Editor’s note: Here’s a fantastic story in The Argonaut that you’ll never see crediting the L.A. City Council, its PLUM Chairman Jose Huizar, or Mayor Eric Garcetti:
Mariners Village is Spared from the Wrecking Ball
By Gary Walker
When Mary Hobgood stopped teaching and moved to Marina del Rey three years ago, the 23 verdant acres and scenic harbor views of the 1960s-built Mariners Village housing complex appeared to her the ideal place to retire. Then the rent went up.
“Marina del Rey was the place of my dreams, but soon I wasn’t going to be able to afford to live here,” she said.
Meanwhile, the threat of displacement loomed for even the most financially secure of Hobgood’s neighbors. Since 2014, the 981-unit Mariners Village complex had been slated for a major redevelopment effort that would have destroyed most, if not all, of its nearly 1,000 mature trees in order to reorganize contemporary, high-end apartments around a greatly expanded retail center.
That is until last week, when Los Angeles County’s official plans for Mariners Village took an unexpected 180-degree turn. On Oct. 30, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a 39-year lease extension that will preserve the complex’s original architecture and convert 20% of its housing — that’s 196 apartments — as affordable housing.
Read the full and fascinating story in The Argonaut: