New lawsuit aims to stop LA leaders from further ‘thwarting’ Venice homeless housing project

A newly filed lawsuit seeks to force L.A. city leaders to stop an alleged "covert thwarting" of a controversial housing development in Venice that the city council first approved two years ago.

The suit was filed late Wednesday in L.A. County Superior Court by the law firm Public Counsel on behalf of the advocacy group L.A. Forward and three Venice residents.

The suit centers on Venice Dell, a hotly contested project that’s one of the largest planned Westside housing proposals for unhoused people and people with low incomes. City leaders approved an agreement in June 2022 to develop the 140-unit project, before subsequent approvals allegedly stalled amid community pushback.

The project appeared to be “experiencing a delay in processing” by the city, according to a February 2024 letter from the state housing department to the city.

The suit alleges two top city elected officials — Councilmember Traci Park and City Attorney Heidi Feldstein Soto — have covertly and illegally thwarted the project since taking office in late 2022, despite the city’s stated goals to expand affordable housing across L.A.

The lawsuit claims Park and Felstein Soto are discriminating against people of color and people with disabilities in violation of fair housing laws and equal protection under the state Constitution.

It also claims that halting work on the project has a disproportionate impact on people of color’s ability to access housing.

“Most alarmingly, Councilmember Park and the City Attorney seek to defeat the Project not by democratic means in the City Council, but to use their offices to tie the Project up in red tape outside of public view,” the suit alleges.

Public Counsel, the law firm that filed the suit, won a key ruling last year in different case that ramped up pressure on federal officials to build more veteran housing at the Veteran’s Affairs campus in a sprawling campus in West L.A.

[Click here to read the lawsuit.]

A spokesperson for Feldstein Soto said the city attorney does not comment on pending litigation, and a spokesperson for Park said the council member was not available to comment. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not immediately have comment.

A centerpiece of L.A.’s strategy to end homelessness has been the construction of permanent supportive housing projects like Venice Dell. More than 1,000 newly built permanent housing units have opened up citywide since Bass took office in late 2022, largely funded by the Proposition HHH bond measure city voters approved in 2016. Venice Dell is not expected to be funded by HHH, but has been approved for funding from other city sources.

“When we allow opposition to kill affordable housing in wealthy, predominantly white communities, we are allowing for a perpetuation of the segregation patterns in this city,” Faizah Malik, a lead Public Counsel attorney in the case, said in an interview with LAist. “So we need our city leaders to be really stepping up to fight for this affordable housing, especially in areas like the Westside.”

The suit seeks a court order banning the city from further delaying the project.

Why this matters

Venice Dell is one of West L.A.’s highest-profile and most contentious homeless housing developments proposed in recent years.

It would create 140 apartments on a city-owned parking lot along Venice Boulevard between Dell and Pacific avenues just 800 feet from the beach. Sixty-eight apartments would be permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, with education and employment services. Another 34 units would be affordable for low-income households, and 34 would be specifically for low-income artists. The project would include eight staff on site, as well as community rooms for tenants.

The controversy

The agreement to develop the property was approved in June 2022, though it’s been held back for years by lawsuits and an alleged halting of city work on it after Park and Feldstein Soto took office in late 2022.

Many Venice residents, along with Park, have opposed the project. During her 2022 election campaign, Park sent a letter to Joe Buscaino, an L.A. city council member at the time, saying the project will do little to address homelessness. She added that it would “forever change the character of the historic Venice Canal community.”

A majority of the locally-elected Venice Neighborhood Council has repeatedly voted to oppose the project over the years. They’ve cited “substantial unresolved environmental issues,” including risks from rising sea levels, when voting 11 to 2 to oppose the project last September.

Supporters, meanwhile, call Venice Dell an unprecedented opportunity in West L.A. to create housing and support services that help bring people off the streets and into housing with support services.

The L.A. Times editorial board, which has supported the project, recently criticized the city and Feldstein Soto for slowing down permit approvals and called on Bass to facilitate its approval.

What’s alleged

The lawsuit alleges that after taking office in late 2022, Feldstein Soto has been using her role “to not only stop City departments from signing off on the remaining necessary approvals for the Project, but to prevent City staff from communicating with the Developers on Project details.”

“The City’s obstruction and delay of Venice Dell have made housing unavailable in a manner that discriminates — in both intent and impact — against persons of color and persons with disabilities,” it adds.

“The city is publicly adopting policies that are furthering affordable housing, but allowing some elected officials to covertly thwart those same policies,” said Malik, the plaintiff’s attorney, in her interview with LAist. “And that is a hypocrisy that is at the core of our case — that we're allowing a few city officials, a few neighborhoods to be able to opt out from participating in all the housing solutions that we need to address our homelessness crisis.”

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