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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Post Office Site Receives Stamp of Approval

A controversial 335-unit apartment complex proposed to replace the Woodland Hills Post Office site is a step closer to reality. Earlier this month, the Woodland Hills Warner Center Neighborhood Council approved The Clarendon project by Amcal Multi-Housing Inc. of Agoura Hills on a 4.5-acre site at 22055 to 22121 W. Clarendon St. The parcel sits just off Ventura Boulevard and near the 101 Freeway. Neighborhood councils are strictly advisory to the city of Los Angeles. The project still needs approval from L.A.’s Planning Commission and the City Council. In prior council meetings about the project, residents have been critical and expressed concerns over traffic congestion on the side streets because they lead to main thoroughfares. Amcal points to the traffic study it commissioned for the project that projects it will have less traffic than its current use, an overall 2,228 vehicles a day compared to the 3,328 for the Post Office. Traffic during peak morning and evening hours is forecasted to be less than the Post Office. “Our residential development, as evidenced by a third-party traffic study, generates 1,000 fewer daily trips than the existing Post Office, and far less than if this site were redeveloped for commercial use,” said Stephen Clarke, director of market rate housing for Amcal. The five-story high luxury apartment towers will wrap around a 564-vehicle parking structure and there is space for bikes – 370 of them. Seventeen units will be set aside for lower-income residents. With the site so close to the freeway, the units will have double-pane windows and air filters but not balconies. Also, the project will include a business center with micro-offices and conference rooms for residents and clients. “One of things the community wanted was a significant business center so that the tenants – those that would prefer to live/work – could have a place they could go to receive clients, and to be in a more interactive environment,” Clarke said. If the proposal is approved, Amcal expects to start building in June 2017 with a May 2019 occupancy. Above Water Ventura County, with its quickly-rising home prices, has the nation’s fifth-lowest percentage of underwater homes out of 88 metropolitan areas across the country. That’s according to a second-quarter study by Attom Data Solutions of Irvine, formerly called RealtyTrac, the foreclosure activity tracking firm. The company defines a mortgaged home to be underwater when the owner owes 25 percent more than what the property is worth in the market. The measure tracks homes considered to be seriously underwater, a number that’s been declining as the nation recovers from the Great Recession and the housing crisis and home prices rebound, Attom said. Ventura County’s positive status has been driven by four years of rising home prices, said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president with Attom. Median home prices in the county reached $600,000 in May, up 4 percent from a year ago, according to data provided to the Business Journal by Redfin. “Median prices have been up for 49 consecutive months, in terms of year-over-year, through the end of June,” Blomquist said. The same is true for California, he added, now that most of the bad loans from the housing crisis have been resolved one way or another. On the state level, about 7 percent of mortgaged homes are underwater, according to Attom. In Nevada, the percentage is 22 percent, while in Montana, underwater properties are only 5.2 percent. Other metropolitan areas – those with populations greater than 500,000 residents – that also had the lowest underwater homes were San Jose and San Francisco, Portland, Ore. and Austin, Texas. Ventura County also happens to have the sixth highest percentage of equity-rich properties, Attom said. These are properties in which the homeowner has at least 50 percent equity. The two categories – seriously underwater and equity-rich properties – are correlated, Blomquist said. There is a ripple effect to both conditions. A lot of underwater homes can stall local housing activity and the economy, he added. And a lot of equity-rich property owners are more likely to spend money and sell their homes, which is good for the local economy. Back at Work An office and retail project next to National Park Service property in Calabasas that had been stalled is now back under construction. The Las Virgenes Road/Thousand Oaks Blvd. Commercial Center at 5741 Las Virgenes Road, had been delayed as the design and construction teams changed, according to Bob Burris, public information officer for the city. Property owner and developer DeAnza Properties did not return calls for comments. In 2015, the project was reduced by a quarter of its size to 45,000 square feet when the originally approved two-story office building designs were lowered to one-story, according to the city. The project is set to finish by the end of the year, Burris said. Staff Reporter Carol Lawrence can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or [email protected].

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