IKAR to Construct New Senior’s Apartments in Los Angeles

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A local Jewish congregation, IKAR, is collaborating with Community Corp of Santa Monica, Los Angeles to rebuild land on the boundary of Mid-City and Pico-Robertson into senior apartments. The proposal, which was unveiled in a March op-ed in the Jewish Journal, will rise from a site at 1737 S. La Cienega Boulevard, replacing a commercial structure that IKAR purchased for Us$ 6.9M in 2020. The planned project, which has yet to be filed for approval by the City of Los Angeles, proposes the building of 55 units of permanent supportive housing.

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Wirtschafter adds in her op-ed that in California, municipal zoning restrictions have been utilized to exclude disadvantaged groups and people of color from certain neighborhoods, if not whole cities. Minimum parking restrictions, which have traditionally been imposed on religious organizations, are among the rules that have created a barrier to projects such as the one proposed by IKAR and Community Corp.

The plans of IKAR are made possible by legislation established by California lawmakers that allow religious organizations to eliminate up to 50% of their on-site parking spaces if they are replaced with affordable housing. Wirtschafter also announced the organization’s support for Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ measure, AB 2244, which would offer congregations a 50% decrease in necessary on-site parking when creating affordable housing.

“In Los Angeles, like in cities around the country, the cost of housing, both to rent and to own, has risen in recent years, but salaries and the pace of construction have not kept pace. As a result, we are facing a massive housing crisis, which is being borne disproportionately by those in our cities with the fewest financial resources: the poor, the elderly, people with disabilities, women fleeing domestic violence, immigrants, and Black people, who have been systematically excluded. All of these groups are overrepresented among the unhoused “Brooke Wirtschafter, IKAR’s director of community organizing writes.