PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

TIM DEEGAN , CityWatchLA , 26 SEPTEMBER 2016 DEEGAN ON LA-Rick Caruso has a long and sentimental history with his property at 333 S. La Cienega Boulevard (currently the site of the shuttered Loehmann's department store.) It’s the first property he owned. It’s where he washed cars as a kid at his dad's dollar-a-day car rental business. And, it’s where he dreams of building his newest project that will make a statement about contemporary high-end housing by including an affordable housing component that could make it a landmark building in more ways than one. (See above photo of rendering.) HIGH-END HOUSING MEANS LUXURY HOUSING, OR RENTS OF ABOUT $10,000 TO $20,000 PER MONTH FOR 137 OF THE PROPOSED 145 APARTMENTS. Rarely have developers allowed low income housing units to be part of the mix in their high-end luxury buildings, preferring to subsidize affordable housing at off-site locations in return for the zoning variances they receive. But Rick Caruso, founder and chi...

By ADAM NAGOURNEY , New York Times, SEPT. 21, 2016 LOS ANGELES — The powerful economic resurgence that has swept Southern California is on display almost everywhere here, visible in the construction cranes towering on the skyline and the gush of applications to build luxury hotels, shopping centers, high-rise condominiums and acres of apartment complexes from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles.   INVESTMENT OF FOREIGN CAPITAL LOOKING FOR A SAVE HAVEN IN U.S. REAL ESTATE, INCLUDING LOS ANGELES, IS NOT THE SAME AS AN ECONOMIC RESURGENCE. But it can also be seen in a battle that has broken out about the fundamental nature of this distinctively low-lying and spread-out city. The conflict has pitted developers and some government officials against neighborhood organizations and preservationists. It is a debate about height and neighborhood character; the influence of big-money developers on City Hall; and, most of all, what Los Angeles should look like a generation from no...

LA Weekly , TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 AT 6:30 A.M. BY  HILLEL ARON It was just the sort of attack that the fortress like walls of the Medici were designed to repel: a phalanx of 50 or so union members and affordable-housing advocates, wielding handmade signs (most in the same handwriting) with slogans such as "Good Jobs and Affordable Housing Now" and "NO more luxury development, NO displacement, NO homelessness. YES on Prop. JJJ." A few bewildered residents of the apartment complex looked down from their balconies, as a clipped call came from a megaphone: "Palmer, Palmer, you can't hide. We can see your greedy side!" The crowd chanted the words back. The Medici is one of those half-dozen or so faux-Italian apartment buildings built and owned by Geoff Palmer, perhaps L.A.'s most notorious developer, known for — aside from his predilection for gaudy architecture — his opposition to affordable housing. He also happens to be one of ...