HVN Development Plans More Affordable Apartments in LA

HVN Development is moving forward with a fully affordable housing project in Toluca Lake as Executive Directive 1 propels multifamily development.

The project at 10953 Whipple Street received permits from the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

The Irvine-based developer secured approvals earlier this year to build a five-story residential building with 91 one- and two-bedroom units; no parking on site would be provided.

The apartments must be restricted to low- and moderate-income households to qualify for density bonus incentives and to benefit from a streamlined approval process via ED1. Low- and moderate-income is defined as making a maximum of between $84,850 and $89,550 for one person or $121,150 and $127,900 for a household of four in L.A. County.

Stockton Architects is designing the building.

HVN has several projects in the Hollywood and San Fernando Valley. It recently received permits for a similar affordable housing project at 11218 West Califa Street in North Hollywood.

It is planning 67 units of affordable housing at 5655 West Lexington Avenue in Hollywood, according to plans filed in September. That plan calls for demolishing two 3,200-square-foot single-family homes at the 15,000-square-foot site and building a five-story complex for extremely-low-income to moderate-income households.

Plans filed in March detailed a five-story building at 5151 Denny Avenue in North Hollywood with 80 two-bedroom apartments open to moderate-, low- and very-low-income households.

The firm has more than a dozen affordable housing developments in the works across Los Angeles.

Developers have rushed to apply for fully affordable projects, submitting plans for about  42,300  income‑restricted units since ED1’s rollout, with roughly 75 percent already approved. That’s more than double the city’s affordable approvals in the three years before ED1.

“Market-rate housing [construction] has been essentially canceled at this point,” Chris Aiello, founding partner at Six Peak, told CoStar last month. “Virtually no land makes sense from an investment perspective to build market rate.”

— Chris Malone Méndez