Editorial: It’s past time for city officials to let Venice Dell homeless housing move ahead

In Los Angeles, a city desperate for homeless housing, one project that will fill some of that need has been unconscionably delayed for years. The City Council has already approved it twice, most recently two years ago. This week, city officials have a chance to show they are serious about getting that project built.

On Wednesday, the California Coastal Commission will take up the Venice Dell Community project, which will provide 117 units, including 68 for homeless supportive housing and the remainder for low-income affordable housing, on a city-owned 2.65-acre parking lot in Venice not far from the beach.

Commission staff already recommends the project receive a coastal development permit. The Coastal Commission should approve that.

And any official from the city who shows up at that meeting should support the project. Not doing so would be a disgrace.

The Venice Dell Community project has been in the works for seven years.

After meeting with the community and taking their concerns into account, the nonprofit developers, Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing Corp., were approved by the L.A. City Council for a development agreement in 2021 and 2022. The site is just the kind of surplus city land that advocates and city leaders covet for homeless housing. But somewhere along the way, city officials seemed to forget that.

In the time since their agreement was signed, the developers have designed and redesigned — and redesigned again — the public parking garage that replaces the lost spots in the original lot at the suggestions of the city’s Department of Transportation.

They lost time on the project last year during an eight-month period when City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, long an opponent of the project, told city departments to stop meeting with the developers to work on plans and contracts. Staff members resumed meeting with them only after Mayor Karen Bass ordered them to do so.

The developers also were set back last year when the Coastal Commission put on hold its decision on whether to grant the project its necessary coastal development permit after city officials couldn’t decide whether they would oversee the operation of the parking structure on the site.

And finally, two lawsuits filed by a community group to try to stop the project were rejected by Superior Court judges earlier this year.

Enough.

Building on a city-owned parking lot is a smart plan for homeless housing, and Venice Dell Community should go forward.

The latest issue for this development is a letter from the city’s Department of Transportation urging the Board of Transportation Commissioners, an advisory panel composed of residents appointed by the mayor, to recommend at a special session on Tuesday that the project not go forward.

After years of working with the developers on the project, the department officials suddenly have a change of heart? The developers have already been through numerous discussions with the city’s Department of Transportation over parking requirements on the site and have made adjustments to the parking garage. At this point, a negative recommendation from the Board of Transportation Commissioners would be disingenuous. But it would not be binding — a judge decided as much when this issue came up in one of the unsuccessful lawsuits against the project — and it should not be allowed to hinder progress.

What most matters here is the Coastal Commission’s decision. The city attorney has written an absurd letter to the Coastal Commission telling its members not to approve the project because the parking will be located on the east side of the site instead of the west side, which would be closer to the beach. Seriously? This project is about creating desperately needed housing for homeless and low-income people, not creating desperately needed parking. (And Becky Dennison, the co-executive director of Venice Community Housing, says that in the latest design, there would be parking on both the west and east sides of the site.)

The city attorney also says she can’t guarantee that the city will agree to oversee the operation of the parking structure. Uncertainty over such a matter should not have delayed the Coastal Commission’s decision last year and should not be used as an excuse by city officials to convince the commission to avoid approval this week.

This project has some powerful opponents. The city attorney is one. Traci Park, the councilmember whose district includes Venice, is another longtime detractor. And the mayor has done little to support the project even though she has pledged to expedite the creation of affordable housing. It’s shameful that some elected officials have failed to stand up for this project while others actively tried to kill it.

The Coastal Commission should approve Venice Dell and give it the coastal development permit it needs. And if city officials argue against awarding the permit to the project, the commission should see that move for what it is — a ploy to stop a much-needed housing project on the west side of the city, where there is little permanent housing for homeless people.