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LAHD recommends site-control letters for four AHSC Round 9 projects; city steps back as co-applicant
Summary
Los Angeles Housing Department staff told the committee the city will no longer serve as co-applicant for most Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) grant proposals and recommended site-control confirmation letters for four projects, citing staffing limits and past city obligations for infrastructure.
Los Angeles Housing Department staff told the Housing and Homelessness Committee on May 21 that the city will not be a co-applicant in AHSC (Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities) Round 9 and recommended issuing site-control confirmation letters for four projects so those developers can access state funding for affordable housing and related transit infrastructure.
Eric Claros of LAHD said the city has provided co-applicant support in prior AHSC rounds but stopped being a full co-applicant beginning in Round 8 because the city is behind on obligations to build sustainable-transit infrastructure for previously awarded projects. "We are behind on our obligations for previously awarded projects," Claros said, and LAHD staff described cost overruns and department staffing limits as the principal reasons the city is scaling back co-applicant responsibilities.
LAHD reported it received 19 submissions this cycle and evaluated them in stages for housing readiness, cost per unit, project readiness and transit-related scopes of work. The department recommended issuing site-control letters for four projects; staff said such letters would confirm city control of the public right-of-way or access necessary for the proposed transit or pedestrian components but would not obligate the city to build or fund the work.
Council members asked why the city would limit the number of site-control confirmations if the letters do not create a funding obligation. LAHD and other staff said major reasons were (1) limited engineering and DOT capacity to review many proposed scopes of work, (2) concerns about past cost overruns on city-managed infrastructure commitments and (3) a desire to elevate only projects that appeared most feasible and competitive.
LAHD staff said two projects from the departments recent call for projects dropped out of stage 3, leaving four that the department advanced for additional infrastructure review. Council members asked for greater effort in future rounds to increase the number of competitive applications the city supports and discussed whether internal staffing or alternate funding could permit the city to approve more site-control confirmations.
The committee voted to approve the LAHD recommendations. The vote was recorded as: Council Member Romano (yes), Council Member Gerardo (yes), Council Member Blumenfield (aye).
