The Los Angeles Unified School District's board has voted to enter exclusive negotiating agreements with developers for two long-dormant properties, clearing the way for roughly 600 units of affordable and workforce housing in Woodland Hills and West Hollywood. The decision targets a shuttered elementary school campus and a West Hollywood site owned by the district, with construction timelines stretching into 2028 and 2029.
According to Urbanize Los Angeles, the board approved Affirmed Housing's selected bid to redevelop the 6.5-acre Collins Elementary School campus at 5717 N. Rudnick Avenue in Woodland Hills, where the developer plans 391 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. The outlet also reports the board approved West Hollywood Community Housing Corp. to redevelop a 1.5-acre property at 1049 N. Fairfax Avenue into 207 studio, one-, two-, and three-bedroom units. Both projects will reserve apartments for renters earning between 30 and 120 percent of area median income, per the same report.
The push comes as LAUSD grapples with mounting staff attrition tied to Los Angeles housing costs. An internal 2024 survey of nearly 12,000 district employees found more than 6,000 respondents interested in district-sponsored housing, with 46% saying they had considered leaving their jobs because of the region's cost of living, according to LAUSD. The survey spanned teachers, custodians, nurses, and administrative staff.
Scale and Design at the Woodland Hills Site
LAUSD's own documentation describes a building that will rise five stories along Shoup Avenue before stepping down to three stories along Miranda Street and Rudnick Avenue, a transition meant to soften the project's edge against neighboring single-family homes. Site plans also call for 550 parking spaces, a fitness center, and outdoor play areas, the district says. The Collins site has sat largely unused for decades — it originally opened as Collins Street Elementary School in 1960 and permanently closed as an active school facility in the early 1980s, according to Wisevoter.
Financial terms outlined in the seed reporting show Affirmed Housing paying $150,000 in ground lease deposits during predevelopment and construction, then $250,000 annually afterward, with that cost escalating 2.5 percent per year. The developer anticipates breaking ground in summer 2029 and completing construction by summer 2031, Urbanize Los Angeles reports.
Fairfax Avenue's Taller, Mixed-Use Footprint
The West Hollywood proposal calls for an eight-story building along Fairfax Avenue that steps down to four stories along Hayworth Avenue, according to LAUSD's project documentation. Design specifications also include rooftop terraces, computer labs, and ground-floor commercial space. The Fairfax site will include parking for 250 vehicles, and LAUSD is set to receive $10 million following construction along with a share of commercial income from the property, per the original reporting. Annual rent will start at $20,000 and escalate 3.5 percent per year, with work expected to begin in summer 2028 and the project opening by summer 2030.
Both developer teams still have significant hurdles ahead: continued negotiation of final development agreements with the district, the entitlement process, and the search for financing, according to the same report. Proposals for both sites were evaluated under Request for Proposals R-26058 by a selection panel that included technical housing experts from the City of Los Angeles Housing Department and the Los Angeles County Development Authority, LAUSD has said.
Why Two South LA Sites Were Left Out
LAUSD's original RFP actually covered four district-owned properties, including two smaller sites in South Los Angeles alongside Woodland Hills and West Hollywood. Neither South LA location received a developer bid, a gap that Urbanize LA highlights as a notable difference in developer interest across the district's portfolio.
Part of a Broader State Push on School Land
The district's approach leans on California Assembly Bill 2295, passed in 2022 and expanded by AB 1021, which authorizes local educational agencies to build workforce housing by-right on district land without going through local rezoning, provided projects include 55-year affordability restrictions and employee priority, according to the ACSA Resource Hub. A 2022 joint study by cityLAB UCLA and UC Berkeley's Terner Center identified roughly 75,000 developable acres of school district land statewide that could yield up to 2 million housing units at 30 units per acre, a scale that frames LAUSD's efforts within a much larger statewide opportunity, per research cited by SPUR.
If completed, the two new projects would nearly quadruple LAUSD's existing workforce housing footprint. The district's current portfolio totals 185 units across three finished projects — Sage Park Apartments in Gardena, Selma Community Housing in Hollywood, and Norwood Learning Village near USC — where district employees get priority leasing, according to the LAUSD Facilities Services Division. LAUSD opened its first affordable project in 2012, giving the district more than a decade of experience to draw on as it scales up its ambitions in Woodland Hills and West Hollywood.
