Construction crews have broken ground on a five-story, 77-unit affordable housing complex at 9038 S. Reading Ave. in Westchester, replacing six older apartments on the site with a much larger complex built without any on-site parking garage. The building will hold a mix of one- and two-bedroom units rented to low- and moderate-income households, with a single manager's unit as the only apartment not designated for that purpose.
The project is the work of HVN Development, which is simultaneously constructing a similar complex nearby on Ramsgate Avenue and has filed plans for a third Westchester project just down the block, according to Urbanize LA. The Reading Avenue building is designed as a contemporary podium-type structure clad in stucco, per the same outlet's reporting, with Stockton Architects handling the design. Los Angeles building permit records list an estimated project value of $5.8 million for the site, with the unit mix broken into four Very Low Income, 62 Low Income, and 10 Moderate Income apartments, according to LA Building Permit Intelligence data reviewed in May.
A Repeatable Model Near the K Line
HVN Development was founded in December 2023 by Tommy Beadel, the co-founder and former CEO of single-family homebuilder Thomas James Homes, who set out to build 100% affordable multifamily housing in high-resource neighborhoods under by-right approval processes, as Urbanize LA reported on his background. The company broke ground in late 2025 on its neighboring Haven on Ramsgate project at 8911 S. Ramsgate Ave., which is also a 77-unit affordable development, featuring 53 one-bedroom and 24 two-bedroom apartments ranging from 400 to 550 square feet, according to WhatNow Los Angeles.
Then on June 8, HVN filed a planning application for a third Westchester complex at 8811 S. Reading Ave., proposing another 5-story, 77-unit affordable building without parking under density bonus provisions. Hoodline previously reported on that filing, noting the site's proximity to 9038 S. Reading. That filing brings HVN's planned Westchester pipeline to 231 total affordable units spread across three sites in the same pocket of the neighborhood, all within walking distance of the LAX Metro Transit Center that connects light rail directly to the airport and surrounding job centers.
Density Bonuses and a Shrinking Bike-Parking Footprint
The 9038 S. Reading project's approvals include density bonus incentives that permit a larger structure than standard zoning rules would normally allow, according to Urbanize LA's account of the entitlements. Local design concessions granted for the site include a 50% open space reduction, leaving 4,213 square feet of total open space split between a ground-floor rear yard and a community roof deck, along with a 50% cut in long-term bicycle parking down to just 32 stalls, according to community group Westchester-Playa. That same group has noted that the building's design uses a two-tower configuration wrapped around an exterior central light well, intended to improve natural light and air circulation for interior-facing units.
The absence of on-site parking has become a recurring point of local debate. Hoodline's earlier coverage of a separate HVN project in Studio City noted that community members have been tracking the Westchester Reading Avenue development specifically over no-parking concerns, even as the streamlined approval process that made the project possible continues to reshape how fast affordable housing can move through city hall.
The Bigger Picture Behind the Fast-Track Approvals
That speed traces back to Mayor Karen Bass's Executive Directive 1, which the Los Angeles City Council codified into the municipal code in December 2025, permanently establishing a 60-day ministerial review deadline for 100% affordable housing proposals, according to the Los Angeles Times. The directive has produced a striking gap between paper approvals and actual groundbreakings: as of early 2026, more than 32,000 affordable units citywide had received entitlement approvals under the directive, but fewer than 5,000 had actually been issued building permits for new construction, according to Crosstown LA, which attributed the lag to high interest rates and financing delays.
The stakes behind that gap are steep. Los Angeles had permitted only about 81,306 housing units by early 2026 toward a state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Assessment target of 456,643 new units required by 2029, per data cited by Cityview. Against that backdrop, HVN's cluster of Reading and Ramsgate Avenue projects stands out as a rare instance of an ED1 approval actually turning into an active construction site rather than a stalled entitlement.
