West Hollywood City Council is set to sign a $763,030 contract with Sasaki Associates Inc. that the city hopes will encourage more housing to be built by providing more incentives to fuel their construction. It’s part of a broader initiative under the city’s 6th Cycle Housing Element designed to address the urgent housing issues in the region.
West Hollywood last year adopted an update to its Housing Element for an eight-year period that runs from 2021 to 2029. This plan was subsequently certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development a couple of months later in April.
The contract encompasses a comprehensive review of the city’s current zoning laws to identify barriers to housing development and propose necessary changes.
Sasaki Associates Inc. will look into current zoning laws to see if these laws are helping or hindering the development of affordable housing. They’ll study how housing is spread across the city to address areas where housing is either too concentrated or scarce. The aim is to break patterns where housing segregation exists, ensuring everyone has equal access to different neighborhoods. They will simulate different housing types and see how they would work out financially and spatially. This helps in planning realistic housing projects that are financially viable and offer a variety of living options to residents.
The city plans to adopt measures to prevent current residents from being pushed out of their neighborhoods as new developments come in. This includes maintaining affordable units in areas where rents tend to skyrocket and protecting tenants from eviction.
Almost a quarter of a million dollars for a study? How many studies do we need? Between Los Angeles and West Hollywood I wonder how many studies have been made concerning affordable housing and homelessness? I would really like to see how much has been spent on these studies over the last 10 years. This is the biggest scam I have ever seen. Especially that these organizations use interns to conduct these surveys with little or no pay. So where does the money really go?
Waste of money.
It’s simple, more density means more expensive. Weho crossed the cheap housing bridge 25 years ago.
The city of West Hollywood needs larger new apartment complexes with smaller size units. For example a 100 unit apartment complex with 400 to 800 sq ft studio, one bedroom and two bedroom units. This will solve the housing shortages.
How much housing do you want to tear down to build those?
There are currently 637 rentals available in Weho. 143 of those are for under $2,400/mon. Will the new 100 unit apartment complexes you talk about rent their units for under $2,400/month?
Predictably the consultant will say lower the parking requirements. Sacramento has been providing an array of incentives, but they are seem to get back to the same basics, provide less parking and less open space and abolish set back requirements. Maybe the City will write me a check….