Housing – Here in Van Nuys

SB 79 and Our Hood

October 13, 2025October 13, 2025Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged Architecture, CD6, Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, Density, Development, Expo Line, Governor Newsom, Housing, Jefferson Park, Mayor Bass, Metro, Orion Avenue, Politics, Public Transportation, San Fernando Valley, SB79, Sepulveda Bl., State Senator Scott Wiener, Travel, Urban Planning, Van Nuys, Van Nuys Boulevard, writing, Zoning1 Comment

SB 79 is a new law, authored by State Senator Scott Wiener, approved by the legislature, and recently signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, to allow the state to overrule local zoning laws and permit the construction of multi-family housing on lots which are zoned for single family housing when these properties are within a half or quarter mile of a bus or light rail stop.

In Los Angeles, the law will allow much denser and higher development along not only wide boulevards, but inside old, intact, single-family streets, “side streets” which never had apartments or multi-unit housing.

A guide to the law along with maps is here.

Tiered density: The allowable height and density for projects are determined by the quality of the transit stop and the project’s proximity to it.

Tier 1: Applies to projects near high-frequency commuter rail or heavy rail transit, like BART and LA Metro.

Tier 2: Applies to projects near light rail and bus rapid transit lines.

Along Sepulveda and Van Nuys Boulevard the proposed zoning map looks like purple bullet holes that radiate from transit stops. These circles are centered around the transportation stops and take no consideration into the historic or local character of any neighborhood.

For example, I live on Hamlin Street which is a “Tier 2” zone because we are within a ¼ of Sepulveda Boulevard bus stop. My street, built on old walnut orchards, from 1936 onwards, is lined with palm trees, and then curves along with oak trees. The street has two-hour parking because of its proximity to Van Nuys High School.

If the law succeeds, my section of Hamlin Street would allow 65-foot-high buildings (six and half stories).

But the part of Hamlin Street a few hundred feet east from me would remain single family.

West of Sepulveda, south of Victory, is the beautiful and often filmed Orion Avenue with large colonial style houses planted with rose bushes and ranch fences, the location for many commercials seeking “a typical American street” that doesn’t exist anymore. With SB 79, the east side of the street could be obliterated with apartments that destroy the very beauty residents and film makers pay dearly for.

Mr. and Mrs. Audie Murphy and son, 6233 Orion Ave. Van Nuys, CA, 1953

Yesterday, I had a real life encounter of what Hamlin St. and other locations nearby could become when I parked my car near 3052 West Boulevard in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, east of Culver City. I was there to visit a new, multi restaurant creation, Maydan Market.

This area was given an economic boost by the Expo Line, a light rail system that connects downtown with Santa Monica. The good parts are investment, cleaner streets, the lowering of crime and the raising of the cultural and civic activities.

The ugly parts are the disfiguring, ad hoc apartments that pop up on formerly coherent streets of 1920s bungalows. My eyes hurt looking at 3045 West Boulevard, a black and gray box suspended over a cinderblock faced garage, with a massive four story high open-air staircase on the side of the building. It looms like a monster over the street, with no respect or sensitivity to the vernacular that had existed here for 90 years.

Am I a hypocrite for decrying liberalized zoning that will change my backyard? Yes, I am. Sort of.

This blog has argued for years for the construction of new, multi-family buildings to replace unused parking lots behind abandoned shopping centers, or where there is a sea of asphalt like the Orange Line parking area along Sepulveda which was constructed for thousands of vehicles and is now empty. I have fought for the idea of an architectural, coherent, community wide style that would incorporate history and embrace modernism but do it without destroying but enhancing the community of Van Nuys.

And I’ve always cast a cold, unforgiving, forensic eye on the political neglect of Van Nuys by elected officials who seem to always be performing social media acts of kindness for oppressed groups while neglecting the needs of residents in this district.

