A long-vacant former elementary school site in Woodland Hills could be transformed into nearly 400 apartments for Los Angeles Unified School District employees under a proposal heading to the school board next Tuesday.
Los Angeles Unified School District is proposing to develop roughly 390 rental apartments for its employees on the vacant former Collins Street Elementary campus in Woodland Hills. The board will vote on exclusive negotiations next Tuesday.
A long-vacant former elementary school site in Woodland Hills could be transformed into nearly 400 apartments for Los Angeles Unified School District employees under a proposal heading to the school board next Tuesday.
District officials are recommending that LAUSD enter into exclusive negotiations with Affirmed Housing Group and HA Builders Group to develop approximately 390 one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units on the 6.56-acre former Collins Street Elementary School property at 5717 N. Rudnick Ave.
The development would rise five stories along Shoup Avenue before stepping down to three stories along Miranda Street and Rudnick Avenue. Single-family homes line portions of the surrounding neighborhood.
The proposed development would include about 550 parking spaces, outdoor play areas, a community room, fitness center and walking paths, according to the board report.
On Friday afternoon, the former school property sat empty behind fencing, with trees and vegetation growing across portions of the land. The property sits near the Woodland Hills Recreation Center, a food pantry and a weekly farmers market.
The proposal is part of LAUSD's broader effort to turn underused district property into affordable housing for employees at a time when officials say Los Angeles' high housing costs are making it harder to recruit and retain school workers. In a 2024 district survey, 46% of employee respondents said they had considered leaving their jobs because of high housing costs, while more than 6,000 employees expressed interest in LAUSD affordable housing.
All of the apartments would initially be offered to eligible LAUSD employees. The district said eligibility would depend on household income and size, with the current proposal targeting households earning between 30% and 120% of Los Angeles County's area median income. Teachers, nurses, instructional aides, food service workers, custodians, school administrative staff and other district employees could potentially qualify depending on household income.
Board member Nick Melvoin, whose district includes the Collins property, said he has met teachers who commute as long as two hours each way because of housing costs.
"I want our employees to be able to live closer to the schools they serve. Not just to have an easier commute, but also to be a part of the broader community," Melvoin said in a statement Friday.
The prospect of hundreds of new apartments is also raising concerns among some nearby residents about traffic, density and the scale of development in the surrounding neighborhood.
Danny Rutledge, who has lived near the property for about three years, said he and other neighbors had heard for some time that LAUSD was considering redeveloping the site. He said he believes most of the neighbors he has spoken with oppose the current proposal.
"We definitely don't love it," Rutledge said.
He said the neighborhood already sees substantial activity from the nearby park, farmers market, church and food distribution programs and worries that hundreds of additional households would worsen traffic and parking problems. Rutledge said he would like to see LAUSD study how a development of this size would affect the surrounding neighborhood, including traffic, noise and density. He also said neighbors have attended meetings about the property but that he did not believe their input had been meaningful.
Still, Rutledge said he supports putting the long-unused property to some new use.
"The idea of putting something in that empty lot is nice, just because it's been an empty lot for as long as we've been here," he said, adding that he would prefer a use more oriented toward the surrounding public or park.
LAUSD held two hybrid community meetings about the Collins property in summer 2025, a district spokesperson said Friday. According to the spokesperson, residents raised many of the same issues described by neighbors, including traffic, parking, neighborhood safety, construction noise and building height, along with questions about affordability, eligibility and the project's timeline.
The spokesperson said the current development concept is not final. If the board approves Affirmed Housing Group as the selected proposer on Tuesday, the developer would begin another round of site-specific community engagement, sharing the current concept and gathering feedback as planning and design continue.
"Affirmed Housing is honored to be recommended, alongside our partner HA Builders, to work with LAUSD on the potential redevelopment of the former Collins Elementary School site," Affirmed Housing President Jimmy Silverwood said in a statement Friday.
The San Diego-based affordable housing developer has built projects throughout California, including several in Los Angeles. It is partnering with its affiliated general contracting company, HA Builders, on the Collins proposal. Silverwood said workforce housing is an extension of the company's mission and that Affirmed hopes to create more attainable housing options that allow school employees to live closer to where they work.
