Los Angeles recently secured three separate grants from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), totaling $3.9 million. The purpose of the funding, according to Mayor's Office, is to aid in the city's initiatives to mitigate homelessness and heighten neighborhood accessibility, as shared by Mayor Karen Bass.
A chunk of this grant, amounting to $2.9 million, will be designated to the City of Los Angeles Housing Department. Set for the conversion of city-owned land into housing development projects. Reflecting Mayor Bass' third executive directive to optimized housing production, the funding will facilitate thorough evaluation of public lands, parking spaces, and smaller sites. The grant will further aid exploration of ingenuous financing strategies and the amalgamation of sites for future Requests for Proposals (RFPs).
Yet this strategic housing initiative, spearheaded by Mayor Bass, isn't the only project on the receiving end of SCAG's grants. Another $500,000 is earmarked to to research the potential reconnection of MacArthur Park. This initiative, led in collaboration between Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), proposes to seal off a section of the street running through the park's center. Councilmember Hernandez said of the community-led project, "This will restore the park to to it's original state, before the 1930’s division."
To better bolster accessibility measures, further collaboration will transpire between the LADOT and L.A. City Council on transportation initiatives, including the proposal of an active transportation plan for Warner Center in the West San Fernando Valley. The City of Los Angeles reveals an additional $500,000 of the SCAG grant will be utilized to create a "live-work-play" neighborhood that caters to cyclists and pedestrians alike. Since the adoption of a new district-specific plan in 2013, the Warner Center has seen significant growth, including the permitting or building of over 10,000 new housing units.
Councilmember Blumenfield believes that the grant will help enhance connections, adding that it would improve integration among residential, office, and commercial destinations, thereby providing connectivity to transit and active transport corridors. Keith Mozee, the Executive Director and General Manager of StreetsLA, echoed Blumenfield's sentiments, "Our goal for these improvements is to integrate multiple benefits through holistic designs, maximizing infrastructure investments."
