Expo Line station in Culver City, with City Councilman Mike Bonin (Wikimedia)
Los Angeles city officials will explore a new plan Tuesday aimed at tackling the severe housing shortage on the Westside.
The plan, which is five years in the making, would change the zoning around five Expo Line stations to allow for taller buildings on major streets, Curbed reported.
Notably, the Exposition Corridor Transit Neighborhood Plan, as it will be called, would allow for multi-family development in the Bundy Triangle, where nearly 200 single-family homes currently sit. Rent-stabilized buildings would not be affected by the new plan.
It would also allow for the construction of offices in industrial zones located within a half-mile of the Metro stations in Palms, Westwood and West L.A.
The City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee (PLUM) will discuss the plan on Tuesday. If approved by the full council, as many as 6,000 new housing units and 14,300 new jobs could be added by 2035.
Similarly to the recently enacted Transit Oriented Communities program, developers would have to include affordable units in any project built under the new plan.
Proponents of the new plan, which include City Councilman Mike Bonin, point to the environmental benefits that stem from having more housing and jobs near transit hubs. Critics say the plan doesn’t go far enough — the plan will leave many single-family neighborhoods mostly unchanged — to address the city’s housing issues.
The plan is one of many legislative efforts being proposed to ease L.A.’s issues with housing and traffic. Earlier this year, two L.A. Board of Supervisors introduced a motion to speed up the approval process for developers who want to build near transit hubs. The Department of City Planning also implemented the TOC program in the fall, incentivizing developers to build affordable housing into projects near train and bus lines with density bonuses. [Curbed] – Natalie Hoberman
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