A pair of familiar Valley players is looking to drop a fully income-restricted apartment complex into the heart of Woodland Hills, with plans that would wipe out a low-slung commercial building and replace it with hundreds of below-market rentals. Elysian Housing and Capstone Equities have filed plans for The Green at Warner Center, a seven-story, 316-unit project on a 2.7-acre parcel that would be 100% income-restricted. The development would demolish an existing one-story commercial building of roughly 35,000 square feet and swap it for family-sized one- to three-bedroom apartments targeted to households earning about 30% to 80% of the area median income. The developers say they intend to move quickly by using the city’s fast-track rules for all-affordable housing.
What’s Planned
Elysian and Capstone bought the site at 21155 Califa Street and are proposing a roughly 300,020-square-foot building listed in city filings as 5909 North Variel Avenue, with 316 apartments stacked across seven stories. As reported by The Real Deal, the project - dubbed The Green at Warner Center - would consist entirely of deed-restricted units and joins a growing cluster of affordable developments in the Warner Center submarket. City paperwork identifies the development entity as “5909 Variel, LP,” a nod to the corner lot’s multiple addresses.
Financing and Timeline
A project staff report from the California Debt Limit Allocation Committee shows the proposal seeking $8,188,510 in annual federal low-income housing tax credits and $40,500,000 in tax-exempt bond cap to get construction funded. The same report breaks down the unit mix as 144 one-bedroom, 82 two-bedroom and 90 three-bedroom apartments, and notes that 313 of the 316 units will be income-restricted. Construction is penciled in to start in June 2026 and wrap up by June 2028. Total development costs are pegged at about $159.4 million, with Citibank listed among the anticipated financing partners. In other words, this is not a small bet on affordable housing in a pricey submarket.
Why Warner Center
The Green is landing in Warner Center at a moment when the area is being reshaped by big private projects and a city planning blueprint that leans into dense infill housing. The Real Deal points out that the parcel sits near other sizable proposals, including a multi-tower senior complex at 6400 Canoga, and notes that the project’s 100% affordable status could qualify it for expedited ministerial review under Los Angeles’ Executive Directive 1. The city planning housing page explains that ED1 is designed to fast-track permits and clearances for shelters and fully affordable housing developments, trimming down review and permitting timelines for projects that meet the criteria.
Elysian and Capstone have already been busy on the Valley’s affordability front. Last year the joint venture picked up a roughly 75,000-square-foot office complex at 5435-5445 Balboa Boulevard in Encino, with plans to convert it into affordable apartments, according to the Los Angeles Times. That earlier move, along with The Green’s layered financing stack, shows how developers are stitching together tax-credit equity, bond financing and private loans to make large, income-restricted projects pencil out in high-cost Southern California markets.
