A vacant house and two storage sheds on a nearly four-acre lot in Sun Valley are set to be demolished to make way for a project that tucks 220,000 square feet of rental storage space behind a row of nine townhomes. The Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved the mixed-use development at 7528 N. Bellaire Ave., clearing the way for Trojan Storage to build a freeway-adjacent facility designed to look like ordinary housing from the street.
As reported by Urbanize LA, the project places its rental storage space at the back of the property while nine townhomes line Bellaire Avenue, each with a two-car garage at street level. The development is designed as a contemporary two-story structure with an L-shaped footprint, and the residential portion includes one-bedroom dwellings. Trojan Storage, based in El Segundo, previously sought approvals for a similar setup in Sylmar, where a storage facility was masked by 27 apartments, according to the same outlet.
The 3.92-acre site sits northeast of Saticoy Street, adjacent to the Hollywood Freeway, according to environmental assessment records prepared by Kimley-Horn and Associates and filed with CEQAnet. The parcel, identified as APN 2305-024-030, currently contains a vacant single-family house and two accessory storage structures that will be cleared before construction begins.
Commission Pushed for Design Changes Before Sign-Off
Project approval was initially scheduled for June, but planning commission members requested changes to the design before granting final sign-off. The developer enacted most of those requested modifications, per the Urbanize LA report. During its August review, the commission evaluated updated plans that revised the residential component from an all-one-bedroom layout to a mix of five one-bedroom and three two-bedroom units totaling 13,150 square feet, according to Los Angeles City Planning records.
The project required approval of a zone change and a general plan amendment to proceed. Entitlement applications filed under case number CPC-2023-7894-GPA-ZC-CU-SPR-HCA requested a General Plan Amendment, Zone Change, Conditional Use permit, Site Plan Review, and up to a 20 percent parking reduction under Municipal Code Section 12.32 P, per the city planning documents. Construction was expected to begin sometime in 2026, with completion targeted for 2027.
A Template Trojan Storage Already Tested in Sylmar
This is not Trojan Storage's first attempt at wrapping industrial-scale storage in a residential facade. In July 2024, the city approved the company's 193,000-square-foot project at 13260 W. Maclay St. in Sylmar, which pairs 163,000 square feet of storage with 25 apartment units, ground-floor offices, and art studios, as detailed by the same Urbanize LA report. Jordan Architects designed both the Sun Valley and Sylmar developments, specializing in street-facing residential wraps that disguise large commercial self-storage facilities, according to the San Fernando Valley Business Journal.
On the Sylmar project, permit expediter Crest Real Estate used California Senate Bill 8 and Los Angeles Housing Element requirements to integrate replacement residential units directly around the storage structure after an existing 22-unit apartment building was demolished. Because storage facilities generate low traffic volume but present blank exterior walls, pairing them with residential townhomes helps developers satisfy city mandates for active street frontages and housing creation under state laws like SB 8, while still letting commercial operators maximize land value near freeway corridors.
Part of a Broader Shift in How LA Pairs Housing With Industry
Headquartered in El Segundo, Trojan Storage operates more than 30 self-storage locations across the West Coast, including established Southern California facilities in Van Nuys, Glendale, Burbank, and Sun Valley, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. The Sun Valley site falls under the Sun Valley – La Tuna Canyon Community Plan, a zoning framework in the northeast San Fernando Valley designed to buffer industrial and commercial uses along transit corridors near residential neighborhoods, per city planning records.
The Bellaire Avenue project fits into a wider pattern of unconventional development pairings emerging across Los Angeles, as developers pair housing with non-traditional commercial uses to meet city mandates. Examples cited by The Real Deal include a 12-story high-rise built over an Encino car dealership and 800 apartments constructed above a Baldwin Hills Costco. With this approval, Trojan Storage extends a model it first tested in Sylmar to a second freeway-adjacent lot in the San Fernando Valley.
