The Los Angeles City Council recently decided to authorize around $45.5 million in public monies for the construction of Wilmington & Boyle heights’ new affordable & supportive housing complexes.
Century Housing Corp.‘s Wilmington project would emerge from an existing vacant site at 851 N. Banning Boulevard, just north of Anaheim Street. According to a staff report from the Los Angeles Housing Department and an application submitted with the Department of Building and Safety, the project will consist of two buildings: a two-story structure with 19 apartments and a three-story structure with 45 units.
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The apartments would all be built in one- and two-bedroom layouts, with average unit footages of 635 and 941 square feet. All of the flats, with the exception of a single manager’s unit, are to be rented to households earning no more than 50% of the local median income level.
Cost and approvals for Wilmington and Boyle heights new affordable & supportive housing complex
The Council votes to approve $22 million in finance for the Banning Avenue development, including $21.2 million in tax-exempt bonds and roughly $800,000 in taxable bonds. This will contribute to a total projected cost of $43.4 million, with the remaining money coming from Measure HHH and Los Angeles County.
The project’s very high per-unit cost, around $679,000, is related to three blocked oil wells on the site. To avoid building on top of the wells, the project was split into two structures, resulting in an extra $6.4 million in expenses.
Abode Communities, Mercy Housing of California, and LA Family Housing are collaborating on the second project, which will be located at 3552 Whittier Boulevard in Boyle Heights. Two old commercial buildings will be demolished to make room for the new structure that will have a total of 63 studio apartments averaging 305 square feet in size, as well as one manager’s unit.
