Beverly Hills Put On Blast for High-Rise Approval Delay

Accord­ing to an LAist arti­cle, “Cal­i­for­nia hous­ing offi­cials are send­ing a mes­sage to the city of Bev­er­ly Hills: approve plans for a high-rise apart­ment build­ing, or we’ll see you in court.” Last week the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Hous­ing and Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment sent a let­ter to Bev­er­ly Hills city coun­cil warn­ing that their fail­ure to process an appli­ca­tion for a 165-unit apart­ment build­ing along dense­ly devel­oped Wilshire Boule­vard. In a state­ment, Gov. New­som said, “[Bev­er­ly Hill­s’s] attempt to block this hous­ing project vio­lates the law. Now is a time to build more hous­ing, not cave to the demands of NIM­BYs.”

Bev­er­ly Hills offi­cials say they have not yet denied the project and their actions so far have been “pro­ce­dur­al in nature,” reports David Wag­n­er for LAist. The city’s most recent action in June was to deny an appeal from the devel­op­er chal­leng­ing the city’s con­clu­sion that the project appli­ca­tion was “incom­plete.” Plans for the build­ing were sub­mit­ted in Octo­ber 2022 under a pro­vi­sion known as “Builder’s Rem­e­dy,” which allows devel­op­ers to pro­pose eli­gi­ble hous­ing devel­op­ment projects that do not com­ply with either the zon­ing or the gen­er­al plan in cities with­out a state-approved hous­ing plans. As of Jan­u­ary of this year, Bev­er­ly Hills was two years late in devel­op­ing a hous­ing plan com­pli­ant with state laws requir­ing the city to plan for 3,104 new units by 2029, more than half of which must be afford­able to low-income house­holds.

​​The HDC has giv­en the city until Sep­tem­ber 20, 2024 to respond to its let­ter. If approved, the high-rise in ques­tion would be one of the city’s tallest res­i­den­tial build­ings, with 20 per­cent of the apart­ments reserved for low-income renters and also con­tain a hotel.