A pending presentation to the Los Angeles City Planning Commission unveils renderings for a proposed multifamily residential development in Larchmont Village.

View from Larchmont looking southeastAaron Brumer & Assoc.

The project, filed with the Planning Department in January 2021, would rise from a quarter-acre site at the northeast corner of Larchmont Boulevard and Rosewood Avenue, replacing a pair of small commercial buildings. In their place, plans call for the construction of a new five-story edifice featuring 21 one- and two-bedroom apartments above ground-floor parking for 21 vehicles.

Approved plans use Transit Oriented Communities incentives to permit increased height and reductions to zone-required side-yard setbacks. In exchange for the incentives, two apartments are to be set aside as deed-restricted extremely low-income affordable housing.

Aaron Brumer & Associates is designing the apartment complex, which would use a series of cascading setbacks along the eastern property line to provide transitional height to a neighboring residential zone, while also creating terrace decks for use by residents. A second-floor recreation room is also proposed to provide additional open space.

View looking north from RosewoodAaron Brumer & Assoc.

The project is faced with an appeal from a neighboring property owner, who argues that the site should have been ineligible for Transit Oriented Communities incentives, and contends that underground petroleum tanks below the surface of the property require soil remediation. A staff response, finding no evidence for the claims made by the appellant, recommends that the Commission should uphold the approval of the project.

City records list the owner and developer of 500 Larchmont as Galaxy Commercial Holdings, which acquired the property for approximately $2.5 million in 2006. Galaxy Commercial Holdings is also behind plans for a larger mixed-use housing complex near the Port of L.A.'s main channel in San Pedro.