Angelenos Square Off Over Affordable Housing in Palisades

YIMBYs and NIMBYs have drawn lines through the ashes of Pacific Palisades over whether to rebuild with affordable housing.

Justin Kohanoff, the owner of a burned-down Shell gas station, has proposed replacing it with an eight-story apartment complex at 15401 West Sunset Boulevard, in Palisades Village, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Plans call for a Cape Cod-style building clad in white brick, with awnings and a metal roof. It would have up to 100 apartments with some set aside for low-income households.

“It’s gonna be beautiful,” Kohanoff told the Times. “I can’t wait until it breaks ground and comes to fruition.”

Not so fast, say some residents of the wealthy seaside neighborhood, which lost more than 6,800 homes, businesses and schools in the Jan. 7 firestorm driven by 80 mph winds that burned 36.5 square miles of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Before the fire, the average home in Pacific Palisades cost $3.5 million, with mortgages supported by households earning a median $325,000 a year. The number of rental units restricted as affordable housing: two.

Some residents hope for even more exclusivity after the fires. One went so far as to propose in a community text message chain that a rebuilt Palisades should employ drones to track unfamiliar cars.

Local homeowners and leaders of rebuilding have opposed the prospect of adding low-income housing.

Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who founded a nonprofit foundation for wildfire recovery, said that while he has broadly supported affordable housing, the push to expand it into the Palisades is coming from “external interests” and would be detrimental to reconstruction.

“Now is not the time for outside groups with no ties to the area to slow down the ability of people to rebuild their homes by trying to impose their agenda,” Caruso, a mayoral candidate who ran against Mayor Karen Bass and lost in 2022, told the Times.

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir and a board member of Caruso’s wildfire foundation, Steadfast LA, has mocked the prospect of bringing affordable housing to the Palisades, on social media platform X, posting a screenshot of a headline suggesting that the city may mandate it.

“Sorry guys, no rebuilding your fancy houses that burned down by the ocean in LA until there’s a new crack den installed right in the middle of the neighborhood,” Lonsdale wrote.

The Palisades fire destroyed more than 1,300 multifamily units and mobile homes, including 770 in older buildings covered by the city’s rent control laws. Rebuilding the apartments presents challenges, according to the Times.

Landlords expect to wade through a labyrinth of red tape to reconstruct their buildings, as well as confusion over possible income or rent restrictions.

Developer Steve Soboroff, Bass’ recovery czar, said he supported more apartments in the neighborhood — and called the idea of blocking affordable housing in the Palisades “elitist.”

“In the deeds, it used to be, ‘No Jews and No Blacks’,” Soboroff said. “What are they going to put in the deeds now, ‘No Affordable Housing?’ That stuff doesn’t hold muster.”

— Dana Bartholomew