“Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should”: West Hollywood Approves Its First Builder’s Remedy Project

West Hollywood’s Planning Commission voted 6-0 Thursday night to approve the city’s first Builder’s Remedy housing project. Vice Chair Stacy Jones was absent.

Every commissioner who spoke said some version of the same thing before casting a vote: hands tied, state law compels it, yes. What united them wasn’t support for the project. It was a shared acknowledgment that their vote was a foregone conclusion and that the four Builder’s Remedy applications lined up behind this one will be too. 

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” said Planning Commissioner Lynn Hoopingarner.  “I will hold my nose and I will have to vote for this project.”

In case you’re wondering, a Builder’s Remedy is California’s way of punishing cities that don’t plan for enough housing. Every city is required to have a state-approved housing plan — called a Housing Element — showing how it intends to accommodate its share of regional growth. If the state hasn’t certified that plan as compliant, developers can invoke Builder’s Remedy to bypass local zoning entirely. Height limits, density caps, setback rules, none of it applies. The City can still require some design standards, but it can’t say no. West Hollywood’s Housing Element wasn’t in compliance when the 833 Westbourne application came in back in 2023. That’s what put a 68-foot building in a 25-foot zone.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The project at 833 Westbourne Drive is a 68-foot, six-story, 25-unit apartment building in the middle of a residential street zoned for two stories and 25 feet. The applicant is Benjamin Soleimani’s company, 833 Westbourne Drive LLC. The vote was on Draft Resolution PC 26-1641. Appeals are due to the City Clerk’s office by Monday, May 18 at 5 p.m.

Soleimani is known in West Hollywood’s design circles. He owns the block of Melrose Avenue real estate where Restoration Hardware is located, along with numerous other parcels throughout the City, and is the owner of MANSOUR Rugs on that same block. During public comment, resident Robert Steloff told the commission that Soleimani had privately said he didn’t want to be publicly linked to the project. 

“He did not want his name mentioned because of the embarrassment of this project,” Steloff said.

Hoopingarner opened her deliberation by pushing back on the premise of the whole evening. The City’s own vacancy rates, she said, tell a different story than the one staff was presenting.

“Staff’s assertion that we have a housing crisis is not supported by our 11 to 15% vacancy rates,” Hoopingarner said. “Once again, yes, we have an affordable housing crisis. We do not have a luxury housing crisis.” 

She was looking at a luxury apartment building. Her indictment of it flowed from one central observation. Usually, she said, developers and architects come before the commission proud of what they’ve designed.

“Usually, we have applicants come up here, the architect comes up, they are proud of what they have done. They are proud to show it off. We have to cut them off because they are busy sharing the beauty of their project, and how proud they are of it. We didn’t hear one word about this project,” Hoopingarner said.

“The fact that the applicant did not elect to share with us their project during their entire 10-minute presentation, but rather chose to lecture us about state law, for the entire 10 minutes, says all that we need to know about this project,” Hoopingarner said.

A second issue bugged multiple commissioners in. Concession No. 2 allowed all four affordable units to be clustered on the building’s bottom lowest floors rather than distributed throughout the building as code requires. Hoopingarner called it “the de facto creation of poor floors.” Commissioner Andrew Solomon said the City had no evidence to rebut the legal presumption that clustering saves money, which means every future Builder’s Remedy applicant will use the same move. Commissioner Jesi Harris said it added up to logical acrobatics. “There’s a bit of logical acrobatics in taking an exception from a standard that guides an exception in the first place,” Harris said.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Associate Planner Laurie Yelton confirmed the units must use consistent materials and finishes per the conditions of approval, but couldn’t clearly explain how clustering alone generates the claimed cost savings if design parity is required.

Two residents submitted written comments ahead of the meeting. Tri-West property and business owner Robert Steloff, who first raised the alarm about the project in March, called it the first of five Builder’s Remedy applications headed for his neighborhood.

“Without an enacted Ordinance for Objective Design Standards, the City is essentially inviting developers to ignore our neighborhood’s identity in favor of ‘monolithic stacked shoeboxes,'” Steloff said.

