The Holly Street Apartment Complex Built Adjacent to Gold Line’s Memorial Park Station

Last week Mayor Villaraigosa announced a new $5 billion plan to build more lower and middle income housing in Los Angeles.  A major part of that plan will be building 20 major pedestrian friendly Transit Oriented Developments.  Half of them would be built along the Gold and Expo Lines with the other half spread throughout the rest of the city.

While a renewed focus on building affordable housing near transit hubs appears to be great news for a city that desperately needs to begin growing in a more intelligent way, the devil, as always is in the details.  We’ve already seen that some government sponsored Transit Oriented Development in the Greater Los Angeles area have an over abundance of parking.  For example, the renowned Solair Development in Koreatown has two deeded parking spaces per unit, over half a space more than the statewide average for TOD.

Image: Railroad Archive