State Lawmaker Miguel Santiago looks to adaptive reuse for LA housing

State lawmaker Miguel Santiago wants to revive adaptive reuse to house Angelenos. 

Santiago, who represents the California Assembly’s 54th District that includes Los Angeles, Commerce, Montebello and Vernon, has recently introduced the bills AB 2909 and AB 2910 which would enable conversion of vacant office buildings into residential housing citywide. He’s the latest advocate of the strategy, arguing it’s a timely solution in a market with an oversupply of office space and shortage of residential housing. 

The idea of adaptive reuse isn’t new. It has figured as a potential solution to California’s housing challenges before, with some crediting Los Angeles’ 1999 Adaptive Reuse Ordinance with creating more than 14,000 new units from underused office space.

The Assembly Local Government Committee is expected to review Santiago’s bills next month, according to a statement released by his team.

Santiago, who is the assistant assembly majority leader, also serves on the Arts, Entertainment, Sports and Tourism Committee, the Health Committee and the Utilities & Energy Committee. He is also running in the L.A. City Council election to represent District 14.

Earlier this week, he spoke at a panel hosted by Central City Association of Los Angeles, which has endorsed Santiago’s candidacy in the City Council race.

“AB 2909 expands the Mills Act, an economic incentive program in California for the restoration and preservation of qualified historic buildings by private property owners, to incentivize the conversion of commercial buildings to residential uses,” Santiago said at the virtual event on March 12. “Specifically, the bill would make buildings that are at least 30 years old and located in commercial zones eligible for Mills Act contracts and require that property tax savings be reinvested in retrofitting and repurposing existing buildings to create new residential rental units.”

L.A. City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who also spoke at the CCA event, is another lawmaker who advocates for the new bills, citing both the housing shortage and environmental concerns.

“The adaptive reuse ordinance that will now be coming before the council is going to be an update of the previous ordinance. It will apply citywide instead of just the downtown area — it will actually take some of those same lessons and apply it citywide,” she said. “So adaptive reuse to me is both a smart strategy in trying to address a new way of people going to the office and using office spaces, but also a way of addressing some of the environmental concerns that come from large construction projects.”

Not everyone is convinced that the financials behind adaptive reuse projects automatically make sense for developers. One study found that only 30 percent of the office buildings surveyed across the U.S. and Canada were eligible for conversion.

“Unfortunately today, there are very few cases in which that math equation is working,” said Beatrice Jsu, principal at BCH Group. “That’s what as a developer and investor what many are watching closely, because it does seem to make sense, but it hasn’t been unlocked yet.”