potential land suitable for new temporary or permanent housing
IN LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 11
REPORT
Suggested Citation
Rodman-Alvarez, D., Mattheis-Brown, R., Bruce, T., Ricardo de la Rosa, L., Jose Villatoro, J. (2022) Los Angeles City Council District 11: Potential Land Suitable for New Temporary or Permanent Housing. Los Angeles, CA. Pacific Urbanism.
Executive Summary
In 2022, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) counted 1,704 unsheltered individuals in the Los Angeles City Council District 11. Emergency interim housing provides an alternative to sleeping outside and some of the associated risks. A review of Best Practices for Interim and Permanent Supportive Housing identifies a scattered site approach as more desirable than concentrating populations in a few, very large housing projects. Further, a hybrid construction method that combines finished, prefabricated modules with prefabricated panels that are site assembled, and fully site-built units bridges the current limits of any individual sector of the homebuilding industry. This report contains a list of 57 individually vetted, suitable sites across Council District 11 that provide a range of options in the interest of immediate implementation and in the event of new site design considerations or selection criteria. Further, this report is unique in that it provides 1) a greater number of sites than other similar studies, 2) schematic architectural Site Plan and Floor Plan layouts, and 3) applies spatial analysis tools to develop composite site suitability scores to evaluate and rank sites.1
The suitability of sites has been evaluated using a mixed methods approach that combines Geographic Information Systems (GIS) spatial analysis tools, qualitative data from stakeholder interviews, a literature review of best practices, precedent studies, and architectural feasibility reviews on an individual site by site basis.
Also, while it is known that some unhoused individuals have rejected interim housing opportunities in the past, further research is required to quantify the proportion of the 1,704 unsheltered individuals in Council District 11 who would willingly accept interim housing and under which conditions. Preliminarily, this study considers 50% acceptance rate and discusses interim housing for 852 individuals.
In sum, there are five recommended steps for the rapid implementation of 852 beds in Council District 11: 1) Decision makers shall select a minimum of 29 sites2 , 2) a Site Plan that uses a kit of parts that is pre-approved for construction shall be prepared for each site, 3) site owners shall be engaged in order to acquire development rights for the proposed Site Plan, 4) Bidding for Builders and/or materials suppliers shall be performed to ensure competitive rates and construction calendars, and 5) immediately begin construction of a hybrid approach that combines typical, site-built work, prefabricated rough framing elements installed onsite, and fully prefabricated interim housing units that are built offsite then installed and finished onsite.
Programmatic Elements:
● 400 square feet of site area per bed,
● 30 bed minimum per site,
● Minimum site area of 12,000 square feet to house 30 individuals,
● 29 sites at minimum in City Council District 11
● Aggregate site area of 7.8 acres (340,800 square feet) for 852 beds.
Note that whereas an aggregate area of 7.8 acres across 29 sites are required districtwide for 852 beds, this report provides 57 sites with an aggregate area in excess of 95 acres and a potential capacity of more than 10,400 beds. In other words, there are options from which to choose. We also include schematic architectural Site Plan and Floor Plan layouts that illustrate the kit of parts in the Full Report.
Providing beds for interim housing of either 852 or 1,074 unsheltered individuals in Council District 11 is not only possible, it is necessary to begin addressing the homelessness crisis in our city. This Plan demonstrates that Council District 11 can provide interim housing for our most vulnerable neighbors immediately, at a competitive cost, in sites that are geographically distributed throughout the district, and near known encampments.
How to Use this Plan
This Plan for 852 new temporary and permanent beds in Council District 11 includes tools to support site selection and recommendations for implementation. The deliverables are summarized below and are followed by a brief description of their intended use by decision makers in the site selection process.
Summary of Deliverables
● Web Browser Interface,
● KMZ format City Map of Selected Suitable Sites,
● Table of Selected Suitable Sites,
● Schematic Architectural Set of Documents (Site Plan, Floor Plans, etc.)
Web Browser Interface
The Web Browser Interface is intended to allow dissemination and review of the selected sites list, to illustrate the spatial relationships between sites and the 2022 homeless count, the location of known encampments, and current interim housing projects. Sites may be filtered by owner and contain data fields such as the site area in acres, Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN), and address.
KMZ format City Map of Selected Suitable Sites
The purpose of the KMZ file is to facilitate decision maker and key stakeholder site review and discussion in the process of final site selection. 57 sites contained in this report have been identified as a result of the original Homeless Off Street Sanctuary research. A color range symbolizes qualitative architectural feasibility.
Table of Selected Suitable Sites
The Table contains the data fields that are contained in the KMZ file and may serve decision makers and key as desired. The Assessor’s Parcel Number, or APN, may be copy-pasted into other interfaces such as the City of Los Angeles ZIMAS or the Los Angeles County Assessor Portal.