Exactly what residents would pay remains undetermined. The district spokesperson said rents would depend on the eventual mix of affordability levels, apartment sizes, income and rent limits and financing requirements.
The current proposal anticipates construction beginning 2029 and completion by 2031, although the number of units, site design and final financial terms remain subject to negotiation.
The proposal comes as LAUSD faces significant financial pressure. The Los Angeles County Office of Education conditionally approved the district's 2026-27 adopted budget last month and required LAUSD to provide additional information on its fiscal stabilization plan and cash-flow projections by Oct. 8.
LAUSD says its workforce housing initiative is intended to address housing affordability for employees and support recruitment and retention without diverting General Fund resources from schools. Under the Collins proposal, Affirmed would be responsible for securing financing for the development through Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and other public subsidies available for affordable housing projects.
The district said the project is structured to require no LAUSD subsidy, guarantee or capital contribution and would have no impact on the General Fund. The current proposal includes approximately $150,000 in ground-lease deposits during predevelopment and construction and ground-lease rent of $250,000 per year beginning in the first year of operations, increasing 2.5% annually.
LAUSD would incur staff and legal expenses while negotiating the development agreements, but the district said those costs are expected to be covered by revenue from its existing workforce housing developments. The district did not provide an estimate of those expenses.
But SEIU Local 99, which represents many of LAUSD's lower-paid workers, argues that subsidized housing cannot substitute for higher wages.
Executive Director Max Arias called the workforce housing initiative "well-intentioned" and noted several of the union's members already live in LAUSD affordable housing. But he said food service workers, custodians, special education assistants and other employees continue to struggle to make ends meet despite recent wage increases.
"There is a fundamental contradiction here: LAUSD is creating the low-income workforce that qualifies for its low-income housing," Arias said. "Instead of building a system that helps workers survive on inadequate wages, LAUSD should ensure that the people who serve our students every day can afford to live with dignity on the wages they earn."
LAUSD has supported four completed affordable housing developments on district property totaling 234 units, including 185 workforce housing units, the LAUSD spokesperson said. The earliest of those developments was completed in 2012, and in 2021, the school board authorized a new effort to explore additional affordable housing options for district employees and families.
The Collins property itself has already undergone several transformations during its decades under district ownership. Collins Street Elementary was built around 1960 and closed in the early 1980s amid declining enrollment in the West Valley. LAUSD later leased the campus to a private school before moving to demolish the campus buildings in 2017.
Some people who worked near the site had a more mixed reaction to the proposal. Genesis Sanchez and Peter Carreon, employees at the nearby Woodland Hills Recreation Center, said Friday that they had not previously heard about the project. Both said additional development could worsen weekend traffic and parking problems in the area. But they also responded positively when told that the development would prioritize housing for school district employees.
"If people need more housing, obviously, that's a good thing, too," Sanchez said.
"That's pretty cool," Carreon said after learning about the employee housing component.
Tuesday's vote would not constitute final approval to build the Collins development. If the board approves the recommendation, it would select Affirmed Housing and HA Builders as the preferred development team and authorize district officials to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement. During that period, the district and development team would conduct due diligence and further negotiations over issues including design, parking, the number of units, financial terms and employee priority for apartments. Community engagement would also continue as planning and design move forward.
District staff expect the exclusive negotiating agreement to be executed within three months of board approval. Officials would later have to return to the school board with the final terms and seek approval of a development agreement and a ground lease before construction could move forward.
Collins is one of four LAUSD properties considered for the latest round of workforce housing. The district received qualified proposals for Collins and a property at 1049 Fairfax Ave., the former site of the West Hollywood Opportunity Center. Officials are recommending a separate development of around 200 apartments there. No qualified proposals were received for the Gompers and Hoover sites, district-owned vacant parcels at 11300 South Main St. and 911 South Hoover St. in Los Angeles, respectively. The LAUSD spokesperson said those sites are significantly smaller than Collins and Fairfax and lack the same "geographic financing advantages."
This article was generated with AI assistance.