The Holloway House was converted from a motel into transitional housing for those experiencing homelessness. (photo by Jon Viscott)

The West Hollywood City Council approved an ordinance on Dec. 1 that will establish processes for converting commercial spaces into housing. The ordinance is in keeping with earlier motions by the City Council, including the conversion of the former Holloway Motel into the Holloway House, which is now used as transitional housing for unhoused individuals.

There were two different potential versions of the ordinance discussed, one which would have removed most council and community oversight to fully streamline conversion of hotels and motels – if such an opportunity arose – and one which allowed the planning commission, council and public to still weigh in during the process. While the full council approved the ordinance, Councilwoman Lauren Meister and Vice Mayor John Heilman preferred the streamlined version, believing the extra ministerial steps were not necessary.

“Very few of our commercial spaces will likely be converted to housing,” Heilman said following the meeting. “Converting an existing commercial building to a residential use is very expensive and, in some instances, it isn’t feasible. I doubt that we will see many office or retail buildings being converted to housing. We will more likely see new residential and mixed-use buildings in our commercial corridors rather than old commercial buildings being converted.

I preferred option one in the staff report because it created a streamlined process for any commercial conversion to residential.”

“I also think that we have a number of hotels in residential neighborhoods that were converted years ago from residential to hotels now,” Councilwoman Lauren Meister said during the meeting. “Not that I think that they’re going to ever change, but if they did change back, I can almost guarantee that the residents that live in those areas probably would be happier with having residential neighbors versus hotel guests. And I think that we should at least leave that option open, because we did lose several buildings to hotels that were residential buildings.”

The other council members, however, said keeping the public and city government’s involvement in the process was important.

“Under state law, underused office and commercial buildings are strong candidates for conversion into new housing – especially along major corridors where services and transit already exist,” Erickson said. “Option two was the right choice because it gives us flexibility, creates the most realistic path to new homes and keeps workers and community voices at the table. I supported what I believed was the most responsible and effective way to move forward.”

United Here Local 11 was the lone public speaker on the item.

“I would encourage you to move forward with this ordinance as proposed in option two, with some amendments for clarification, such that existing hotels are not allowed to be converted to residential through the ministerial process, and that the conversion of existing commercial buildings to proposed mixed hotel and residential projects is also not allowed ministerially,” Unite Here Local 11 representative Jonah Breslau said, pointing out tension between various development goals as the county looks to the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028. “Local 11 strongly supports increasing affordable housing supply in the city, but applying the ordinance’s streamlined conversion process to all hotels or to projects that may include hotels could exacerbate these policy contradictions, including by unintentionally encouraging more short-term rentals. Similarly, we believe that conversions to mixed use hotel and residential uses should be subject to a careful and thorough consideration with the public process that may not be possible under the streamlined proposal.”

United Here Local 11 endorsed Mayor Chelsea Byers, Councilman Danny Hang and Erickson in their City Council campaigns.

“We’re mostly talking about office or commercial spaces that just haven’t bounced back since the pandemic,” Hang said. “I supported option two because it gives us flexibility to consider conversions while still keeping an already established review process with the Planning Commission and the council. That way, we don’t lose community input, transparency or oversight just for the sake of speed. Option two keeps the public’s voice in the process while still allowing good projects move forward.”

As of now, there is not a specific project in the pipeline for conversion, and the ordinance will be tested whenever the next such project comes along.