100% Affordable Housing Proposed for Hollywood Building

The Hollywood Studio District could be getting a new housing development comprising 100 percent affordable housing.

HVN Development filed an application with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning for 67 units of affordable housing at 5655 West Lexington Avenue, according to the application filed with the city.

The Irvine-based firm, which specializes in apartment and housing projects, applied for a five-story residential development on a 15,000-square-foot site owned by Calabasas-based Veloce Enterprise.

Plans call for demolition of the two 3,244-square-foot, single-family homes and a garage that occupy the site near the corner of Lexington Avenue and Wilton Place.

The developer wants approval to increase the floor area ratio and height of the project, and reduce the open space by 82 percent to 1,541 square feet via a density bonus program, the Affordable Housing Incentive Program. The program is part of Los Angeles’ Citywide Housing Incentive Program, adopted in February to encourage the production of affordable housing citywide.

Of the 67 apartments, units would be available to extremely low-income to moderate-income households, records indicate. In L.A. County, those incomes range from $31,850 to $89,550 for one person.

Veloce bought the site — two neighboring lots at 5655 and 5657 West Lexington — in January 2018 for $956,000, property records indicate.

Veloce is led by Tomer Simonov, co-founder and CEO of MyLighthouse.co, a commercial real estate automation platform. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Also tapping government incentives in Hollywood is an affiliate of Los Angeles-based Avenue Homes. The firm filed an application with City Planning in June for 49 one- and two-bedroom apartments at 6144 North Hazelhurst Avenue. The narrow slip of land is located one block west of Lankershim Boulevard.

In North Hollywood, HVN Development filed plans in March for a five-story building at 5151 Denny Avenue with 80 two-bedroom apartments. The development would open to moderate-, low- and very low-income households in exchange for density bonus incentives.