A vacant, downward-sloping stretch of land at 3724 N. Randolph Ave. in El Sereno is being eyed for six new three-story homes, according to renderings and plans revealed this week. The Los Angeles Department of City Planning has issued a notice about the proposed small lot subdivision, which would carve the site into six separate lots for fee-simple single-family homes.
The homes are being designed by Warren Techentin Architecture, with the project applicant listed as an executive with 4Site Real Estate, as reported by Urbanize LA. Each home is planned to be three stories tall and would include a private garage, a patio, and a balcony, with stucco and metal cladding on the exteriors. Los Angeles City Planning records show the project was formally filed under case number VTT-85055-SL-HCA in December 2025 by applicant entity Randolph 6 LP for a Vesting Tentative Tract map in Council District 14, with the application assigned to city planning staff on December 30, 2025.
Real estate listing records describe the site as three contiguous downward-sloping vacant lots totaling roughly 22,500 square feet, zoned (Q)RD3-1D for low-density multi-family housing, sitting about three blocks from Huntington Drive, per Zillow. The property had previously been marketed for view-oriented residential infill, reflecting the sloped terrain that will shape the design of the six homes.
A Familiar Tool for Eastside Infill
Small lot subdivisions like this one rely on a municipal law that has been reshaping infill housing across Los Angeles for two decades. The city created its Small Lot Subdivision Ordinance in December 2004 to let developers divide multi-family or commercial parcels into small fee-simple lots for single-family homes without standard setback requirements, as the Los Angeles Times reported when the tool was still new. The ordinance took effect in early 2005 with the goal of fostering fee-simple homeownership in urban infill areas.
The rules have tightened since then. In April 2018, the city updated the ordinance to introduce new Small Lot Design Guidelines, revise setback matrix requirements, and prohibit small-lot subdivisions in single-family residential zones, according to Los Angeles City Planning. The Randolph Avenue project, filed under the current framework, would need to clear the design and setback standards established in that 2018 revision.
The Developer's Track Record on the Eastside
4Site Real Estate, founded in 2005 by broker Todd Wexman, specializes in infill multi-family, co-living, and mixed-use developments across Central and Eastside Los Angeles, including Echo Park, Lincoln Heights, and Westlake, according to The Real Deal. The firm has worked with Warren Techentin Architecture before: in December 2020 the pair completed 5939 N. Monterey Road in neighboring Hermon, a three-story building with 13 four-bedroom units wrapped in blue fiber-cement shingles, a project Urbanize LA notes was scaled down near Hermon Park to fit the surrounding topography.
4Site's Eastside portfolio extends beyond Hermon. In January 2022, the firm unwrapped a six-story development at 181 N. Avenue 21 in Lincoln Heights combining 102 apartments, a 100-room hotel, and 5,000 square feet of retail space, including five restricted extremely low-income units. The company's financial capacity was underscored in February 2024, when commercial mortgage firm Cronheim Mortgage arranged $56 million in permanent refinancing for a 316-unit Los Angeles residential portfolio owned by 4Site Real Estate, a portfolio that included the completed Hermon and Westlake projects.
A Neighborhood Already Debating Density
The Randolph Avenue proposal, which was subject to an Advisory Agency hearing, lands in a corner of El Sereno already sorting through tension between development pressure and hillside preservation. Just a few months ago, neighborhood group El Sereno Neighbors protested unpermitted demolition at a 111-unit apartment site at 5100 E. Huntington Drive, prompting city inspectors to issue code enforcement citations against developer SoLa Impact — a fight Hoodline covered as residents gathered over 1,100 signatures demanding council oversight.
Around the same time, public agencies and the community group Save Elephant Hill opened a 0.75-mile trail on Elephant Hill after securing $2.7 million in public funds to preserve 110 acres of El Sereno hillside land from residential construction, capping two decades of grassroots advocacy. Whether the Randolph Avenue project draws similar scrutiny from neighbors, or whether anyone plans to appeal the Advisory Agency's determination, remains unclear.
Also unresolved are the eventual sale prices for the six homes and how construction timelines will be affected by the site's sloped conditions — details that have not yet surfaced in the project's public filings. For now, the plans mark another small-lot bet on El Sereno's hillside terrain, arriving in a neighborhood where infill housing and open-space preservation continue to pull in opposite directions.
