West Hollywood residents are asking city officials to reject a virtual community meeting they say shut down meaningful public engagement for a proposed apartment building at 8760 Shoreham Drive.
The January 28 Zoom meeting was run by Afriat Consulting Group, representing the developer. Residents couldn’t speak out loud. They could only type questions in the chat. Many say their questions got ignored.
Elyse Eisenberg chairs the West Hollywood Heights Neighborhood Association. She wrote to city planners after the meeting to share her concerns.
“I would like to add my voice to the extremely poor community meeting format organized by Afriat,” Eisenberg wrote. “I wish to take the position that the way the meeting was held would not satisfy the requirements of a proper community meeting and the city should not accept this meeting as having satisfied the community meeting requirements.”
The project doubled since 2021
The developer wants to replace an existing two-story commercial building at 8760 Shoreham Drive at Sherbourne Drive. The Spanish Colonial home was built in 1938 and once belonged to Golden Age star Merle Oberon. In its place would go a six-story building with 22 apartments. That’s according to the official city meeting notice.
An earlier version of this project only had 11 units. The West Hollywood Heights Neighborhood Association website says that project’s neighborhood appeal got denied back in October 2021. The site also notes there was “no activity on project since 2021” until now.
The current plan includes 17 two-bedroom units and five one-bedroom units. There’d be 23 parking spaces in one level of partial underground parking with a rooftop deck above it. The lot is 9,912 square feet, north of Sunset Boulevard in the R4A Zone.
The project is exempt from environmental review under AB 130.
Residents say the format was a bust
People who showed up to the January 28 meeting couldn’t talk. They couldn’t see each other. They couldn’t even see what questions other people were asking in the chat.
“I thoroughly blame Afriat for the direction of this meeting, not the developers, and formally request that they be prevented from having future meetings in this format,” Eisenberg wrote. “It left a VERY bad taste in everyone’s mouth. It was an extremely frustrating process.”
Eisenberg said she noticed something else unusual. No one from the developer’s team had their cameras on or introduced themselves during the meeting.
“That is a first for what I can recall of any new project development community meeting,” she wrote.
Zavala told WEHOonline he was on camera and microphone throughout the “entirety of the meeting” as the spokesperson for the development team.
Residents said the format meant they couldn’t tell if other people shared their concerns.
“This format of not letting anyone be visible, not being able to see anyone’s else’s questions in chats, the selectiveness of what was responded to, etc., just served to anger and frustrate people,” Eisenberg wrote.
She compared it to meetings run by other developers. Jeff Seymour has held several community meetings on Zoom in the past year, Eisenberg said, and those went fine. People raised their hands to speak. Everyone could see the chat. It worked.
Richard Gitterman owns units at nearby 8729 Shoreham and 1230 Horn. He sent his own complaint to the city.
“Although the meeting was presented as an opportunity for public feedback, residents were not allowed to speak and were limited to submitting questions through the chat, which only one developer representative reviewed,” Gitterman wrote. “This highly controlled format prevented meaningful dialogue and did not allow the city or the developer to accurately assess community concerns or sentiment.”
He said most residents felt dismissed. “It gave the clear impression that public input was being managed and filtered rather than genuinely sought.”
Richard Wight, another WeHo Heights resident, called the format something else entirely. “The Neighborhood Zoom Meeting for the project proposed for 8760 Shoreham held January 28, 2026 at 6pm was in no way a ‘meeting,’ it was a BRIEFING,” Wight wrote. He referenced last week’s Planning Commission meeting where commissioners discussed getting involved in neighborhood meetings earlier in the project process. “Planning Commissioners would not have tolerated the structure of this meeting and West Hollywood residents should not have to tolerate this structure either,” Wight wrote. He called for a do-over. “This Neighborhood Meeting needs to be rescheduled and held all over again so it is actually a MEETING and not a BRIEFING.”
Jerome Cleary, another longtime resident told WEHOonline that he sees it as disrespect for people who’ve lived here for years.
“Lobbyists and developers shouldn’t fear a fair process. Residents aren’t ‘the enemy,’ we are the heartbeat of this community,” Cleary said. “Yet, we’re being pushed aside with a level of disrespect that West Hollywood shouldn’t tolerate. We have decades of institutional knowledge. Trying to ignore our voices isn’t just wrong, it’s a disservice to the city’s future.”