There are commercial zones galore that cry out for taller residential buildings along the wide boulevards of Van Nuys and greater Los Angeles. The one-story tall shops with parking lots in front are so defunct and useless that their very presence destroys civilized life and endangers the health of pedestrians.

There are blighted buildings, such as this one at 7101 Sepulveda, that have been empty for years, packed with derelicts, unable to be demolished, yet crying out for replacement. As a bitter pill, the residents in the tree lined, charming, quiet streets behind must now expect multi-family housing to replace their 1940s ranchettes.

What do our elected leaders in Sacramento do with the quandary of building more housing? They embrace a fantasy of destroying single family homes and backyards.

Will your neighbors and you, the elderly couple in the corner house, desire to ride buses (with homeless, drug addicts, crime?) and come home, late at night, from a bus stop on Sepulveda, and enter a new world of yet more cars, loud music, marijuana, dumped mattresses, and YouTube/TikTok/OnlyFans influencers smoking on the balcony next door? I doubt it.

Is that the paradise of tomorrow? Circles on a map, purple splotches of political malfeasance, indicating nothing but more mayhem, disorder and chaos.

I hope I’m long gone, either from life or Van Nuys, before this happens.

Concepts for Clustered Housing and Park Near Orange Line. Part 2.

April 13, 2025Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged Architecture, CD6, Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, Housing, Mayor Karen Bass, Rick Caruso, San Fernando Valley, Van Nuys and the Valley1 Comment

East of the 405, south of Erwin, west of Sepulveda, north of the Orange Line are 12 acres of asphalt paved parking which was constructed in 2004 by Metro Los Angeles to accomodate a large of amount of parked cars that never arrived. These vehicles were, illogically, imagined to be driven by those bus riders who would then park their cars and take the Orange Line!

For many years, the car dealers of Van Nuys Boulevard rented the parking lots of Metro, in an obscene arrangement of prioritizing automobile storage over the needs of Angelenos who are ravenous for housing, parks and other uses of land which are not parking lots.

The auto dealers’ cars are gone. But the parking lots, weed-filled, empty, and providing nothing of aesthetic or functional use to the community, just sit and decay in the sunshine.

The environment around the parking lots is lovely to the north where the frequently filmed street of Orion Avenue presents an imaginary vision of Americana with its ye olde New England architecture, picket fences, and abundant rose bushes.

But Sepulveda is a mess. CVS (Erwin/Sepulveda) is a rundown, ugly, homeless encampment drug store, on its last legs, with empty shelves and anything on the shelves frequently swiped by shoplifters.

The 405 is the noisy, polluting, cancerous fact of life that provides deafening, daily helicopter, truck and automobile noise and air pollution to the community. It has been blocked out by sound walls to assure our waning sanity.

And to the south of the site where the empty parking lots sit, is the Orange Line Bus Route, soon to be turned into electric light rail line when a new transportation line is completed connecting Van Nuys Boulevard to Pacoima.

Everywhere there is trash, homeless, RVs, illegal dumping, tent cities, discarded fast food wrappers. The usual tale of Van Nuys and greater Los Angeles.

What can be done to transform 12 empty acres into something that enhances and uplifts our community instead of just using it for exploitation and degradation?

A possible answer is a residential area with parkland. These would be architecturally designed and environmentally friendly, and become an asset because their residents would assist in the care of this new neighborhood.

Family Run Parks

If the city were to devise a plan to have a family (which lived in one of the homes) run the upkeep of the park for a salary, based on a performance review, then it is more likely that the parkland would be cleaner, safer, and better maintained, unlike the sickeningly disgusting public parks that bring Los Angeles ridicule and shame like MacArthur and Westlake.

Having the people who use parks or schools clean the parks or schools they use, is something that the Japanese practice in their spotless country. It is an imported idea that could bring an upgrade to our city.

In any case, the transformation of the 12 acre parking lots should be done with sensitivity, care, and with the idea of providing recreation, housing, shade, and pleasant surroundings within a walk of public transportation.

