Los Angeles has somehow found yet another way to delay Venice Dell. This time, the supposed obstacle isn’t a new problem with the affordable housing project, but a court judgment removing one of the city’s own roadblocks to breaking ground.

The Los Angeles Board of Transportation Commissioners was scheduled Thursday to undo its December 2024 vote blocking the use of a city-owned parking lot for Venice Dell. Judge Curtis Kin ruled in May that the Board never had the authority to make that decision. In response to Kin’s ruling, Mayor Karen Bass, who has historically backed attempts to block the project by Councilmember Traci Park and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, asked her appointees to vacate the vote, and LADOT recommended that they do so. This week, the court entered judgment in favor of the project’s developers. But when the item finally came before the commissioners yesterday, they postponed it once again so they could first receive a confidential legal briefing.

The August 13 agenda appeared to set up a rare moment of bureaucratic cleanup. Item 7 called on the Board to vacate its prior decision concerning Municipal Parking Lot 731, the city-owned site near the Venice Canals where Venice Dell would provide 120 affordable and supportive homes while replacing the existing surface parking with 200 spaces in two structures.

But before the commissioners could act, John Heath of City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office told them that his office had “important legal advice” about the judgment entered Monday. Heath said the advice could only be delivered in closed session. And since no Venice Dell closed session was included on yesterday’s agenda, commissioners could either proceed with vacating the vote as recommended or postpone the matter until another meeting.

Anna Hovasapian, representing Bass, urged them to act. She said the mayor’s position had not changed and reminded the commissioners that their Board is an extension of the mayor’s executive authority. Vacating the vote, she explained, would simply clear the way for the City Council to address the remaining decisions about the project.

“Our recommendation would still be to proceed with vacating today,” Hovasapian said.

Despite this advice and the Mayor’s clear directive, the commissioners chose to wait. The judgment cited by Heath as justification for going into closed session did not overturn or complicate Kin’s May ruling. It formalized it. Kin already decided the central legal question on May 26, finding that the Transportation Commission exceeded its authority when it tried to deny the use of Lot 731 for Venice Dell. He determined that City Council had designated the property for affordable housing and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Housing Department. The Transportation Commission could eventually oversee matters involving the operation of public parking, but it could not veto housing on the site.

After granting the developers’ petition in May, Kin said a writ would issue directing the Board to vacate its December action. The developers then had to prepare the proposed judgment and writ, serve them on the city and allow time for objections before submitting them to the court. The City Attorney’s office therefore had nearly three months to analyze the ruling, review the proposed documents, object to their wording and advise city officials about the consequences. The August 10 judgment was the expected conclusion of that process, not a surprise that required everyone to return to square one.

That timing matters because LADOT’s own report had already recommended vacating the vote. The report noted that, as of August 3, the court had not yet entered judgment or issued the anticipated writ. LADOT did not treat that as a reason for delay. It recommended that the Board act based on Kin’s ruling anyway. Once judgment was entered this week, the case for vacating the vote became stronger, not weaker.

The City Attorney may want the City Council to consider an appeal, seek a stay or make some other decision about the litigation. Hovasapian acknowledged that the Council will ultimately decide how the city responds. Heath, however, did not say publicly that an appeal or stay was being considered. Instead, commissioners were asked to delay based on legal advice the public was not allowed to hear and that the Board had not placed itself in a position to receive.

Nor was the Transportation Commission being asked to decide the future of Venice Dell. The task before them was narrow: remove a decision the court found it had no authority to make and allow the officials who do possess authority to take the next steps. Even that limited action of vacating its vote would not have authorized construction or resolved the outstanding issues (of which there are many). Bass’s June 26 letter identified the ground lease and public parking plan as matters that would still have to go before the City Council, along with questions about financing the replacement parking. LADOT noted in its report that the Board’s separate recommendation to study relocating the housing to nearby Lot 701 still stands.

Venice Dell has been in development since 2016, when the city selected Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing Corporation to develop the site at 200 North Venice Boulevard. The City Council approved the project in 2021 and authorized a development agreement in 2022. The California Coastal Commission unanimously approved it in December 2024, and the project later secured roughly $45 million in conditional state and county funding

Each approval has been followed by a new attempt to slow or stop the project. Councilmember Traci Park took office after promising to “squash” Venice Dell, then pushed proposals for an unfunded “mobility hub” or to move the housing to Lot 701. The City Attorney’s office repeatedly sought more taxpayer money for outside lawyers handling Venice Dell litigation, with the city’s Nossaman contract growing to $1.27 million.

The Transportation Commission supplied one of the most consequential delays on December 10, 2024, when it convened a special meeting and voted against allowing the development on Lot 731. The vote came one day before the Coastal Commission approved the project. Park celebrated and declared it dead, and Kin later ruled that the Board lacked that authority.

Erika Lee, co-executive director of Venice Community Housing, told commissioners Thursday that 611 days had passed since that meeting. Every additional delay, she said, carries consequences far beyond court filings, parking studies and closed-session briefings.

“Delaying this project has real human costs,” Lee said.

The commissioners had an opportunity Thursday to remove one unlawful obstacle from a project the city has kept waiting for a decade. Faced with a court judgment, a recommendation from LADOT and a direct request from the mayor who appointed them, they found another reason to wait.