A proposed affordable housing project on the Westside known as Venice Dell has seen it all: neighborhood uproar, lawsuits, conflicting city orders for approval or denial.
Now, in a decade-long battle, a major hurdle has been cleared, potentially paving the way for the construction of more than 100 affordable homes for homeless and low-income households in what is now a city parking lot.
Late last month, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled that the city’s Board of Transportation Commissioners, which oversees city-owned parking lots, improperly denied the 2024 project and ordered the government agency to reverse its decision.
City officials cited the commission’s vague denial as the reason for not moving forward even though the City Council voted for the plan.
Allison Riley, an executive and one of the developers of the project, said that if the city chooses not to appeal the judge’s decision and stop fighting the project, it could happen late next year, and the development will be completed by 2030.
“We hope they will stop fighting this project,” Riley, executive director of Venice Community Housing, said of the city. “Housing is necessary. There is a real cost in human suffering associated with endless delays.”
In all, the current plans for Venice Dell include 120 units, commercial space and parking garages to take up parking on the beach and provide spaces for residents, all bisected by a canal.
Whether the project is built on the developer’s timeline, or at all, is another question.
City spokesperson Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, a longtime critic of Venice Dell who lost her re-election bid last week, did not return an email asking if the city would file a petition.
Paige Sterling, spokeswoman for Mayor Karen Bass, said the mayor has worked hard to build affordable housing in the city and supports the construction of others, including Venice. But Sterling added that “there are many lawsuits regarding Venice Dell, and those still need to be addressed.”
The process of building the Venice Dell has been incredibly controversial – even in a context where development is often time-consuming and contentious.
In 2016, the city asked developers to propose building affordable housing on a city-owned parking lot in Venice, a once-working community that is now home to multimillion-dollar homes and upscale restaurants.
In June 2022, the City Council voted to move forward with a project by Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing Corp. and the city’s housing department signed a development agreement with those developers.
Some Venice residents have vocally opposed the construction of what they call a “monstrous center,” criticizing the project’s scale, cost and potential negative effects on traffic and safety. But in matters of development, council members tend to obey the wishes of the council representing the community when development is proposed. This time it was Councilman Mike Bonin, who supported Venice Dell.
That changed when the 2022 election replaced Bonin with Council Member Traci Park. Feldstein Soto also won his first race for city attorney.
The two went head-to-head with Venice Dell during the campaign, with Park vowing to “finish this on day one.”
Project representatives have also filed multiple lawsuits seeking to kill the project, citing flawed environmental reviews and improper city approvals.
Those lawsuits were unsuccessful, but supporters of Venice Dell sued Park and Feldstein Soto in a July 2024 lawsuit in which neighborhood critics failed in court and worked behind the scenes to thwart the project.
The ongoing lawsuit, which also accused Bass of overruling the council member’s wishes, alleges that city staff stopped responding to the developer’s emails and were ordered not to sign off on other necessary permits before work could begin.
Then in December 2024, one day before the California Coastal Commission gave its blessing to the project, the city’s Board of Transportation Commissioners voted to refuse to transfer the city-owned parking lot to the developers.
Instead, the board called for an expansion of on-site parking options and affordable housing evaluation studies on a separate parcel of land nearby. Developers called the possibility of switching sites a “red herring” because it would require them to restart the multi-year eligibility process.
A Park spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment on the matter. But after the vote, Park said the commission’s decision effectively killed the Venice Dell development, which he called a “waste of money” during the campaign.
But it didn’t kill it. In 2025, the Venice and Hollywood real estate companies sued the city for breach of contract and separately asked a judge to overturn the transit commission’s decision, saying the state agency had no authority to deny the land transfer.
In court, Feldstein Soto, who has also criticized the program’s cost of about $1 million per unit, said the commission has that power and the action was final when the City Council refused to challenge the decision.
The $1-million total covers the cost of housing, commercial space and a public parking garage needed to replace existing spaces on the site.
Riley said city-caused delays and neighborhood lawsuits helped drive up costs, because construction costs have risen in recent years and interest on pre-development loans has piled up.
How the city reacts to the court loss could have an impact on last week’s election.
Although Park is poised to win her race against Venice Dell champion Faizah Malik, Feldstein Soto did not qualify for the November event.
In a statement, Marissa Roy, the current superintendent, criticized Feldstein Soto for his actions against Venice Dell and said that as city attorney she will “make amends, respect the court’s decision, and ensure that this legally mandated project is restored.”
John McKinney, who is currently second in the race, said in a statement that he supports “projects that promote affordable housing” but declined to comment further, because he was not aware of the arguments Feldstein Soto made about Venice Dell.
There are also effects outside of Venice.
The state Department of Housing and Community Development, which awarded Venice Dell $42.5 million, warned the city in October that its efforts to delay and block Venice Dell put the city at risk of penalties that could leave it with less state funding for affordable housing and less control over its zoning.
In response, the city said it is committed to increasing affordable housing and has plans in place to do so. But he said Venice Dell could not be built, because the Board of Transportation Commissioners refused.
“They need to … let the project go forward,” said Kevin Mitchell, managing attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which represented the developers in its lawsuit against the commission. “This is a city with an affordable housing crisis.”
