Livable Communities Initiative (LCI) will be presenting their proposal for beautiful, naturally affordable housing to the Club at our August 13 meeting. LCI is asking the Club to endorse their proposal ahead of the city’s Housing & Homelessness Subcommittee meeting presentation on August 19, and they hope a full City Council vote in September.
LCI is a local, grassroots organization with a vision to build architecturally beautiful residential housing above existing retail properties, providing desperately needed affordable housing, offering more retail amenities to nearby residents, and enabling existing local busi-nesses to keep their parcels without selling to big developers. The proposal already has support from Culver City for More Homes (CC4MH) and has been presented in May 2025 to the Council Subcommittee on Homelessness and Housing, where councilmembers Fish and McMorrin have requested city staff to report on how to enable LCI in Culver City. A similar effort is being championed in Los Angeles, and city staff has recommended a blueprint for a pilot implementation
Naturally Affordable
Currently, the only allowed method to build housing along corridors would require developers to buy up a number of small parcels, assemble them into one large lot, demolish all of the buildings, and then build a large apartment complex. The LCI proposal would allow narrow, single-staircase construction on individual lots that is far less expensive. Therefore, existing small business parcel owners could develop their own property without selling it, providing housing at a much more affordable price. This allows “naturally affordable” housing to be built without public subsidies.
Necessary City Code Changes
However, this kind of gentle density would require Culver City building and zoning code amendments to allow for the necessary building designs and construction techniques that are common across the globe. In order to achieve these goals, LCI will be asking City Council to approve the following changes to city code:
1. Single stair construction: Align Culver City building code with International Code Council (ICC) egress committee recommendations to allow for single staircase construction up to 4 stories.
2. Gentle Density: Allow a maximum of 4 residential units per floor (up to 4 floors) in buildings with single-stair construction. Because commercial parcels on Culver City corridors are so narrow (some as narrow as 30 feet), the city would need to change density require-ments along corridors to allow these buildings to be built. There are two options: 1) allow for 200 dwelling units/acre only for small lots, or 2) simply specify building size requirements with no density requirement.
3. Open space: Calculate open space requirements based on percentage of lot size, rather than per-unit.
Please join us for our Membership Meeting on August 13, 2025 at 7:00 PM