Schematic Architectural Set of Documents
To illustrate the viability of sample sites, schematic architectural set of drawings are provided. The Schematic Architectural Set is also used to calculate preliminary building areas and estimate construction costs using an average cost per square foot. The programmatic architectural elements, that is the function of the spaces and their corresponding floor areas, are a product of precedent studies, and applicable codes and regulations.
Methods
The ongoing research question is to identify sufficient government owned sites that are feasible for the rapid placement of interim housing units for the unsheltered population of City Council District 11, using hybrid building methods that combine on-site and off-site prefabricated modules, near known encampments, and geographically dispersed with a minimum count of 30 and maximum of 120 beds per site. Economies of scale up to a certain point may lower costs, allow more centralized service facilities and utilities, where the savings may exceed the costs of added security. Also, expanding bed count criteria to include sites with 20 beds expands the pool of potential sites. However, 30 beds per site are recommended in this report in order to facilitate service and security for residents of the site and its neighbors.
The suitability of these sites has been evaluated through a mixed methods approach3 that analyzes several publicly available data sources to identify government-owned parcels in Council District 11 that are suitable for building interim housing. Criteria for suitability include site area, land use, and excludes 1) any portion of potential sites with greater than 15% slope, 2) city Parks and Beaches, 3) Airport noise contours, 4) sensitive ecological areas, and 5) a 600-foot buffer around schools. An initial ranking of potential sites was directly proportional to the existing density of the nearby unsheltered population, proximity to existing fire hydrants, sewer connections, and inversely proportional to the nearby average sale price per square foot of land.
Subsequently, additional sites that are privately owned land by either a faith-based organization, a utility company, or another organization that could be amenable to a public-private partnership were identified and are presented in this report as additional opportunities. Preliminary analyses resulted in approximately 3,200 potentially suitable sites in the City of Los Angeles and 233 sites in Council District 11. Potential sites were individually reviewed for architectural site design feasibility, including the typical requirements from agencies having jurisdiction, particularly, the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Precedent studies and a review of Best Practices were performed to identify recent, relevant programmatic and implementation data. For example, whereas the average site density for permanent housing projects is 650 square feet of site area per bed, interim housing sites require only 400 square feet of site area per bed. Therefore, for interim housing, a 30 bed site requires approximately 12,000 square feet. In the aggregate, 852 beds dispersed among a number of sites requires an estimated total of 7.8 acres (34,800 square feet) of site area. 7.8 acres translates to approximately 29 total sites each with no less than 30 beds. The 57 sites provided in this report constitute an aggregate area in excess of 95 acres and a potential capacity of more than 10,400 beds.
Multiple construction methods were explored for greater flexibility of both onsite and offsite prefabricated and semi-prefabricated construction. We also considered prescriptive building specifications, such as one story, fire-protected, typical wood framing, i.e. Type V-A construction, which are preapproved by the Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety (LADBS), thus reducing not only calendar duration and cost, but is also simple enough to be scaled at rates that will contribute to rapid implementation given the known limits of both the prefabricated and site built construction industries.
Using the programmatic requirement of no less than 30 beds per site and the precedent density of 400 square feet of site area per bed, potential sites with less than 12,000 square feet were removed from consideration. Then, an architectural review of individual sites was conducted to assess preliminary feasibility.
Privately owned land that is classified as vacant as well as parking lots that serve faith-based organizations and private entities have been identified and included in this report with the understanding that while government owned sites may be preferable for rapid implementation of housing, certain private organizations or individuals may willingly make their land available to serve purposes that align with their missions and philosophies.
Finally, it is worth noting that the model developed to identify and rank potentially suitable land, and to remove unsuitable land, may be modified further to analyze variables that are of interest to decision makers. For example, proximity between land that has been identified as suitable and existing projects, or projects under development, may be used to further rank sites either to locate new sites near existing ones, or to locate new sites as geographically dispersed as possible, depending on the desired outcome.
Discussion of Results
It is expected that, for a variety of reasons, some selected sites will not be used. Therefore, rather than identifying sites sufficient for 852 beds at a minimum of 30 beds per site, sites for 10,400 beds have been identified and are included in this report. Last, a web browser interface is provided with a public comment field for internal stakeholder dissemination, public outreach and comment.
The geographical distribution of selected sites for the rapid implementation of 852 beds may follow myriad philosophical criteria; site location 1) may be selected seemingly randomly, or 2) distributed among the City Council Districts in shares that are equal to the current share of unsheltered populations, or 3) by some other equitable method for distribution of housing according to a selected set of objective, empirical data points.
The existing count of unsheltered individuals is taken from the 2022 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Homeless Count. Although placement of new housing near existing encampments is desirable, this could also place an undue burden on areas that historically have had to deal with more dense unhoused populations, such as Venice. The equitable distribution method is accordance with the original research initiative of the Housing Allocation Index (HAI), which is discussed in greater detail elsewhere4 , and in sum seeks to address five categories of variables: housing unaffordability, environmental health, transit quality, a legacy of exclusionary land use policies, and opportunities such as jobs and school scores. Note, for example, that whereas Venice would receive 35% of the sites according to its current share of the unhoused population, it would receive only 19% of the sites if distributed equitably according to the HAI. Ultimately, decision makers and key stakeholders will take a range of criteria into account when selecting the final sites for implementation.
