Meta Housing Seeks Fast OK for 300 Units in Warner Center

Meta Housing aims to build more than 300 affordable apartments in the Warner Center neighborhood of Woodland Hills using an executive order by Mayor Karen Bass to streamline project approvals.

The Sawtelle-based developer has filed plans to build a 301-unit complex at 21300 West Oxnard Street, citing the mayor’s order known as Executive Directive 1, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.

The mayor’s order, announced in December, streamlines approvals for 100-percent affordable housing and shelters within 60 days.

Meta has applied to the L.A. Department of Planning seeking approval for the construction of its seven- and eight-story complex in Warner Center, a business district containing office towers, shopping centers, apartments and a Kaiser hospital in the west San Fernando Valley.

Plans call for two buildings to contain 301 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, with parking for 229 cars. Each apartment would be affordable, with 10 percent of the units set aside for very low-income households.

The project, designed by Downtown-based AC Martin, would be sheathed in Cape Cod blue, charcoal, gray and ochre stucco, according to a rendering, with banks of inset and external balconies.

The apartments would be built in two phases, according to the proposal, including a 173-unit building to the south and a 128-unit building on the north, south of Oxnard Street and east of Canoga Avenue. Meta didn’t disclose a timeline for development.

The proposed complex follows a spate of large-scale, market rate apartment complexes around Warner Center, including Vela on Ox, a $70 million, 379-unit development by San Diego-based Fairfield Residential across the street.

Meta Housing just completed Bell Creek Apartments, an 80-unit affordable housing complex at 6940 Owensmouth Avenue in Canoga Park, according to Urbanize, plus a 356-unit affordable complex, also designed by AC Martin, at 8811 North Sepulveda Boulevard in North Hills.

Bass has recently touted Executive Directive 1 as having spurred the development of 7,000 units of affordable and supportive housing. Her order has been challenged in court by Fix the City, a group contending the mayor’s emergency declaration on homelessness is illegal.

The mayor faces political fallout of her executive order, which could allow for eight apartment complexes up to 80 feet tall to be built in single-family neighborhoods across the Valley.

— Dana Bartholomew