A local group long opposed to plans for a 725-unit apartment and retail complex near the Gold Line station in Chinatown, a traditionally working-class, lower income neighborhood, is taking its fight to court.
Chinatown Community for Equitable Development filed a lawsuit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that without any affordable housing, the project, named College Station, violates the neighborhood’s community plan.
The group is suing to overturn the city’s approval of the project, and it is asking the courts to block work on the site. (Developer Atlas Capital has not announced when construction will start.)
The lawsuit also claims the project should have to comply with Measure JJJ, a voter -approved mandate for affordable housing in developments that get special city approval or zoning changes, as College Station did when it received a general plan amendment.
The city planning department has said that because College Station’s application was submitted in 2012, Measure JJJ, which passed in 2016, does not apply.
“The city is trying to say that it doesn’t have to apply current laws to grandfathered projects, but there’s nothing in Measure JJJ that says that,” says attorney Mitchell Tsai, who’s representing Chinatown Community for Equitable Development.
The City Council approved the project in March as totally market rate, rejecting a recommendation from the city planning commission to make 37 of the units affordable.
The commission made its recommendation after hearing from multiple Chinatown residents about the need for affordable housing.
“As someone who works with families and students, it’s really heartbreaking to have this even be a question that there needs to be more affordable housing [in this neighborhood],” Tiffany Do, who works at a public school in Chinatown and lives in the neighborhood, told the commission in December.
Their decision was also based on Atlas Capital’s request to get an amendment to the city’s general plan to change the site’s use from “hybrid residential” to “regional commercial.”
“When we do those analyses” to determine whether a general plan amendment is justified, “we will consider the general welfare of our city, and one of the key issues is to make sure that we provide for affordable housing [and] workforce housing,” said commissioner Dana Perlman.
Perlman and Commissioner David Ambroz have voiced their disappointment at the City Council decision.
“It’s a shame that in an area that’s so impacted by gentrification and development, there wasn’t every effort made to include [affordable housing] on site,” Ambroz said at a March planning commission meeting.
In 2014, plans for College Station set aside 20 percent of the units as affordable senior housing. An analysis of those plans, completed the same year, cited a footnote to the Central City North Community Plan (footnote No. 12) as the reason for that amount of affordable housing. The 2016 draft environmental impact report for the project did the same.
But when the final environmental impact report was published two years later, it noted that after the publication of the draft, the city planning department discovered that footnote No. 12 was never formally adopted by the city, a planning department spokesperson said. Footnote 12 would have applied specifically to the site where College Station would rise. (The 11 other footnotes to that Community Plan were adopted, the department spokesperson confirmed.)
Chinatown Community for Equitable Development also argues the project does not “adequately analyze or mitigate the project’s impact on land use and planning by failing to consider or mitigate for the project’s inconsistencies” with local planning rules and guidelines laid out in the city’s general plan and in the more local document, the Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan.
The Chinatown-based group showed up at multiple city planning hearings for College Station’s approvals late last year, earlier this year, and in March, when the project was unanimously approved without discussion by the City Council.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that College Station’s application was approved by the city in 2012. The application was submitted in 2012 and approved this year.
Comments
So let me get this straight: (i) they argue that something passed in 2016 applies to something that was approved in 2012 and that (ii) the development violates something that "was never formally adopted" as part of the community plan. Someone should tell Tiffany Do that what is "really heartbreaking" is that a development like this, which obtained initial approval in 2012, hasn’t even broken ground yet and there are 725 less units of housing next to a Metro station. It’s unfortunate that these housing activists don’t realize they are part of the reason why there is a housing shortage and housing is unaffordable.
By LADude on 05.08.19 9:24am
"‘The city is trying to say that it doesn’t have to apply current laws to grandfathered projects, but there’s nothing in Measure JJJ that says that,’ says attorney Mitchell Tsai, who’s representing Chinatown Community for Equitable Development."
Ah, the old "everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn…what this book presupposes is…maybe he didn’t?" argument.
Surely Mr. Tsai will be able to point us to the language in Measure JJJ that makes it retroactive to already approved projects, given that would be necessary for his theory to prevail under longstanding, basic rules of statutory interpretation that tell us statutes are presumed to apply/operate prospectively unless otherwise explicitly indicated in their text.
By disqusted on 05.08.19 12:51pm
@Disgusted. My thinking exactly. Case law PRESUMES a law (or regulation) is NOT retroactive unless the law SPECIFICALLY states that it’s retroactive. Tsai SHOULD know better…and makes the rest of us look like bastards.
By nobody_in_particular on 05.08.19 4:11pm
Moreover, based on their logic, when would the law stop applying? After they broke ground? After final permits were issued? If the court were to adopt their interpretation one could argue that a building that received special city approval in 2005 and was completed in 2008 should have to comply because the law applies retroactively to any development that received special approval.
By LADude on 05.08.19 4:43pm
This is a frivolous lawsuit that must be dismissed. It will still delay the already delayed project.
By TTTSec on 05.08.19 9:30am
I would like to see the project complete to add housing to the shortage, but I don’t asking for 37 units of affordable housing out of 725 is asking too much. There are an abundance of luxury units going up around the city, especially in the downtown area. It’s unfortunate because most of LA’s population can’t afford luxury units.
