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Echo Park Residents Oppose Ugly 'Hipster' Townhouses
Artist's rendering of what the Echo Park Townhomes will look like (via Urban One on Flickr)
Residents of Echo Park are speaking out against a plan to bring a new, "hipster"-catered townhouse complex into their neighborhood.The currently unnamed, 7-unit project would be built at the corner of Echo Park Boulevard Avenue and Avalon Street, on an empty lot that once had a gas station. According to the project manager's website, the 3-story, side-by-side units would have underground parking and have an interior of "raw industrial finishes and fixtures, fitting for the hipster neighborhood."
Unfortunately, the hipster neighborhood isn't very welcoming to the project, as hard as the developers are trying to make it fit in. "This project is out of scale with the character and quality of our neighborhood," says the website in opposition to the townhouses. "Echo Park and Elysian is a diverse neighborhood of single-family homes, duplexes and backyard units, NOT big-box apartment complexes." The site also says the project is "clearly a mansionization of the lot" and says it would also negatively affect traffic on Echo Park Avenue.
As The Eastsider points out, this is not the first time neighbors have fought against a townhouse on the same site. In 2010, then-councilman Eric Garcetti opposed a plan to put eight townhouses on the same lot, which eventually fizzled out.
Permits for the project were submitted on Tuesday to the Department of Building and Safety.
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