Photos: O’Herlihy apartments: Allen J. Schaben / LAT
Singapore, Vancouver (bottom)
The LA Times article, “First Sprouts of a Vertical Landscape” discusses how architects are building three and four story multi-family housing here.
Architects Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides, Lorcan O’Herlihy and others are creating innovative, low rise apartments to relieve our housing shortage.
Mayor Villaraigosa has appointed a City Planner, S. Gail Goldberg. She comes from San Diego, where she is credited with that city’s tremendously successful integration of new housing with public transit and a downtown revival.
The article says that these developments are a way to add density without creating monster high rises. They fit into neighborhoods and are stylish, light filled and artsy.
But how many of these are going to be built? Can Los Angeles only add a few hundred high priced units of housing a year when our population is still growing by thousands a year?
Other cities around the world like Berlin, Chicago, Miami, Hong Kong and Vancouver are building a lot more than Los Angeles. An overhead view of Los Angeles would still show a city filled with one story mini-malls, acres of parking lots and single family homes. Yet the grand idea of filling in the blanks with mulit-family condos, is too little and too expensive.
One of the projects that the article trumps is a $7,000 a month rental in Beverly Hills! O’Herlihy’s West Hollywood building contains only 10 units!
There is a crying need for bigger plans than these little frivolous vanity projects.
LA should build 30, 40, 50 and even 75 story apartments near public transportation.
There are miles of freeways, that slice through dense urban areas, that could be covered with hi-rises and parks. There is open industrial space in the NE San Fernando Valley that might accomodate tall buildings.
We have the land, we have the capital, but do we have the will?
Here in Van Nuys 