Los Angeles City Council Expands Adaptive Reuse Incentives
The City of Los Angeles’ Adaptive Reuse Ordinance encourages conversion of underutilized commercial buildings to housing in the downtown area. Since the ordinance was passed in 1999, a number of older commercial buildings have been converted to thousands of apartments, condominiums, live-work space, artists’ lofts, etc. This success led City leaders to expand the incentives to other areas of the City.
City Council Approves ARO Expansion and Study of “Residential-to-Residential”
On December 18, 2002, the L.A. City Council approved an expansion of the Adaptive Reuse ordinance to Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, the Hollywood and Koreatown CRA project areas, and Central Avenue between the Santa Monica Freeway and Vernon Avenue through adoption of a specific plan. The measure became very controversial when the Planning Department attempted to correct a drafting error in the original ordinance. At issue was whether the Adaptive Reuse Incentives should be available for residential-to-residential conversions, such as converting a residential-slum hotel to loft housing (see The Slum Hotel Connection below). A compromise was struck to prohibit residential to residential conversions in the expanded areas, but not in downtown. The City Council also set up a task force to study the issue of residential to residential conversion in downtown, but as of early 2005, the task force had not issued any reports.
The Slum Hotel Connection
Livable Places joined housing and homeless advocates in supporting the geographic expansion and opposing residential-to-residential conversions in all areas. The Adaptive Reuse Ordinance was clearly intended to add to the housing stock by converting underutilized, non-residential properties to housing – not by reducing the number of units affordable to very low income people. It is both possible and desirable to create a mixed-income community in Downtown Los Angeles without displacing current residents of apartments and hotels in these areas. The CRA projects 37,000 housing units in the proposed City Center and City Industrial Project Areas over the next thirty years. Even if the existing “problem” properties in the Historic Core and South Park were rehabilitated, properly managed, and maintained as affordable and an additional 3,000 units were built for people living on the streets, low-income units would comprise approximately one-third of the total units.
Slum hotels can be rehabilitated while keeping them affordable to current residents. Non-profit developers have rehabbed over 3,000 units of formerly slum housing in the downtown area. We have the know-how within our community to upgrade the nine largest hotels that contain 2,600 units that is the housing of last resort. With the passage of the state housing bond (Prop. 46), the creation of the $100 million housing trust fund and the possibility of additional project-based Section 8 vouchers, we have substantial new resources that can be used to upgrade and preserve this low-income housing.
What Exactly are the Adaptive Reuse Incentives?
LA City’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance has the following incentives:
- Expedited review (specifically, exemption from mini-shopping and commercial corner development regulations and site plan review), and
- Exemption from more restrictive or burdensome updates in planning codes relative to Floor Area Ratios, height, yards, residential density, parking, and loading spaces.
- New mezzanines are not calculated in the Floor Area Ratios.