This week, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission is scheduled to hear an appeal of updated plans for a mixed-use development on Westwood Boulevard.
The project, which comes from an entity affiliated with Halco Management, calls for demolishing a two-story commercial building at 2136-2140 Westwood Boulevard to make way for a five-story edifice containing 77 one- and two-bedroom apartments and 70 parking spaces. The currently-approved project is a revision of an earlier development proposed at the same site, which would have contained 64 apartments and 5,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space. Halco has since increased the density of the project through Transit Oriented Communities incentives, which would be granted for setting aside seven apartments as affordable housing.
The Albert Group Architects is designing the low-rise building, which would feature a C-shaped footprint above a concrete base. Renderings show stepped building heights adjacent to a neighboring residential block to the east.
The appellant, Dr. Stewart FOrdham, argues that the design of the proposed building is not in compliance with the Transit Oriented Communities guidelines, and that the project should not be granted an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act. A staff response recommends that the appeal should be denied, and that the project's approvals should be upheld.
