A controversial housing and hotel complex that will stand out on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood got the go-ahead from the City Council.
Saying their hands were tied by state laws mandating more housing construction, West Hollywood officials earlier this month denied an appeal to stop the seven-story mixed-use project at 7811 Santa Monica Blvd., a stretch of the busy thoroughfare filled with one-story commercial buildings.
Local developer Faring plans to build the Bond Hotel & Residences, which will include a seven-story hotel with 45 rooms and a four-story apartment building with 126 units. The space will include a ground-floor restaurant and parking garage.
Twenty of the apartments are to be designated affordable for very low-income and moderate-income tenants, which forced the city to approve the project, some leaders said.
“I felt like I had to vote yes when I really wanted to vote no,” Planning Commissioner Rogerio Carvalheiro said in February after casting his vote to approve the project, WeHoOnline reported. “And it just sucks.”
West Hollywood public documents on the environmental impact of the Bond Hotel & Residences said the project “would accommodate the need for additional housing in the city and the County of Los Angeles, including affordable housing while supporting the economic vitality of the city.”
The environmental impact report also recognized “the housing crisis that exists in California” as demonstrated by the recent adoption of state laws that restrict cities’ ability to deny housing projects, such as the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, which was strengthened by later bills.
At the City Council hearing this month, Mayor John Heilman said the city lacks authority when its zoning laws are not in alignment with California state laws, Beverly Press & Park La Brea News reported.
“I do have some concerns about this project,” Heilman said. “I don’t love the design, and I don’t love the configuration … I think it creates a lot of unusual circumstances, but we don’t have the authority under state law to deny a project based on the fact that we don’t love the design.”
Faring did not respond to a request for comment on when work on the project might begin.
The property is owned by the Los Angeles real estate investment firm the Illulian Group, according to real estate data provider CoStar.
Housing production in Los Angeles County has slowed dramatically over the decades, dropping from over 70,000 new units annually in the 1950s to roughly 30,000 in the 1970s and 1980s to less than 15,000 in the 2010s.
This long-term slowdown in housing construction has left the region with an older, more strained housing stock and a deep shortfall in affordable options.
New apartment construction has tapered off in Los Angeles in recent years, even though there is high demand for housing, because many developers say it is difficult to turn a profit under current conditions.
