN) — The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve a large affordable housing project straddling the northern opening of the Grand Canal in Venice Beach, one of the city's most iconic and expensive neighborhoods.
The 2.7-acre, $75 million Venice Dell Community project will be built on city-owned land, on the site of what is now a large, surface-level asphalt parking lot, and will comprise 136 units of housing. Half the units will be supportive housing for homeless residents of Venice and the rest will be for low-income residents, with half of that reserved for artists.
The complex will also include a community arts center, public parking and retail space. There will be eight full-time staff members to provide supportive services for the formerly homeless residents, four of which will live on-site.
"This project is proposed and will be built in a community that has been an epicenter of homelessness for decades," said City Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents Venice and most of West Los Angeles. "It's being proposed in a community that has been losing housing and losing population for decades."
Venice, an area defined in part by skinny streets and small lots, is among the city's most expensive places to live per square foot and also has one of the city's largest homeless populations. That dichotomy has proved to be increasingly divisive. In January 2020, a fake explosive device was found outside the site of a future homeless shelter. Opposition to affordable housing projects — and to the city's hands-off approach to homeless encampments during the pandemic — has fueled the campaign to recall Bonin.
Opponents of Venice Dell have called it the "monster on the Venice canals," a "large barge come ashore," and have criticized its design as "aggressive, harsh and bunker-like."
"This giant, big, ugly box on 40 lots would be a scar on Venice," Robin Rudisill, who unsuccessfully ran to unseat Bonin in 2017, told the City Council.
Those opposed to the project have criticized the city for sending the project through an expedited environmental review process, though it's been more than four years since it was first proposed. They've said it's too expensive and they've questioned the project's location — the canal zone, a unique tourist attraction where nearby houses sell for between $2 and $5 million.
But other Venice residents told council members they support the project.
"Why wouldn’t we want more affordable housing?" said Amy Goldstein. "It will become another part of our community."
Becky Dennison, executive director of Venice Community Housing, one of the two nonprofits seeking to build the project, said the fact that the city owns the land presents a unique opportunity to build new affordable housing.
"There’s no other property this size in Venice," she said. "Prior to the last couple years, Venice hadn’t produced any new affordable housing in 20 years, because the land is too expensive."
She added: "Venice is a historically diverse community, where a lot of low-income people and people of color have been pushed out. We're trying to remedy some of those disparities."
Bonin called the project "low-hanging fruit."
"This should be one of the easiest projects to do. It is being built on a flat asphalt parking lot," he said.
Neighborhood group Venice Vision lodged an appeal of the project's approval. Jamie Hall, a land-use attorney speaking on behalf of Venice Vision, told the City Council that they had "violated constitutionally mandated due process" by using expedited environmental review.
The appeal may be a pretext for suing the city to halt construction. As Bonin himself acknowledged, "This project will absolutely surely face litigation."
The City Council voted to deny the appeal and approve the project by a vote of 12-0, with Councilman Joe Buscaino abstaining. Buscaino is running for mayor next year, and has staked his campaign on an aggressive strategy of building homeless shelters quickly and forcing people living in encampments to move into them. He has previously boasted of his willingness to build homeless and affordable housing, to "say 'yes' to solutions." But many of the Venice residents who oppose the new housing project also support Buscaino's mayoral campaign, putting him in a tricky position.
When asked about his abstention, Buscaino declined to comment.
The project has gone through a number of name changes. As of a few months ago, it was called the "Reese Davidson Community," in memory of Rick Davidson, the founder of Venice Community Housing, and Arthur Reese, the first Black homeowner in Venice. But Reese's granddaughter, Sonya Reese Greenland, objected to the use of the name, telling the developers in a letter that it was "disrespectful" to the Black community for them to use the Reese name without her permission, and that her grandfather would have been "appalled" at the proposed project. And so the name was changed.
Construction of the Venice Dell Community won't begin just yet. It still needs to be approved by the California Coastal Commission, which is set to take up the matter sometime next year.
Follow @hillelaron
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Homes, businesses damaged as tornadoes pummel Midwest April 26, 2024 -
