The Metro board voted Thursday to consider building some affordable housing at a recently closed bus yard in the Venice area.
The 3.5-acre area at 100 Sunset Ave., which is not far from the beach, was closed amid complaints by neighbors about noise and pollution from maintenance activity and buses coming in and out of the facility.
The board approved a motion by Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin to engage in a “joint development” process, which requires that 35 percent of housing under this program are affordable for residents who earn 60 percent or less of the area median income. For Los Angeles, this would mean that the units would need to be affordable for households making $33,000 or less annually.
Bonin, who urged Metro officials to close the yard, said “neighbors in Venice have been calling for the bus yard to be closed for years, and I was proud to make that happen.”
“Now that it is closed, we can use this site to deliver needed affordable housing through a neighborhood-serving project that will be a great fit in Venice,” he said.
Bonin said that the yard would have been slated for office or commercial development had he and his motion co-author, Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, not called for a joint development process to be used.
“There was no way that kind of development would have been the highest and best use for the property,” Bonin said. “Venice is in real, desperate need for more affordable housing.”
Affordable housing in Venice is in short supply, with the area experiencing a spike in housing costs, according to Bonin.
The joint development process allows for Metro to give incentives for building affordable housing. It also calls for getting community input early in the development process. Planning is expected to begin after an environmental impact study is completed on the bus yard.
A Bonin aide said the buses that were housed at the former Venice bus yard are now at facilities in other parts of the region.