It is worth noting that the Housing First approach acknowledges the inordinate cost to the State that results from the unhoused condition of many and that there is a potential net benefit in costs by bringing people indoors. In other words, the cost of providing housing for the entire unhoused population may be less than the various costs that are currently incurred by serving the unhoused population per the status quo. It is perhaps equally important to acknowledge that the root causes of the current housing crisis are fifty years in the making and that the shifts required for the City of Los Angeles to bridge its housing gap and then continue along a path of equitable housing ought to be initiated now, given the long-term nature of the expected changes. Stated differently, immediate supply of interim housing for 852 individuals is very important, then again, so is an annual supply of 3,260 below moderate income housing units, and a structural shift away from the exclusionary zoning policies that are at the root of the housing shortage to a new zoning regime that responds to the full range of opportunities and demand for housing in Los Angeles.
An area for further research includes the shift from enforcement by various law enforcement agencies, also referred to as clearing or sweeping encampments to a social service outreach for voluntary placement in transitional housing. Conventional wisdom maintains that the unsheltered are unwilling to voluntarily relocate to transitional housing. However, qualitative data from one-on-one interviews with unsheltered individuals indicates that whereas overly restrictive conditions on housing, such as curfews and drug testing, hinder voluntary relocation, less restrictive transitional housing would be willingly accepted. Along this line of inquiry, it is worth evaluating what share of the unhoused population would willingly accept less restrictive temporary housing and the reductions of costs associated with serving the same population in a housed as opposed to unhoused condition.
Implementation
The supply of 852 beds in sites of no less than 30 beds per site represents approximately 29 sites, which may be increase or decrease depending on the final number of beds allocated to each site. A decentralized implementation that approaches each of the 29 sites as individual projects presents several opportunities, including overlapping construction calendars, supporting small, local, women and minority owned businesses, and the desirable spillovers of economic development at the community level, as opposed to awarding larger contracts to a single or few large construction companies. Further, given the current production limits of both the prefabricated homebuilding industry and the typical, site-built construction methods, an all of the above approach that combines on-site and off-site, prefabricated and semi-prefabricated construction methods, offers the most feasible path towards rapid implementation and competitive costs. There is also the added benefit of a natural scaling of the homebuilding industry, which translates to good paying jobs, opportunities for vocational training, horizontal dissemination of tacit industry knowledge, and the potential for affirmative access for groups historically marginalized from access to business opportunities.
Modular Design
30 bed sites consist of parking, shelters, medical and administrative facilities, shared dining, washrooms, and storage space, and circulation space. Where any unit exceeds 150’ from the street, a fire lane is provided, as required by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Immediately following decision maker selection of sites for the implementation of an aggregate 852 beds, construction shall be streamlined with the use of preapproved, prescriptive building specifications, such as the Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Wood Frame Prescriptive Provisions, formerly known as Type V Sheets, referring to typical, Type V wood frame construction.
Rapid fabrication and installation of the total number of units likely exceeds the current limits of the prefabricated homebuilding industry, as many units as may be immediately available for purchase ought to be identified and procured, leaving the remaining units to be site built in a production line manner that makes use of prefabricated framing elements in panels for floors, walls, and roof, whether these are an off the shelf product or typical wood framing that is prepared both offsite and onsite, with assembly and finishing occurring on-site. Using predetermined dimensions allows for all cabinetry, casework, fixtures, and finishes to be fabricated, procured, and prepared at the same time as rough framing and utilities, thus overlapping the calendars of various trades and streamlining the overall construction process. Opportunities for reductions in costs include a competitive bidding process, philanthropic donations of materials, and the performance of construction with mentee members of the community in training.
Council District 11 Program
● 400 square feet of site area per bed
● 30 bed minimum per site, maximum 120 beds
● Minimum site area of 12,000 square feet to house 30 individuals
● 852 beds in Council District 11
● Approximately 29 total sites at 30 beds minimum per site
● Aggregate site area of 7.8 acres (or 340,800 square feet)
● Administrative building includes offices, a commercial kitchen, dining facility, laundry, an outdoor dining area, connection to the internet and provide wi-fi, and other amenities.
● Centralized power and HVAC to allow for both grid connected or islanded microgrid modes
● Site security cameras
● Onsite security personnel
● Electronic access at site and unit entries
● Solar electricity where practicable
● Solar water preheating
● White/ cool roofs
● Shading devices
● Class A fire rating
● Insulation and windows to meet Title 24 energy efficiency standards
● Minimum Sound Transmission Class (STC) and Impact Insulation Class (IIC) of 50.
● Painted cement board siding exteriors and plywood reinforced, painted gypsum board interiors.
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