Legal Battles Threaten Arts District Development

Mark Tarczynski is an EVP at Colliers International.0

LOS ANGELES—Arts District development could be on pause for at least two years, according to Mark Tarczynski, EVP at Colliers International. A series of lawsuits filed against the city and the former Arts District BID over the past several years have disrupted and are continuing to disrupt development in the submarket. Developer Yuval Bar-Zemer has been at the forefront of the debate, calling for an Arts District Specific plan and criticizing recent development plans put out by the city. At the end of last year, he and other Arts District stakeholders clashed over the Hybrid Live/Work development ordinance. Tarczynski says that the disagreements over development in the market could stall projects for years.

“The government put an overlay zone on development in the Arts District that was supposed to make development easier, but that is being blocked by a lawsuit filed by individual stakeholders that aren’t happy with the overlay zoning,” Tarczynski tells GlobeSt.com. “There are a lot of people that want to keep the Arts District quaint with a lot of razor wire and graffiti, and the way that it is. Those people think that this overlay zone, which allows for easier development, will totally change the character of the neighborhood. If you are not entitled and under construction today, you are basically stopped until this lawsuit is settled. The way we look at it, development is stopped for two years.”