City ‘Village’ Wins Honors

A small Hollywood apartment complex that incorporates a community garden and playground has been honored by the Urban Land Institute as an example of “civic engagement.”

Normandie Village, on Normandie Avenue north of Hollywood Boulevard, won top honors nationally for a small-scale residential project in the institute’s 1999 Awards for Excellence.

The development, on half an acre, includes 15 three- and four-bedroom units, plus a manager’s apartment, arranged around a courtyard and “village center.”

Features include the community garden, a children’s playground with a stage, barbecue area, community multipurpose room, laundry room and a second-floor deck from which parents can keep an eye on children in the playground.

“We were able to create a development that had the feel of a village,” said Mary-Jane Wagle of O.N.E. Co., a Los Angeles developer of low-income housing. “It’s like a refreshing oasis . . . in the middle of the street.”

O.N.E. partnered with a community development organization called Searching to Involve Pilipino Americans to build the project. The organization also provides social services to residents at Normandie Village, which was completed in December 1998.

Murals at the site represent the diversity of the neighborhood and the apartments, which are home to Armenian, Latino, African American and Filipino residents, Wagle said.

Landscaping includes citrus and deciduous trees and vine-covered walls that discourage graffiti, said Heather Erickson of Katherine Spitz & Associates, the landscape architects who worked on the project.

Rents at Normandie Village are affordable for families earning less than 50% of the county’s median income.

“This small but significant project exemplifies civic engagement,” wrote the panel of 13 judges. “Private for-profit, private nonprofit and public-sector agencies collaborated to provide a community-enhancing infill housing project for large, low-income families in . . . a dense urban setting.”

Also contributing to the completion of Normandie Village were Fannie Mae, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and Bank of America, Wagle said.

The institute’s other Southern California award winner for 1999 was the Commons at Calabasas, which won the designation for small-scale commercial/hotel project.

Developed by Caruso Affiliated Holdings and designed by architect David W. Williams, the Commons has 37 retail tenants, including restaurants, shops and entertainment venues.

Judges said the project created “a town center where none existed before.”

Among the institute members judging the competition’s entries were four Southern Californians:

Toni Alexander of InterCommunications in Newport Beach, A. Larry Chapman of Wells Fargo Bank in Los Angeles, H. Pike Oliver of the Presidio Group in Newport Beach and Robert N. Ruth of Trammell Crow Co. of Los Angeles.

The 63-year-old Urban Land Institute is a 15,000-member nonprofit education and research organization that focuses on land use and real estate development policy and practice.

Winners of this year’s 11 Awards for Excellence were selected from 70 nationwide entries.