Picus Supports Proposal for Housing Over Parking Lot : Canoga Park: Redevelopment Agency officials are considering funding the $800,000 plan to build eight apartments for low-income families on city land.
A developer of innovative low-income housing is moving forward with plans to build an eight-unit apartment complex for poor families over a city-owned parking lot in Canoga Park.
The project, which is in the preliminary stages, would be the first of its kind in the city for low-income families and is supported by Councilwoman Joy Picus, who represents the area. Community Redevelopment Agency officials have also expressed interest in funding the approximately $800,000 project.
Two similar housing developments have been built over city lots on the Westside and two more are planned in Sherman Oaks and Hollywood. But they are restricted to senior citizen occupants.
The developer is architect Arnold Stalk of Woodland Hills, whose nonprofit L.A. Family Housing Corp. has built several low-income housing complexes that emphasize innovative, inexpensive design and offer social services for residents. The projects include Valley Shelter in North Hollywood and two other shelters where homeless families receive employment counseling and help in finding permanent housing. The organization also runs the city’s cold-weather shelter program for the homeless.
Stalk and other housing experts developed an affordable housing plan endorsed by Mayor Tom Bradley in 1989 in which the city would donate air rights over public parking lots for apartments.
But Stalk and Picus have decided to pursue the Canoga Park effort independently because the citywide plan is moving slowly, Stalk said Wednesday.
The city effort has been slowed by a reorganization of city departments that handle housing programs, said Jane Blumenfeld, Bradley’s planning adviser. She said the air-rights plan will be run by the newly created city Department of Housing Preservation and Production.
Stalk will present the proposal May 23 to representatives of the Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce, in the first of several meetings with community groups.
“It is not a done deal,” said Laura Chick, a Picus deputy. “We want to incorporate input from the community in the design process. . . . It would be designed to fit in well into the neighborhood. It will be meeting a need. There is not enough affordable housing in the city.”
Although low-income housing sometimes creates concern in neighborhoods, Chick said she does not anticipate major opposition because some leaders have already expressed support for the concept.
The plan calls for the complex to be built over a 21,000-square-foot city lot in the 7100 block of Jordan Avenue. The townhouse-style units would be constructed around a courtyard on a deck over the parking lot, which would retain 30 of its 38 spaces, Stalk said. The building would cost about $100,000 per unit, a 30% savings over normal costs, he said.
The residents, working poor families chosen through applications, would pay about $350 a month for rent and receive social services from a resident manager and other L.A. Family Housing Corp. staff, Stalk said.
“Social services are a big part of this,” he said. “Long-term management is the key.”
Stalk has met with officials of the city Department of Transportation, which manages the lot. They are determining the value of the air rights, which Stalk wants to acquire for a minimal cost, said Principal Transportation Engineer Alice Lepis, who said the assessment of the proposal should be complete within several months.
If an agreement is reached, Stalk will seek a development loan from the Community Redevelopment Agency. City Council approval would also be required.
Bob Garvin, a member of the Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday that he knew few details about the proposal. But he said he was impressed last year when Picus aides took community leaders to see the parking-lot housing complexes on the Westside. He added that the group expressed interest in bringing a similar project to the west San Fernando Valley.