By ewilliams1911 on 05.08.19 9:59am
"but I don’t asking for 37 units of affordable housing out of 725 is asking too much."
"Never hurts to ask," as the saying goes, but you can ask anything you want, the issue here is what the law says.
By disqusted on 05.08.19 12:53pm
These are luxury units, which means the difference between ah and mp will be more than 2k. 2k per unit at 37 units over 12 months is close to a million dollars at minimum. Seeing a million a year disappear from a budget is quite significant, especially solely to appease people who continuously have their hands out.
By hautedawg on 05.09.19 3:01pm
Really, the city approved a Chinatown project without BMR units? Give its location, the project should be much taller and include at least 25% BMR units, and .5:1 parking ratios, maximum. LA needs to start taking itself seriously.
By keenplanner on 05.08.19 10:23am
The local residents fought tooth-and-nail against having a taller project. So the developer listened and changed the project from towers to this much shorter project.
By I Like Buildings on 05.08.19 11:26am
Local residents = Sideshow Bob trying to step his way out of a circle of rakes.
By disqusted on 05.08.19 12:53pm
That is the ugliest development I’ve seen in a long time. Gives my 1950s dingbat building a run for its money.
By wildfire1872k5 on 05.08.19 10:39am
"The city is trying to say that it doesn’t have to apply current laws to grandfathered projects, but there’s nothing in Measure JJJ that says that," says attorney Mitchell Tsai, who’s representing Chinatown Community for Equitable Development.
Measure JJJ does not say anything about grandfathered projects but state law does. State law is very clear that approved projects only have to comply with the laws at the time of approval.
By I Like Buildings on 05.08.19 11:23am
If this lawsuit fails, I hope the judge will have the guts to make the activists pay everyone else’s attorneys’ fees.
By MyrnaMinkoff on 05.08.19 11:56am
The title of this article should read Chinatown obstructionist, not activist
By Stephanie88a99 on 05.08.19 1:02pm
OMG, on this idiot attorney’s website, one of his featured "presentations" listed is titled, I shit you not:
"Mitchell Tsai, ‘How To Stop Major Development Projects in California’ New American Leaders Fellowship Meeting (Dec. 4, 2013)."
He was one of the attorneys suing to stop the Reef project in DTLA as well. Wannabe Robert Silverstein we have on our hands here.
By disqusted on 05.08.19 1:28pm
This is the same group protesting the market rate conversion of the Hillside Villa apartment building also in Chinatown. As there are no Curbed L.A. updates on it…….I will provide my own.
It seems the tenants have "found" a potential solution to their desire to not pay market rate rents- they want the city to seize the building by eminent domain. The L.A. Tenants Union, which is helping the tenants, reckons that since the city can afford multi-million dollar tax breaks for new hotels, that the city can easily afford the measly $9 million dollars to seize the building and keep their cheap rents.
https://knock-la.com/tenants-in-las-chinatown-are-demanding-the-city-use-eminent-domain-to-buy-their-building-2919d771c44d
By nobody_in_particular on 05.08.19 4:23pm
And you wonder why the landlord wants to evict these people.
By LADude on 05.08.19 4:50pm
"Greedy" landlord, please. All these tenants want is a permanent right to property they don’t own and can’t pay for, which is, of course, decidedly not greedy.
By disqusted on 05.09.19 3:58pm
Thanks for the link, I needed a chuckle.
By LosFeliz$ean on 05.08.19 4:58pm
The L.A. Tenants Union should realize that the City is not giving the hotels money out of the General Fund but allowing the hotels to keep bed taxes (up to the limit) once the hotels are built. In other words, the bed taxes will be new revenue versus asking the City to buy this apartment building would require existing revenue to be re-allocated and used for the purchase. So whatever that $9 million would go to would get the shaft so these residents can keep below market rents. Plus, can you imagine if the City did do that – everyone would be begging the City to do that for their apartment building. There is no way the City is going open that can of worms.
Once again, the L.A. Tenants Union is giving super shitty advice to the people they are supposedly trying to help. These residents would be better served by listening to basically anyone else besides the L.A. Tenants Union.
By I Like Buildings on 05.09.19 11:51am
I’m not sure there is enough paper in the world to print the book of "Things the L.A. Tenants Union Should Realize"…
I mean, they’ve partnered up with Michael Weinstein, that kind of says it all about their organization and leadership.
By disqusted on 05.09.19 1:30pm
Can Curbed share a link to the complaint (or upload it to Scribd)? Without trying to sound condescending, this should be standard practice in stories like this.
By kiddo89 on 05.08.19 4:45pm
You’re allowed to be condescending here. It’s the glue that binds most of our conversations.
By CaliSon on 05.08.19 5:16pm
GLAD TO HEAR ABOUT THE LAWSUIT. Sick and tired of rich developers getting corporate welfare to build their apartments for the top 1%, while screwing and running out current residents. Well done. And you wonder why this damn state has so many homeless! No one can afford to live here!
By CodyAmore on 05.08.19 6:10pm