A five-story building with 60 apartments is rising at 12461 W. Louise Avenue in Del Rey, just off Centinela Avenue, and like several of its neighbors, the project skips on-site parking entirely. The affordable housing complex is being developed by MDNI, with no vehicle spaces built into the design.
According to Urbanize LA, JZA Architecture is designing the apartment building. The MDNI website, as cited in that report, estimates an 18-month construction timeline followed by a four-month lease-up period before tenants can move in.
A Pattern Taking Shape Along Centinela Avenue
The Louise Avenue project is not an isolated case. Per the same Urbanize LA report, Passo is developing a larger affordable housing complex a short walk north along Centinela Avenue, part of a broader cluster of no-parking affordable projects reshaping this stretch of Del Rey.
One of those Passo projects, at 4129 Centinela Avenue, calls for an eight-story building with 72 studio and one-bedroom apartments and no on-site parking, the outlet's report notes. All of the units there are slated for low- and moderate-income households except for a single market-rate manager's unit, and Aero Collective is designing that building. By July, construction crews had completed the wood framing for the eight-story complex, according to Westside Today.
Passo has also secured approvals for a similar project at 4706 Centinela Avenue, the article notes, where an eight-story building is planned with 73 studio and one-bedroom apartments and no on-site parking. That project is likewise restricted to low- and moderate-income households aside from one market-rate manager's unit, and it used density-bonus incentives to allow a larger building than standard zoning rules would otherwise permit. Aero Collective is designing that building as well.
The Funding Squeeze Behind the Building Boom
These projects are emerging amid a statewide affordable housing crunch. Nearly 40,000 affordable homes across California are awaiting final funding before construction can even begin, according to Enterprise Community Partners. Those stalled homes could serve more than 432,000 low-income households over the next 55 years, the organization found, but it warned that without adequate public funding, these shovel-ready projects will not move forward.
Enterprise identified four actions it says could unlock and scale affordable housing production: investing state funding, passing a housing bond act, streamlining housing finance, and addressing operational challenges facing existing developments. Locally, the Los Angeles Housing Department runs its Affordable Housing Managed Pipeline program, which creates affordable rental housing for low- and very-low-income households through long-term loans for new construction or rehabilitation, awarded through a competitive funding process.
For now, Del Rey residents have a front-row seat to what that pipeline looks like in practice: a cluster of car-free, mid-rise apartment buildings going up within blocks of each other along Centinela and Louise avenues. Whether the Louise Avenue project keeps pace with its estimated 18-month build-out remains to be seen.
