UPDATED DEC. 12 at 10:30 a.m.:
Soundview Investment Partners has employed the builder’s remedy to seek approval for a 17-story apartment highrise in Beverly Hills.
The locally based developer led by Max Netty has used the state legal loophole to file preliminary plans to build a 56-unit building at 145 South Rodeo Drive, Urbanize Los Angeles reported.
It would replace a two-story office building on Rodeo, less than a block south of Wilshire Boulevard.
“We’re doing what we need to do to fill the need for that kind of housing,” Netty, who also goes by Masoud Netty, told The Real Deal in an interview.
Developers such as Netty have sought to use the untested provision in state housing law to skirt local zoning rules in counties and cities such as Beverly Hills that have failed to certify their state housing plans.
Beverly Hills is required to plan for 3,104 homes — including 1,688 low income units — by 2029. But it failed to certify its state-mandated Housing Element by an October 2022 deadline. The city remains out of compliance, and thus open to builder’s remedy.
To qualify, a builder must set aside at least 20 percent of the proposed project as affordable housing for low-income households, or the entire complex for moderate-income households.
Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Redondo Beach have been the epicenter for builder’s remedy applications, spearheaded by developer Leo Pustilnikov. Such applications are in the pipeline from numerous developers across the state.
Pustilnikov has filed dozens of builder’s remedy projects in Beverly Hills, where he is based, including a 19-story building on Linden Avenue to the south of Wilshire Boulevard.
Other builder’s remedy projects in the pipeline include a 12-story building at 346 North Maple Drive, and a 14-story building slated for Hamilton Drive, according to Urbanize.
This fall, a judge sided with a nonprofit housing group in favor of builder’s remedy applications in what a California Association of Realtors executive called “a milestone decision.” The City of Beverly Hills said it would appeal the decision.
In 2017, Netty filed plans to build a pair of single-story commercial buildings along Ventura Boulevard in Encino.
— Dana Bartholomew
Clarification: Previous story named an LLC rather than Betty’s development firm Soundview Investment Partners.