CITY OF VILLAGES
Sunset Tributaries preserves and augments the diverse, yet interdependent, local ecologies of Los Angeles’ multitudinous array of low-density communities. The implementation of a contextually flexible and scalable development strategy encourages the growth of housing and necessary services, while retaining existing residents, families, and the unique character of their neighborhoods.

Acknowledging Sunset Boulevard as one of the primary transit corridors linking many of the villages comprising Los Angeles’ residential tapestry, our proposal homed in on collector streets that locally organize each neighborhood and feed the boulevard. By further identifying properties within a half mile of the corridor, our proposal is a case study in addressing local initiatives, while also amplifying transit-oriented density across the entire breadth of the city.

LOCALLY SOURCED
Our approach demonstrates the potential of a targeted increase in housing density to be deployed as a device for sustaining existing communities and encouraging property ownership to pass between generations of families, building financial and social equity in the community, allowing residents to age in place, and buffering the destructive forces of gentrification.

Utilizing a real estate investment trust [REIT] model to promote neighborhood development, residents would have the opportunity to build a long-term financial stake in their communities. The REIT model supplants outside investment and turnover in neighborhoods with local control, facilitating generational continuity to take precedence over real estate speculation.

RESILIENT MORPHOLOGY
Tactically focused on addressing Los Angeles’ affordable housing crisis through increasing density on transit corridor collector streets, our proposal provides development opportunities in a range of divergent site scenarios. In addition to the primary “corner lot” configuration, the flexibility of our design permits full and partial implementation within interior lots as well.

Determined to retain the existing residents of the highlighted communities, maintaining the existing structures, in addition to their sequestered carbon, is equally imperative. To this end, a modular menu of pre-approved homes is proposed; each home designed to function independently or in a manifold of pairings.

The built in resilience of this strategy accommodates growth over time as the desires of particular families evolve or the community’s needs change, from co-living arrangements, to multi-generational homes, to senior housing, among others.

SUPPORTIVE SERVICES
We envision a tailored approach to programming the support spaces created in each community. To identify and address access to health care, nutrition, education, or additional community needs per sector, close coordination with local business incubator initiatives, supportive housing specialists, and urban gardening consultants, as well as surveys of the existing resource landscape will be essential to determining the community support services.

Once identified, traditional community spaces addressing educational, vocational, childcare, and social needs could be balanced with supportive housing needs of wellness clinics, support group space, senior care centers, or mental health centers. Traditional small business support spaces such as food incubators, maker spaces, and technology centers could be balanced with private leasable space left unfinished and dedicated to private investment and development for mixed-use needs of the neighborhood. All of which could be supported using a Neighborhood REIT model—garnering and encouraging local financial investment in the community which is essential for sustainability of place.

Project Team: Aaron Neubert, Darrell Neubert, Jeremy Limsenben, Victoria Fegen, Yuxin Liu