A revised attempt at a affordable housing development on city-owned properties came back to the community last week, with concerns still persisting about the loss of parking in the Wilshire-Montana area.
On Oct. 23, city officials and Hollywood Community Housing Corporation (HCHC) held a virtual meeting for the plan to build a total of 130 apartment units on parcels at 1217 Euclid Street, 1211-1217 14th Street and 1402 Wilshire Blvd. The 1217 Euclid Street development would consist of 48 family units, while the 1211-1217 14th Street and 1402 Wilshire parcels would have 82 senior affordable and senior permanent supportive housing units.
The proposed development is a change from earlier proposals which included units at 1146 16th Street, with explicit direction from Santa Monica City Council to retain the site’s current use as a parking lot. The other major change is an attempt from HCHC to purchase the Unleashed pet supply building at 1402 Wilshire as part of the senior housing parcels.
HCHC Executive Director Sarah Letts stated that the organization has collected over 400 responses to the project thus far, including a contentious meeting in July in which the public was perturbed at the lack of time for a question-and-answer period. Letts added that the feedback has led to an intention to now serve exclusively seniors aged 55+ at the 14th Street site, with 40 one-bedroom apartments used for permanent supportive housing, 40 used for affordable senior housing, and two two-bedroom units created for on-site personnel.
Another concern at both the 14th Street and Euclid developments was that larger units should be provided, with the revised plan to remove studio apartments from the mix, with the 130 combined units now being a mix of one, two and three-bedroom apartments.
“We heard from people … that studios are not ideal, and so we found a way to have a minimum unit size be at least a one-bedroom apartment, so we feel like that’s a positive change,” Letts said.
Despite the litany of changes discussed, which also includes stepping down the 14th Street site from 5-6 stories into 4-story buildings due to the potential Unleashed site acquisition mitigating “some of the height concerns,” the elimination of the parking spots was still a sore subject for residents.
Local Lisa Jimenez, who stated she lived across the street from the 1217 Euclid parking lot, says it is “utilized very often throughout the day” and is nervous about the lot’s removal. The 48-unit Euclid site is currently slated to have 40 resident and guest parking spaces.
“There are times where I’ve seen cars just driving around because they can’t find parking … I just feel like there’s some decisions being made just quickly because it has to get done, and that might not necessarily be helpful for the quality of the neighborhood, for not only the existing neighbors, the businesses, but also the people that are moving into these spaces,” Jimenez said.
HCHC representatives stated that the parking discussion will ramp up once more when the development returns to Council in either December or January. The HCHC team added that they have been speaking to businesses around the lots about anticipated impacts.
Another Euclid resident, Esther Chung, bemoaned the fact that the Euclid site would have less parking spots than total residents if the development comes to pass.
“In the last four years I’ve been living here, I must have been paid close to $1,000 for parking violations … I drive around for two, three blocks trying to find a parking space … there are 48 units, and I see 40 parking spots, and that means they are not even going to have enough parking spots for themselves, and now with [the] current situation that I am in, I am going to compete with these residents for parking spots, especially on the street cleaning day,” Chung said.
Safety concerns were also brought up for the senior site at 14th, with the HCHC team stating that staffing at the site will include paying a security guard.
“As [we] finish a building and lease it up and [it] becomes stabilized, we’ve committed to hiring a security guard nights and weekends during the first year of operations,” Letts said.
Next milestones for the potential project include another round of Council talks in the coming months, followed by a hearing with the Architectural Review Board for design approval.
thomas@smdp.com
