As 2025 looms in the horizon, one housing project remains in a gray area

Despite the city’s efforts to build more affordable housing units in Los Angeles as a strategy to end homelessness and permanently support the housing crisis, one major project continues to be in constant limbo with no accurate completion date. 

Venice Dell, a 140-unit affordable and supportive housing project set to be built in the affluent Westside community of Venice is still far from complete because of delays, challenges and backdoor strategies orchestrated by L.A. officials,  according to community and housing rights organizations. 

As reported by CALÒ News earlier this year, a lawsuit was filed on July 10, 2024 against the City of Los Angeles alleging closed-door sabotaging and unlawful blocking of the projects, specifically by L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park of District 11, where the project would be built, and by city attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto. 

Apart from trying to shed light on Park's and Soto’s obstruction practices, which allegedly consist of not answering emails and stalling on city approval contracts needed for the finalization of the housing project, the lawsuit claims the delay of Venice Dell violates state equal protection and fair housing laws, such as FEHA and the California Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.

Last week, two and a half years after the L.A. City Council voted to approve Venice Dell in June 2022, and the city entered into a binding agreement to allow affordable and supportive housing to be built on the city-owned parking lot in Venice. the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved the housing project, an action that brought a bit more clarity and hope to the project’s future. 

Faizah Malik, managing attorney of Public Counsel’s housing justice initiatives, the organization representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said that because the project is on the coastal side of Venice, the California Coastal Commission has jurisdiction over the project's coastal permits. 

In the same meeting, the California Coastal Commission praised the housing project as a “jewel” for the Venice neighborhood and rejected the 11 appeals filed by opponents of the project. Malilk said this is only one key step of a long road ahead, a road that city officials themselves have blocked. 

“The city first identified the parking lot where Venice Dell will be built in 2016… it's been too long,” Malik said. 

According to Public Counsel and the lawsuits whose plaintiffs include the LA Forward Institute (LA Forward); Sylvia Aroth, a Venice resident; Gary Williams, a local professor and Kathy Coates, who is currently homeless, alleged that the project has not advanced and has been on a constant threat of termination since Park took office in 2023.

Park and Soto have both previously opposed the project. “The proposed mixed-use development does little or nothing to address either the homelessness or affordability crisis in our city or the Westside of L.A.,” Park wrote in a 2022 letter to then-L.A. City Councilmember Joe Buscaino. “This project will forever change the character of the historic Venice Canal community.” 

Malik said that ​the blocking of projects by city leaders like Park and Soto through delays and challenges often comes under the guise of environmental concerns, property values and even parking, but in reality, it is just a way to keep communities intact, wealthier and more segregated. 

Even after the lawsuit, the blockages and malicious intent from city leaders like Soto and Park have not stopped and only continued. One of the latest examples was an unprecedented move from the city’s advisory Board of Transportation Commissioners (BOTC), which scheduled a special meeting on December 10th, the day before the Coastal Commission meeting, and voted to recommend the project not move forward on the site, seemingly to cast doubt on the city council’s approvals.

“The unprecedented action of the City’s advisory Board of Transportation Commissioners is another indicator of discriminatory backroom efforts to stop the plan to build Venice Dell, in clear violation of fair housing laws,” Malik said. “The city’s actions to obstruct Venice Dell are not only denying housing opportunities to low-income people on the wealthy Westside of Los Angeles but sending a signal to affordable housing developers that they cannot even rely on the city’s own objective processes and approvals, which creates a chilling effect on development at a time when we need to urgently build and approve these units.”

Park recently told the Los Angeles Times that this action from the BOTC essentially killed the project, since “the commission declined to convey the lot.". 

But Malik said this was not true. “Because the California Coastal Commission is a state commission, their decision trumps the city's decision,” she said. “We will be challenging the BOTC’s decision to find a different parking area that is in direct conflict with the city council's initial direction.” 

Malik also said Mayor Karen Bass has not had any direct support for the project and has instead been an active bystander in the city’s, Soto’s and Park’s obstructions. “ I think it’s just really troubling, the mayor's indifference in this case to the city attorney and council member Park,” Malik said. “She has not explicitly come out to show her support and all of her public statements so far have just said that she will defer to the council member, which is incredibly troubling because we have a citywide policy that says that the city wants to prioritize affordable housing on public land.” 

For David Levitus, executive director of LA Forward, this isn't just about one housing project, it’s about every neighborhood in the city stepping up to help solve our homeless crisis.

“The city’s deeply shameful backroom efforts to kill an approved affordable housing project undermine LA's commitments to equity and housing justice," Levitus said. "It is time our city leaders stop looking the other way while a handful of officials sabotage this project and push us backward. Venice Dell has been stalled for nearly two years, and every day of delay leaves us with fewer affordable housing options and deeper challenges.”