Affordable TOD Wins LEED Silver

By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor

Los Angeles—Alta Vista, a 60-unit affordable housing property in Los Angeles that opened in March, has obtained LEED Silver certification. Developed by National Community Renaissance, in partnership with the East Los Angeles Community Corp., the property also counts as a transit-oriented development.

Alta Vista is on Third St. in unincorporated East Los Angeles, near the Gold Line, which connects Pasadena with East L.A. by way of Downtown. The property also meets the green design standards of the county of Los Angeles, and is consistent with the Southern California Association of Government’s 2012-2035 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy, which calls for more live-work projects.

The property is one of about 80 National CORE affordable housing projects. All together, Rancho Cucamonga-based CORE manages roughly 8,800 units in California, Arkansas, Texas and Florida, and through its Hope for Housing subsidiary, provides supportive services such as preschool, after school, and senior wellness programs.

CORE has won a number of national honors, including “Best Creative Finance of an Affordable Apartment” from the National Association of Home Builders for its Encanto Court development South Central LA. In addition to developing and managing affordable housing projects, CORE lobbies for community revitalization. Southern California alone, it asserts, is 600,000 housing units short of meeting demand.

According to a recent study by HUD, rents have increased in Los Angeles by about 30 percent over the last two decades (in real terms), but renter incomes have dropped about 6 percent over the same period. Moreover, the abolition of redevelopment agencies in California has removed an estimated $1 billion a year for affordable housing statewide, about $50 million of which was spent in Los Angeles.