Developers of massive Lincoln Heights resi project change tack to collect city incentives

UPDATED, Oct. 14, at 11:05 a.m.: One of the biggest projects to take advantage of Los Angeles’ Transit Oriented Communities housing incentive program was unveiled Thursday.

The Pinyon Group, a downtown-based developer, submitted a request for approval with the L.A. Planning Commission to construct a 468-unit building above 16,000-square-feet of retail space.

The project, at 151 W. Avenue 34, is two blocks from the Heritage Square gold line stop, qualifying it for the city program that lifts density requirements for projects built within a half-mile of a transit stop. Since it was approved as part of a 2016 ballot measure, developers have filed for hundreds of TOC projects, totaling nearly 20,000 units, around 3,900 of them affordable.

The space is currently an industrial warehouse site, said Andrew Brady, the project’s representative and an attorney in DLA Piper’s downtown office.

The city had approved a 373 residential unit project for the site, Brady said, that included more retail and office space than the current proposal. The revised plan qualifies the project for city incentives.

Under the new proposal, 66 units would be reserved for very low- income housing.

The proposal comes six months after two other transit program projects were proposed near the Heritage Square stop, a 55-unit project by Toronto-based developer Greg Sharp at 3547-3585 N. Figueroa St. and a 100-unit development by FDZ Partners at 3836 N. Figueroa St..

The Pinyon Group’s website bills the company as working on transit friendly and environmentally sustainable projects near the Los Angeles river. Its managing principals are Robert DeForest and Jay Stark.