Center City resident Victor Omelczenko disputed the staff report’s characterization that no public comments had been received, saying he testified and submitted a memo at the March 26 Design Review Subcommittee meeting. He also said the May 29 deadline was manufactured, pointing to City quarterly reports showing environmental review was quietly dropped from the project timeline while the developer waited for a new CEQA exemption to take effect.

“They didn’t ‘streamline’ the process; they ‘slow-walked’ it for a year until they could claim a Statutory Exemption from CEQA,” Omelczenko said. “This is a deliberate avoidance of public scrutiny.”

The story ends where it started — with Hoopingarner. When deliberations opened, she had the floor. She used every inch of it:

“I guess I’m gonna begin with just because you can doesn’t mean you should. First of all, Staff’s assertion that we have a housing crisis is not supported by our 11 to 15% vacancy rates. Once again, yes, we have an affordable housing crisis. But we do not have a luxury housing crisis. To that end, in fact, it is very sad that this six-story building is only going to provide one new affordable housing unit. One. Three existing residents have lost their home and most likely aren’t coming back because they were Ellised. And we’re only gonna get one new affordable housing unit.

“The fact that the applicant did not elect to share with us their project during their entire 10-minute presentation, but rather chose to lecture us about state law, for the entire 10 minutes, says all that we need to know about this project. Usually, we have applicants come up here, the architect comes up, they are proud of what they have done. They are proud to show it off. We have to cut them off because they are busy sharing the beauty of their project, and how proud they are of it. We didn’t hear one word about this project. It’s interesting to hear from the public that Mr. Soleimani doesn’t want to be associated with this project, and I’m confused because his name is all over the documents submitted as the owner of this project. And it’s my understanding that he’s a rather well-known designer… I’ve not seen a great deal of his work, but one would think that someone doing high-end luxury design work would want to be proud of a project and how it’s going to reflect on their reputation as a designer.

“Staff’s urban design analysis dams this with faint praise. It is, quote, characterized by rectilinear massing. Let me interpret that. That’s a big square box. With a, quote, limited material palette — it’s boring and unremarkable. With a, quote, base, middle, and top composition — it has a bunch of stories. It goes on to basically say it’s a building. This is a longtime business owner in our city who, one would think, would want a thriving, attractive city that attracts people to our community and to his businesses. So what he’s hanging his hat on here is, frankly, baffling to me.

“Parking. Once again, we’re looking at a project that’s only parking 20% of their 30 bedrooms. For another luxury building. Let’s not kid ourselves — this is going to be luxury housing. I’m not sure what you’ve got in your pro formas for rent. But if you think you’re going to rent a 6th-story, luxury, two-bedroom apartment for somewhere between $8,000 and $10,000 and not give them parking, I think you’re, frankly, delusional in this town.

“As for the concessions and the waivers, I am frankly disappointed that the City made no effort to gather information about how having these affordable units — not evenly distributed, but stuck on the bottom floors, without any design configuration changes whatsoever in the floor plans — the only way they’re going to save money is in lower quality materials. And that’s the only way they could get a cost-savings concession, which is what concessions are about. And I find that very unfortunate, that we are forced to prove the case, and we have no data.

“As for the waivers: an 83% reduction in private open space. Dinky balconies that you cannot even put a café table and two chairs on. Those balconies are useless. A 66% reduction in front setbacks. A 44% decrease in side yard setbacks. A 174% increase in height over what is otherwise permitted. No canopy trees — after destroying a minimum of three, and most likely four, existing mature trees. The volume of carbon that one mature tree takes out of our community. The heat island effect it reduces. The rainwater runoff a mature tree handles. And we are once again losing an entire lot full of them. And yes, it’s a taking.

“All of those reductions in setbacks is a taking from the neighborhood buildings. All of those shades and shadows are takings from neighborhood buildings. They’re taking away the parking from the neighborhood. It takes away the trees and the air quality and the water runoff and the heat island.

“I will hold my nose, and I will have to vote for this project. Those are my comments,”

Lynn Hoopingarner calls it like she sees it and says what needs saying. No hedging. No ceremony. No soft landing.

Miranda Priestly would recognize the type…“That’s all.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Benjamin Soleimani’s connection to Restoration Hardware. He owns the Melrose Avenue block where RH is located. A rug collection for RH was the work of his brother Ben Soleimani, who is not involved in the 833 Westbourne project.