95 Apartments Pitched to Replace Four Cottages in Reseda

Four rent-controlled cottages in Reseda would be razed to make way for a six-story, 95-unit apartment building by a multifamily developer who’s begun to use the ED1 program in the San Fernando Valley.

Los Angeles-based JZA Architecture submitted a pre-application filing to the Los Angeles City Planning department on behalf of developer Efi Meirson on Sept. 10.

Meirson told The Real Deal plans for the San Fernando Valley project will be altered due to new design, but declined to comment further until the tenants in the cottages have moved out early next year.

It’s not clear if the developer will use ED1 on the Reseda, but he is seeking some density bonuses some affordable units. EDI requires 100 percent affordable housing.

The infill site, at 7040-46 Baird Avenue, is a 16,000-square-foot parcel near the corner of Reseda and Baird avenues. There are currently four small cottages on it, all built in the 1930s, according to the county assessor. Two of the homes have one bedroom and one bathroom and clock in at 576 square feet a piece. Two cottages comprise two bedrooms and one bathroom and each span 804 square feet.

Meirson bought 7040-46 Baird Avenue in July for $875,000, according to the deed. He seeks regulatory relief and development bonuses from the city in exchange for including affordable housing units.

The Baird Avenue proposal now on file fits the same pattern as Meirson’s two nearby projects, at 15931 West Victory Boulevard and 7112 North Baird Avenue, per city planning documents.

The former calls for demolishing five rental units and replacing it with a six-story building with 100 units that will be 100 percent affordable. The structure would span 68,000 square feet, JZA’s website indicates.

The latter is slated to be a six-story, 34-unit building. Meirson is working with JZA on both of those applications.

Jeff Zbikowski, founder of JZA, noted in early 2024 that a lot of the ED1 projects he was aware of were in South L.A., but ones were starting to “pop up in nicer areas on the Westside or in the Valley and Reseda, some of these higher-resource areas, where they’re more centered around hedging against nicer areas — providing mixed-income projects within those areas that are always going to be occupied.”