City Council Greenlights Controversial Reef Development in South LA

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NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS--Controversial plans to build a massive housing, hotel, and retail project with a skyscraper on a parking lot in South LA was unanimously approved by the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday. More than 1,400 apartments and condos will be built, but many will be unaffordable for South LA residents 

City leaders have said the development, called The Reef, has the potential to transform the neighborhood, which has been overlooked by developers until now. It may bring job opportunities and quality restaurants to a neglected area, but it has drawn fierce opposition over fears it will drive up living costs and displace thousands of residents. 

Streetsblog LA has followed the plans closely and offered this critique today: While it sounds like “livability wet dream” it “caters to a well-heeled clientele;” it is “situated on the edge of a neighborhood that is both one of the poorest in the city and the most overcrowded in the entire country.” 

Los Angeles City Councilman Curren Price, who reps South LA, told the Los Angeles Times: “It is new … and we have not seen this in the 9th District or South Los Angeles and there’s certainly some uncertainty about it but definitely some excitement and enthusiasm.” 

With the city’s approval, physicians Avedis and Ara Tavitian will develop a parking lot and warehouse at South Broadway and Washington Boulevard with 1,444 condos and apartments, a grocery store, a gallery, a hotel with 208 rooms, outdoor plazas, and more than 67,000 square feet of shops and restaurants in buildings ranging in height from 77 to 420 feet. 

Opponents have speculated the city was swift in approving the project ahead of the implementation of a ballot measure approved by Los Angeles voters earlier this month that will require residential developers to make 20 percent of all condos and 11-25 percent of apartments in their buildings affordable. 

The Tavitian brothers agreed to designate just 5 percent of the 549 apartments for tenants earning very low incomes. (None of the condos will be designated affordable). But they did agree to pay the city $15 million for affordable housing off-site, but within Council District 9. 

But with The Reef, affordability isn’t the only concern. Streetsblog’s Sahra Sulaiman says residents fear gentrification in the neighborhood will make their lives more difficult in other ways. She quotes Alfredo Gama of the Central Alameda Neighborhood Council: “I get stopped by police going out to my car at two a.m. to get my books!” Then she writes, “How much more frequently would he and others like him be harassed once higher-income residents moved in and sought protection from their “suspicious-looking” lower-income neighbors?” Those types of tactics, she says, are not uncommon in gentrifying neighborhoods.

All images via Department of City Planning except photo of protesters - Credit: Angel Jennings / Los Angeles Times)

 

(Jenna Handler posts at Curbed LA ….where this commentary originated) Prepped for CityWatch by Dianne Lawrence.

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