Design competition focuses on infill projects to address housing scarcity, affordability

A new design competition is intended to spur infill projects to address housing scarcity and affordability across Los Angeles.

Earlier this year, the City of Los Angeles, CityLab-UCLA, and nonprofit LA4LA launched Small Lots, Big Impacts, with jurying criteria intended to foster projects that are easily replicable and buildable across the city. The designs are meant to be exemplars for thousands of other vacant spaces that could feasibly host winning proposals.

After the designs are judged, project officials intend to release a developer RFQ. Competition organizers expect to make up to a dozen city-owned small lots available for development of demonstration projects.

CityLab-UCLA, the Los Angeles Housing Department, and the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office will support winning projects through design, approvals, entitlements, and permitting processes. There are 24,000 vacant lots citywide, including 1,000 that are city-owned, but in the aftermath of the L.A. fires that destroyed nearly 11,000 homes, that count will likely increase, according to published reports.