City to ease way for residences in business districts. (Up Front).

Faced with an apartment shortage and little available land, the City of Los Angeles is poised to enact an ordinance that would allow zones to be designated for mixed-use projects in previously commercial-only areas.

The proposed breakthrough ordinance would change the city's zoning code to allow multifamily residential buildings -- with or without retail on the ground floor -- to be built along commercial corridors. Currently, such projects can be built, but only after receiving up to a dozen variances, a process that can take more than six months.

The controversial ordinance, which already has been approved by the planning commission and the council's planning committee, is set to go before the full City Council later this month. It's paired with another ordinance that increases the density threshold for projects with housing that meets federal standards for affordability.

If the council passes these measures, as widely expected, new residential mixed-use zones -- called "residential/accessory services" or RAS zones -- could be created as early as next year. Residential projects proposed within these zones would no longer need multiple variances.

"This ordinance would be a tremendous time-saver and would spur the redevelopment of obsolete linear commercial strips throughout the city;' said Dan Rosenfeld, principal with Urban Partners LLC, which develops infill multifamily housing. "It would also help relieve some of the housing shortage we have in this city."

But the ordinance has critics, particularly among homeowner groups that fear it would bring increased congestion and more multistory buildings right up to the borders of their neighborhoods.

"The whole plan stinks," said Diana Plotkin, president of the Beverly Wilshire Homes Association, which includes the area around the Farmer's Market and the new Grove shopping center. "The city is going to start approving all these apartment buildings with grossly inadequate parking."

Plotkin said many of the city's commercial corridors have shallow lots that don't extend far back from the street. Those lots, she said, don't have enough room for ground floor retail, upstairs apartments and adequate parking spaces. "It will simply add to the already impossible traffic situation," she said.

In addition, critics said the plan is just another step in the city's "densification," especially in areas where the transportation system can't handle additional people.

"I have no problem with mixed-use projects on paper. But what happens is they put in all these projects and promise that the streets and bus routes will accommodate the new development' said Gordon Murley, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization and a proponent of San Fernando Valley secession. "But when the new projects go up, the streets and mass transit aren't improved. Instead, what you end up doing is cramming more people and cars into already crowded neighborhoods."

Corridors targeted

City planners say they are targeting many of the city's east-west corridors, including stretches of Santa Monica, Olympic, Pico and Venice boulevards, for the first of the RAS zones allowed by the ordinance. Some north-south streets, like Vermont Avenue or Broadway also could be among the first to be designated with these RAS zones.

"Long stretches of these streets have underutilized commercial corridors that are ideal for new housing," said city Planning Director Con Howe.

Howe said the proposed ordinance comes at a time when the marketplace is finally beginning to accept residential projects in formerly commercial-only zones. As other buildable space diminishes, these underused corridors are often all that's left.

"In the last calendar year, 40 percent of multifamily units built throughout the entire city were built in commercial zones," Howe said.

Last year, according to planning department figures, 1,930 residential units were built in commercial zones, up from 950 units in 2000. The projects range from a 450-unit tower near Marina del Rey to just five units.

Most of these projects are strictly residential. But a growing number have retail on the ground floor. Two such projects are now in the approval process on the Westside: one on Wilshire Boulevard just east of Bundy Drive, and the other on Santa Monica Boulevard near Colby Avenue.

Most of the multifamily projects in commercial zones--with or without ground floor retail--have been proposed on the Westside and in the southern part of the San Fernando Valley, according to Jane Blumenfeld, principal city planner. "That's where it's most lucrative."

While additional units at any price point can help ease the city's overall housing shortage, the need is greatest for below-market rents in poorer neighborhoods.

"There just haven't been many incentives to steer these types of projects toward Pico-Union or Pacoima," she added, referring to two of the city's poorer neighborhoods.

One of the purposes of the ordinance, Blumenfeld said, is to make it easier for developers to build such projects in more run-down areas by removing barriers and saving developers time and money.

There are miles of run-down commercial corridors throughout large swaths of the city, particularly in South L.A. on streets like Vermont and Normandie avenues.

"This ordinance begins to correct what has been one of the long-standing flaws in the city: the creation of these long, linear commercial zones really accessible only by car," Rosenfeld said. "Over time, these areas have been allowed to decay."

Putting housing in these zones, Rosenfeld said, may be a better use for much of that land.

In recent years, the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency has been trying to develop residential projects on commercial corridors, including ones on Central Avenue and Broadway south of downtown, said John McCoy, a deputy administrator.

"There's no question that the current zoning requires developers to jump through all sorts of additional hoops," McCoy said. "This ordinance would reduce those barriers and make more of these projects pencil out for developers."

On virtually all of the CRA's residential projects in commercial zones, there have been waiting lists of potential residents vying for limited numbers of apartments, he added.

"We've often had as many as 1,000 people apply for 100 or even 50 apartment units, the demand is that great," McCoy said.