Four days after the State of California issued a formal rebuke to Los Angeles for obstructing the Venice Dell affordable housing project, Councilmember Traci Park used the City Council floor on Tuesday to defend her motion to study relocating the project and to criticize Venice Dell’s design, developers, and history.
In a heated address at City Hall, Park described Venice Dell, a 100-percent affordable and permanent-supportive housing development planned for a city-owned parking lot at 200 North Venice Boulevard, as “defunct,” “deceptive,” and “a waste of taxpayer dollars.” She accused its nonprofit developers of trying to “skip procedures” and of proposing an oversized building in a flood zone. Her remarks conflict with the City’s own record and the findings of the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), which last week warned Los Angeles that its handling of the project may violate state housing law and fair-housing obligations.
The October 3 HCD letter cited the City’s “significant delay and effective denial” of the Venice Dell project despite full approvals and 42 million dollars in committed state housing funds. The agency warned that continued obstruction could cost Los Angeles its “Prohousing” designation, which helps the City qualify for state housing funds. Copies were sent to Mayor Karen Bass, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, and Councilmember Park, all of whom have played roles in the project’s ongoing stall.
Venice Dell was conceived in 2016 as a model use of public land for affordable and supportive housing near the coast, responding to Los Angeles’ Comprehensive Homeless Strategy calling for city-owned sites to be developed for housing. The City selected Venice Community Housing (VCH) and Hollywood Community Housing Corporation (HCHC) as developers after a competitive process and approved the project unanimously in 2021. It cleared environmental review under state supportive-housing provisions, received full City Council approval, and in December 2024 won unanimous certification from the California Coastal Commission.
The plan calls for 120 units of deeply affordable housing, including 68 supportive homes for formerly unhoused residents and 49 affordable apartments for low-income households, with community-serving retail, open space, and replacement public parking. The design, by Eric Owen Moss Architects, was modified over several years of public engagement to maintain beach access, preserve a public boat launch, and ensure sufficient parking.
Much of the delay now drawing scrutiny from Sacramento can be traced to Traci Park’s long-standing opposition to the Venice Dell project. After the City approved the development in 2021, Park supported and was involved with neighborhood groups that sued to overturn those approvals, aligning herself with opponents who claimed the project violated the Coastal Act and city zoning rules. Those challenges were ultimately dismissed, but Park carried her opposition into her 2022 campaign, making Venice Dell a centerpiece of her platform and promising to revisit it if elected. Once in office, she instructed city departments to hold off on advancing approvals, routed developer communications through the City Attorney’s office, and introduced motions that have kept the project in limbo. The legal and political gridlock she helped create is now the basis for the state’s warning that Los Angeles may be violating housing law.
For Park, Venice Dell is more than a policy fight – it’s an existential political battle. Her opposition to the project is what first vaulted her from a neighborhood activist into elected office and cemented her alliance with homeowner groups in Venice who view affordable and supportive housing as a threat to their version of the community. Now, after the state has publicly rebuked Los Angeles for obstructing the project, Park finds herself trapped by the very forces that brought her to power. To back down would be to betray the base that defines her, so she is willing to put everything on the line to keep fighting, even if it means defying state law, endangering city funding, and isolating herself politically.
In 2023, City departments quietly froze the project after instructions from the City Attorney’s office and Park’s team to “hold off” on advancing approvals. Internal communications later showed that developers were told to route all Venice Dell correspondence through the City Attorney’s office, effectively stalling progress for months. Even after Mayor Bass’s staff intervened to resume contact in mid-2023, key agencies such as LADOT and LAHD continued delaying critical steps, including Ellis Act relocation approvals and the parking-structure contract.
By late 2024, despite clearing court challenges and securing Coastal Commission approval, the project faced a sudden and coordinated setback. The Los Angeles Board of Transportation Commissioners, whose members are appointed by Mayor Karen Bass and serve at her pleasure, abruptly voted to deny use of the Venice Dell site for housing and instead recommended converting it into a “mobility hub.” The decision came without prior notice to the project’s developers and outside the board’s normal jurisdiction over city property. Within weeks, City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office echoed those concerns, and Park introduced her own City Council motion to “study” relocating the project across the street to Lot 701, a smaller site currently used for a farmers market. Taken together, the timing and alignment of these actions suggested a coordinated effort among the Mayor’s office, the City Attorney, and Park to reopen and derail a fully approved, shovel-ready affordable housing project.
Housing advocates and the state have warned that Park’s Lot 701 proposal would effectively kill Venice Dell by restarting years of environmental review, design, and funding processes. Venice Community Housing and its partners have since filed suit against the City and the Board of Transportation Commissioners, arguing that the board exceeded its authority. A separate lawsuit by the LA Forward Institute also accuses the City of obstructing the project in violation of fair-housing law.
In her broadside at City Council this week, Park claimed her district is “doing housing,” citing 9,300 units “advanced” since she took office. She provided no list of projects or explanation of where those units are being built. Many of them were approved long before her tenure and likely rely on the very laws and programs she has opposed, such Executive Directive 1, the Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program, and state laws such as SB 35 that streamline approvals.
Even assuming her housing numbers are accurate, they fall far short. Under the state’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA), Los Angeles must plan for 456,643 new homes by 2029, including 184,721 for lower-income households. If Council District 11 carried its fair share, that would mean roughly 30,000 new units, including about 12,300 affordable units, built by 2029. Halfway through the Housing Element cycle, CD11 is nowhere near that target, even with the housing figures Park cites. If Los Angeles continues to fall behind, the state could find the City out of compliance with its Housing Element, triggering the builder’s remedy, a policy that removes local zoning control over housing approvals. Of course, this is the very thing that Park and her supporters claim to be defending.
In the same speech, Park objected to the relocation of four households living in rent-stabilized apartments on the Venice Dell site, framing herself as defending tenants from eviction. That framing omits critical context: the City owns the building, the units are in severe disrepair, and the tenants are guaranteed full relocation benefits along with the right to return once new homes are completed. Advocates note that Park’s sudden concern for these four renters rings hollow given her record at Barrington Plaza, where her office facilitated one of the largest mass evictions in California history, evicting hundreds of rent-stabilized tenants under an illegal application of the Ellis Act in 2023.
It is important to note that Park’s main source of support for her position comes from the Venice Neighborhood Council, a body that consistently opposes deeply affordable housing in the community and champions sweeps and displacement over housing. The advisory council holds no formal decision-making power, yet Park cites its votes as validation for her stance against Venice Dell. In reality, the VNC has been dominated for years by conservative homeowner interests who have resisted projects that would allow low-income residents to remain in Venice. The state housing department has repeatedly warned that allowing such local resistance to dictate city policy reinforces segregation and undermines fair-housing obligations.
Beyond Venice, the controversy raises broader questions about how far individual councilmembers can go in blocking city-approved housing projects. Venice Dell is fully entitled, funded, and contractually committed, yet has been held up for nearly two years through local political intervention. Housing experts warn that if a single elected official can indefinitely stall a project after all legal approvals are in place, it could set a chilling precedent citywide. Other developers and affordable-housing nonprofits may conclude that even when they comply with every regulation, win public funding, and secure City Council votes, their projects can still be derailed by politics.