West Hollywood Councilmember John D’Amico urged people to sign up for the city’s inclusionary housing waitlist at Monday night’s City Council meeting.
“We are doing a fairly remarkable thing,” said D’Amico. “We are opening the waiting list. It’s been over five years since the waiting list was open. Anyone who needs to be on that list, now is the time for them to do that.”
The Inclusionary Housing Program requires all new developments to include units for low- and moderate-income people to create a more economically diverse, inclusive building. Depending on the size of the building, 20 percent of the units must be set aside for inclusionary housing.
The waitlist will reopen from July 1 to July 31 for two Monarch Group projects that are due to be ready for occupancy in early 2014: the first on the southeast corner of La Brea Avenue and Fountain Avenue (site of the old Jon’s supermarket) with 38 affordable units and the other on the northwest corner of La Brea Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard (site of the old Carl’s Jr. fast food restaurant) with 36 affordable units.
People who are not selected for either of the Monarch projects will be eligible for affordable units in other buildings as they open.
Applications will be available at City Hall and in Plummer Park. Applications must be returned by first class mail only. If they are delivered using Priority Mail or Federal Express or delivered in person, they will not be accepted.
Over 2,000 people are currently on the waitlist, but D’Amico emphasized the importance of putting in an application nonetheless.
“It may be another five years before it opens again,” said D’Amico.
In related news, the 32-unit Courtyard at La Brea affordable housing complex at La Brea Avenue and Lexington Avenue is 55 percent complete, according to a staff report. The building is expected to be ready for occupancy in late 2013.
Sixteen of the units will be awarded through an open lottery process. Applications for that lottery were due on June 21. That lottery was done separately from the Inclusionary Housing Waitlist because the entire building will be affordable units, rather than a few affordable units in a larger building.
The 15 other units in the Courtyard will be available for special-needs residents, such as transgender youth and people living with HIV/AIDS. The city will partner with the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center to determine who is eligible for those units. One unit in the building will be reserved for the building manager.
Meanwhile, once the Movietown Plaza mixed-use development is complete, it will include 77 units of affordable housing. West Hollywood and site developer Avalon Bay have entered into a partnership where those 77 units will be controlled by the West Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, which oversees affordable housing within the city. Those units will be part of the Inclusionary Housing Waitlist.
It will likely be several years before Movietown Plaza at 7304 Santa Monica Blvd. at Poinsettia begins construction as designs must be approved by the Planning Commission and the City Council. The proposed two-tower, seven-story Movietown Plaza complex will have 26,000 square feet of retail space and 371 residential units, including the 77 affordable units.
