Creating A Comfortable Living Space: Learn More About Affordable Housing Design At Bisnow’s May 22 Event

Los Angeles County is facing a scarcity of affordable homes. For evidence, look no further than the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative, which found that the area needs approximately 500,000 more affordable units to house its residents.

Developers contributing to this sector can learn more about trends in the huge LA affordable housing market as well as creative financing and design solutions at Bisnow’s Los Angeles Affordable Housing Conference on May 22. 

Daniel Gehman, principal at Danielian Associates Architects + Planners, an architectural design and planning studio that specializes in residential housing, including affordable housing, will moderate the Developing and Designing for LA’s Affordable Housing Needs panel. 

Click here to purchase tickets and register for the event.

Gehman said he looks forward to the large gathering of affordable providers and to hearing more about what drives them to do the rewarding work they do.

“There are so many good intentions and a devotion to the community, yet these initiatives can face a lot of opposition,” Gehman said. “I can relate to the providers in the affordable space who get up in the morning to come in and do this work, despite the difficulties.”

Gehman sat down with Bisnow to discuss obstacles facing the sector, how creativity gets implemented and what developers should consider when building affordable units.

Bisnow: What are some notable challenges in LA’s affordable housing market?

Gehman: When LA Mayor Karen Bass took office, one of her first acts was to issue Executive Directive 1, which streamlined the approval pathway for 100% affordable projects. Today, 14,000 units are pending. While this is promising, I’ve been hearing that fewer than half of them actually pencil at the end of the day. 

Additionally, while many developers have good intentions and are driven by a social impact motivation, it's important for them to know in advance that the way “capital-A Affordable” projects are funded is vastly different from market-rate projects. 

Many of these projects can have multiple funding sources for their equity, so the affordable teams working on them devote an enormous amount of their time to getting all that funding in place, because that's what makes the projects work at the end of the day. 

Bisnow: What are some creative solutions that developers can utilize in affordable housing?

Gehman: Getting creative starts long before the design of the apartments in the building. The first is to go where you’re wanted. You can discover the municipalities, the underlying zonings or the neighborhoods that might welcome more affordable housing, but it actually doesn't exist in that area. There is also so much creativity involved in amassing the capital and finding the right entitlements and permitting. 

Additionally, once you get to the design, you can work with prototypical solutions to the extent that’s possible. The bigger capital-A Affordable providers develop units within a particular prototype. That seems like the opposite of creativity, but not having to rethink the basics or design a building from scratch every time means that you can put more energy into the unique aspects within the prototype.

Bisnow: How can affordable housing be designed with the residents’ needs in mind?

Gehman: Storage space is one important thing to consider. Even though you’re not "living" in the storage space, you still need it to store your material possessions. In affordable apartments, what often happens is that these units are often pared down to the minimum sizes of things. When you design to the minimum size, an additional storage closet often gets sliced out.

If you give people space they don't need, it adds to the cost and can go toward rent, and they may not perceive the value. On the other hand, you don't want to leave out something like storage because that is really essential to comfort. As we design things, we constantly grapple with how including more square footage can factor into rent cost and balancing that with the needs of our residents. It’s a complex equation.

Bisnow: How does Danielian Associates bring its distinctive approach to the affordable housing sector?

Gehman: Danielian Associates has been in business for over 55 years. For almost that entire time, we’ve focused on creating housing opportunities at all densities, scales and price points. We have an extraordinarily deep and rich history to draw upon and have hitched it onto a process of progressive, intelligent and passionate design.

We’re informed by our past work, but we also simultaneously stretch what we can do to have a building that both the developer and residents can be proud of. We’re deeply empathetic with our end users while at the same time taking our roles as shepherds of the built environment very seriously. 

The building is going to stand the test of time and will contribute to urban fabric and urban context. We think about “how do we nurture this impact on an urban environment while simultaneously thinking about what it's like for residents to do their daily tasks?” 

Bisnow: What are you looking forward to most about attending Bisnow’s Los Angeles Affordable Housing Conference?

Gehman: Having hundreds of people together to talk about affordable housing is very energizing. It’s inspiring to see so many people who have chosen to go into this line of work. As providers, you need to have thick skin while also leaving room for empathy. I want to applaud all of the affordable housing providers, especially my friends in the industry who will be in the room with me.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to attend the event. Buy tickets and register here.

This article was produced in collaboration between Danielian Associates and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.

Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.