To make these architectural renderings a reality, there will need to be rules, enforced rules, about what kinds of behavior will not be tolerated. This will perhaps be the most difficult part of the experiment, for we are far down on the road to hell in a city of red light runners, loud music, all night parties, marijuana moms, pizza boxes and McDonalds thrown along the curb, and the vagrants who ignite fires in the parks. To see discarded sofas and mattresses on the grass, or shopping carts with cans and bottles, and refrigerators on balconies will obliterate the possibilities of paradise.

Concepts for Clustered Houses Near Light Rail.

April 9, 2025Posted in ArchitectureTagged Architecture, Concepts, Housing, Metro Los Angeles, Orange Line, San Fernando Valley, Van Nuys and the ValleyLeave a comment

Orange Line Metro Parking Lot at Sepulveda/Erwin

There are currently vast expanses of unused asphalt parking lots that run along the Metro Orange Line. One of the largest of these is near Sepulveda and Erwin.

This area could be developed as a lovely, walkable, residential area.

Instead of the hot sun beating down on asphalt, wouldn’t it be nice to see the houses below which could be an enhancement to the community instead of the current blighted condition of the fenced off concrete?

Classical Houses.

March 7, 2025Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged Architecture, CA, Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, Development, Housing, light rail, Links, Mayor Karen Bass, Photography, Rick Caruso, San Fernando Valley, Switzerland, Van Nuys and the Valley1 Comment

It’s been perhaps 90 years since Americans built well proportioned classical houses.

These are houses where the elements are pre-ordained: the windows are aligned with each other, and are placed within the facade to achieve balance and symmetry. The doorway is defined, frequently in the center, and around it are placed ornamental designs originating in Greece and Rome.

Columns in the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian orders have specific instructions as to their placement. They aren’t just slapped onto a facade as we see in modern day Encino.

In California, when builders put up spec houses they are never able to afford classic design because the intrusion of garages destroys the facades. Ironically most garages never store vehicles but are a repository for storage.

The plain white stucco house with vinyl windows is the lowest and most ubiquitous type of spec house. About a dozen of these have sprouted up in my neighborhood in the last ten years.

There is obviously no attempt in these cases to make the houses attractive in a classical sense. They are rafters and insulation and stucco made for desperate times. Nobody can really afford to build them, and nobody can afford to buy them, so we have a sad story of expensive prices for crap.

The one on top is three bedrooms with astroturf patio and rents for $7,000 a month next to a graffiti splotched alley.

The exploitation of land to build exploitative housing that hardly houses anyone is one of the ills of Los Angeles. For there are enormous plots of parking lots and open land, especially near the Orange Line, where walkable, civilized and attractive housing can be built.

After spending time in Switzerland last year, I came back thinking of how well things are built there. Not only are they solid, but the housing is meant to enhance the community. Sometimes it’s starkly modern, other times it’s traditional, but it always makes the environment better.

Why in this city, which invented Hollywood, are the visual arts of architecture and design so lacking in public view? Why do we live amongst so much ugliness?

Is there perhaps something in the past we can look to as we rebuild Los Angeles for the future? Perhaps we need Elon Musk to siphon off $5 billion dollars from somewhere and employ an AI architect to make LA lovely again.

Here are some designs from AI Google, architects:

The Social Disaster

January 27, 2025January 27, 2025Posted in Van Nuys and the ValleyTagged California, CD6, Councilmember Imelda Padilla, Development, Fires, Housing, Links, Los Angeles, news, Nury Martinez, Travel, Van Nuys2 Comments

In all the days since the disastrous fires destroyed vibrant and sparkling communities of people and their houses and businesses in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, flat and socially unpopular Van Nuys, miles from any combustible forests, sat silent, its empty parking lots and vacant stores along Van Nuys Boulevard mute and abandoned, its daytime as empty and lifeless as its nighttime.

