Los Angeles Metro is seeking input from interested parties about what they would like to see for an affordable housing development that will be built near to the 17th Street/Santa Monica College rail stop. Metro has released a survey and held a virtual community meeting last week to both reach out and solicit feedback. The Santa Monica Daily Press attended the virtual meeting, you can read their coverage here.
There are already a few things we know about the project. Metro is planning for it to help it reach its goal of creating 10,0000 new transit oriented units by 2031, at least half of which will be affordable. This project will include somewhere between 275-380 units, although they haven’t announced how many will be affordable. The development is planned to be built over four parcels of land just south of Colorado Ave. between 16th and 18th.
Despite the movement by Metro, the project isn’t going to break ground for at least two and a half years. Metro will release a “request for proposals” in the new year with the formal public engagement kicking off in the Spring. Metro hopes to present a final plan to its Board of Directors in 2026. If all goes well, construction could start the following year.
In its early outreach, the biggest issue is what will happen to all of the car parking. In addition to the rail station and SMC, the area is also home to Crossroads, one of Santa Monica’s private schools.
Santa Monica College has an enrollment between 25,000 and 30,000 and the K-12 Crossroads School has roughly 1,200 students with a higher-than-average amount that drive or are driven to school because of the distance some students travel. Comments at both the survey and in the in-person meeting were dominated by discussions of car parking.
Metro has assured people that any developer selected will have to devise a plan that assures for safe access to both campuses and the light rail station and provide an adequate amount of car parking.
The survey only takes a few minutes to fill out and asks people their thoughts on the neighborhood, what they would like to see in the development in addition to apartments (both for the residents and the neighborhood at-large), and even what you think the building and streetscape should look like.