Residents say parking math doesn’t work
Gitterman asked about parking during the meeting, but the response did not fully address his question.
“I also submitted a direct and relevant question regarding the potential substantially negative impact of limited parking in our area,” Gitterman wrote. “While I understand the developer is relying on AB 2097, there has been no effort to address this issue through a parking study or supporting data.”
He owns units in two buildings on the same block. Two-bedroom units in both those buildings average about 2 vehicles per unit, he said.
Using those numbers, Gitterman calculated that the proposed project’s 17 two-bedroom units and five one-bedroom units could generate approximately 39 vehicles. The project provides 23 parking spaces.
“Does the builder really believe he can lease 2 bedrooms at market prices when only offering 1 parking space?” Gitterman asked.
Other residents said their chat questions got ignored too. “This was far from a neighborhood meeting!” Gitterman wrote.
City and developer respond
Nicholas Maricich, the city’s Community Development Director, said the city doesn’t impose strict requirements on how neighborhood meetings are conducted. The meetings are led by developers as opportunities for residents to get information and give feedback, he wrote in an email to WEHOonline.
“As such, we always strongly encourage open formats that allow for comments,” Maricich wrote. “Historically, the City has not imposed strict requirements for how the meetings are conducted.”
The project hasn’t been scheduled for a Planning Commission hearing yet. Maricich said city staff would be happy to talk with residents about the project or the review process. “City staff is more than happy to talk through any aspect of the proposed project as well as the development review process over email, virtual meeting, telephone, or in person,” he wrote.
Brandon Zavala, a spokesperson for the project with Afriat Consulting Group, said the January 28 meeting satisfied the city’s neighborhood meeting requirement. He said it was the first of at least three public meetings that will happen for the project.
“The Zoom format used is one that has been used for many similar neighborhood meetings over the past several years to ensure information is delivered clearly, feedback is recorded, and questions are submitted in an efficient manner so that they may be answered,” Zavala wrote. “During the meeting, questions submitted through the chat were read aloud and addressed where possible.”
On parking, Zavala said the project is being processed under California Assembly Bill 2097. That law prohibits cities from imposing minimum parking requirements on residential projects within a half mile of a major transit stop. The Shoreham site meets that standard, so no minimum parking applies, he said.
The developer is voluntarily proposing 23 parking spaces anyway. “That number being arrived at based on the developer’s experience and research with other apartment projects,” Zavala wrote.
He said neighborhood meetings aren’t replacements for formal public hearings where residents can speak directly to decision makers. “We expressed to neighbors during the meeting and in email exchanges afterwards that we are always happy to meet over coffee with any one or group of neighbors to answer questions related to the project, the review process, and to provide additional information,” Zavala wrote.
The developer’s offering coffee meetings. The city’s offering to talk through the project with anyone who calls. Residents want another shot at a neighborhood meeting where they can actually talk to each other, not just type questions. The Planning Commission will eventually hear from all of them.
“Historically, the City has not imposed strict requirements for how the meetings are conducted.” Seems like there is nothing “strict” about common courtsey to the community. I agree that this meeting did not meet any sort of requirement for a fair public dialogue and should be rescheduled with City oversight as to why the chat questions were not visible to all nor addressed. ….He said “neighborhood meetings aren’t replacements for formal public hearings where residents can speak directly to decision makers.” In my experience, community members are only alowed to make statements and do not have any interaction with “decison… Read more »
The leaders in this city are truly disgusting. Are they getting kickbacks or are they this incompetent? Same playbook over and over. Developers buy up land and sit on it indefinitely while the abandoned properties become beacons for squatters. They then knock the property down and then it sits another few years. Then they sell the land to someone else due to financing issues. We all then live with abandoned properties and lots indefinitely.
City Council majority has sold out to developers and this will continue on for many years to come. City Staff is no better as they continue to blame public input as the reason we are in a housing crisis. Watch planning commissioners continue to push to eliminate the public process.
The whole process is meant to be a massage with no Happy Ending.
Another example of City Council ignoring residents and giving the key of the city to developers. DISGUSTING! They need to be replaced.
Okay, let’s get some good people to run for office. And help them campaign. Sadly, as with the national problem–big money has infected the process in West Hollywood elections–several excellent candidates in the last election lost to those who had name recognition but so-so records.