You live here and just like people anywhere yearn for the same normal things that civilized places provide: safety, cleanliness, affordability, and lawfulness. But all you get are sirens, speeding cars, helicopters at 2am, Woodley Park set ablaze monthly.

After nearly 25 years here I see nothing but decline in the environment around Van Nuys.

The same neglected mini-mall that I complained about in 2009 is still the same trash strewn dump it always was. Its owner used to live in Bel Air. He complained about my criticism when all I asked him to do was hire a $10 an hour worker to sweep the sidewalk weekly and install a security light on the side of the building so people didn’t sleep and urinate and tag the walls.

The stores that line Van Nuys Boulevard from Vanowen to the Oxnard are largely empty, many are built with gigantic parking lots behind them that are also empty, parking for thousands of cars that once shopped here, but those shoppers have left or died.

The Valley Municipal Building is where CD 6 Councilwoman Imelda Padilla reigns over the neglect and the ugliness. She replaced Nury Martinez who had to resign in disgrace after she was recorded by covert means saying ethnically insulting things about other Angelenos. Martinez came after Cardenas who went to Congress where he now serves.

Cardenas, Martinez, Padilla. It sounds like a nursery rhyme with its melodic Spanish surnames. It might well be a soundtrack set to an ever- present social disaster of Van Nuys with its hundreds of homeless sleeping in the plaza, along the Orange Line, or in the parking lot of the CVS on Erwin Street.

How is it that the so-called heart of the San Fernando Valley, the place that once bustled with prosperity and good infrastructure, including light rail and neatly tended homes and businesses, has been allowed to die for so many decades?

Victory Bl. east of Sepulveda, Van Nuys, CA 5/10/18

Is it callous to also point out that Van Nuys is less prone to fire than other areas that have boomed in recent decades? Would Van Nuys Boulevard, lined with 13-story tall Park Avenue apartment houses be a higher fire risk than thousands of wooden McMansions shoved up canyons in Bel Air, Brentwood, Malibu and the Palisades?

And when Van Nuys gets light rail, might it be possible to imagine a walkable, pleasant, less expensive part of Los Angeles where the vaunted word diversity can be used equitably as all types of inclusion would occur with young, old, well-off, not so well-off, living in nice apartments with patrolled and orderly parks and streets?

Perhaps some of the displaced people would live in well-maintained buildings if such a thing existed in Van Nuys.

With so much focus on rebuilding Los Angeles a good place to start an experiment in civilization would be Van Nuys. It’s the only corpse that has been screaming for rescue for decades.

Million Dollar Living

February 23, 2023February 27, 2023Posted in ArchitectureTagged 6708 N Royce, Housing, Luxury, real estate, Van Nuys and the ValleyLeave a comment

For an estimated cost of about $6,000 a month you can live in a brand, spanking new, “single family” house constructed right on Sepulveda Boulevard, with a front entrance on the beautiful street, leading you into white walled, vertical living with enormous open plan kitchen, four bedrooms, 3.5 baths, several balconies and roof decks.

However….

You won’t have a back or front yard. Your next door neighbors will be mere inches apart from your unit. A tarp covered homeless encampment and RV is in full view across the street.

At night, you may not be able to sleep with the constant noise of ambulances, fire trucks, police cars, speeding vehicles, and intoxicated and drugged people on the sidewalk.

There is Valley Presbyterian just up the block, and several nursing homes across the street with their daily and nightly medical emergencies.

But all this may not matter to you as you worship your “enormous kitchen with Tafisa HPL custom cabinetry, quartz countertops with a waterfall island and Bertazzoni state-of-the-art Italian stainless steel gourmet appliances.”

At a mere $911,500 this single family home will require a yearly income of probably a quarter million, as you will also owe $12,000 or more in property taxes. Utilities, mortgage, HOA, that’s all extra.

If all this sounds too good to refuse, march on over to 6708 N. Royce and see if you can get into this delightful design for living.

Share this:

Family Run Parks

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: