L.A. approves aggressive plan to add 135,000 new homes to downtown and Hollywood

California Construction News staff writer

Los Angeles city council has approved major zoning plans for downtown and Hollywood that would add 135,000 new homes over the next 20 years.

The DTLA 2040 plan, has a goal of building 100,000 new housing units from the Convention Center east to the Arts District and north to Chinatown. Also, council approved an update to the Hollywood Community Plan to allow 35,000 new housing units.

“This is going to be incredibly important to the city’s economic development, its future and our housing — addressing our housing needs,” said Council President Paul Krekorian.

Community plans are “one of the most important tools to incentivize and produce new housing,” officials state. They outline the land use rules and regulations developers must follow if they want to build new housing in a given area, Epstein said.

Rules will include new safeguards for staving off displacement and strategies to encourage construction of affordable housing — apartment buildings where at least a portion of the units have rents below market rate. Those units would need to remain affordable for 99 years.

In Hollywood, developers of properties on some of the city’s busiest streets including Hollywood, Sunset and Cahuenga — will be allowed to build taller buildings than originally allowed, in return for a promise to build a percentage of affordable units in their projects.

The downtown strategy includes an inclusionary housing plan that requires newly constructed residential projects include at a percentage of affordable units. As a result of expected changes, larger projects can be approved with a greater number of affordable units included.