The City of Los Angeles is updating the Housing Element of its General Plan, as required every few years by state law. This year, the state has directed the city to find more than 400,000 new housing units. As part of that process, the city has identified an unused inventory of currently zoned sites for additional housing, but these weren’t enough to meet the state’s new requirement. So the city has identified more than 267,000 other sites that could be rezoned to permit multifamily housing — including almost the entire Westwood Hills neighborhood of single-family homes.
The draft Housing Element was developed by the City Planning Dept. and is now going to the City Planning Commission (CPC) for its approval at a meeting on October 14, 2021. If approved by the CPC, it next goes to the full City Council.
The WHPOA board has voted to oppose the draft Housing Element to the extent that it includes rezoning any part of our neighborhood as multifamily. Click here for the WHPOA comment letter, which most importantly requests that the city REMOVE from the list of rezoning candidates all the addresses in our neighborhood.
The list of addresses in our neighborhood is below, and this table can be downloaded here:A 10/1/2021 email from the city Planning Dept. provides details and links to materials, below:
Dear Stakeholders,
The proposed 2021-2029 Housing Element, Safety Element, and amendments to the Health Element will be heard by the City Planning Commission (CPC) on October 14th, 2021. A staff report, which includes the latest draft of each proposed plan, is now available on the Los Angeles City Planning website.
Access the staff report and draft plans here.
In addition to revised draft documents for the CPC staff report, a new interactive map is now available for sites identified in Housing Element Appendix 4.1 Inventory of Adequate Sites for Housing and Appendix 4.7 Inventory of Candidate Sites for Rezoning. Access the interactive map here.
Staff held two virtual public hearings on the Proposed Plans on September 21st and 22nd. A summary of comments shared at the public hearing and submitted in writing is available in the Staff Report. A full recording of the hearing is also available on the Los Angeles City Planning Website. Access a recording of the public hearing here.
Information on the October 14, 2021 CPC meeting, including how to attend and comment, is available below. A limited public hearing will be held by the City Planning Commission prior to consideration of the proposed plans. In addition to the CPC meeting, the Housing Element will be heard at the Affordable Housing Commission on October 6th, meeting details will be posted here.
City Planning Commission – Virtual Meeting
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Meeting to begin after 8:30 am
Meeting ID: 849 6500 5926
Password 377316
Click here to join the Zoom meeting
To call in: +1 213-338-8477 or +1 669-900-9128
Access the City Planning Commission Agenda here.