West Hollywood : Guidelines for Development
The City Council has given the developer of a controversial luxury senior citizens housing project a set of guidelines designed to lessen the impact of the project on the surrounding residential area near the city’s border with Beverly Hills.
The council’s 3-0 vote Monday night confirmed a tentative decision in April to reduce the size of the Rossmoor Regency senior care residence from six stories and 152 units to five stories and 138 units. The project will be located at Doheny Drive and Harland Avenue.
The city is also requiring landscaping to buffer the development from nearby homes and has asked that the upper floors be set back or terraced to make the building less imposing from street level.
Before building permits are issued, the developer, Rossmoor Enterprises Inc. of Laguna Hills, must submit a revised plan and a model of the project for review by the council and the public.
To get the approval, the developer agreed to pay $960,000 to the city’s affordable housing trust fund, the equivalent cost of 30 low-rent apartments, city officials said.
Apartment units in the congregate-care facility are expected to rent for $2,200 to $3,200 a month, which will include such amenities as transportation and meals.
“Essentially, we have granted the developer the right to build the project,” said Councilman John Heilman, who was joined by Mayor Abbe Land and Councilman Paul Koretz in approving the resolution. New council members Sal Guarriello and Babette Lang abstained from voting because they were not on the council when the initial public hearings on the project took place.
Two residents who live near the development site were at the meeting Monday to protest the decision. In the past, discussion of the project has drawn a flood of protests from West Hollywood and Beverly Hills residents.
Lester Stein, a Beverly Hills resident who lives near the site, accused the city of giving Rossmoor a free ride by allowing the developer to build a five-story building so close to a residential area.
