Dive Brief:

UPDATE: The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved developer Rick Caruso's luxury apartment high-rise on Tuesday, according to Curbed. The project, whose height was previously shortened, will include 10 affordable units, and the developer will give $500,000 to the city's affordable housing fund.

• Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso will shorten a planned luxury residential tower in the city from the proposed 240 feet to 185 feet in response to concerns over its height and a petition with 1,000 signatures from locals opposed to the project, according to the Los Angeles Times.

• The project at 333 La Cienega Boulevard was originally earmarked to hold 145 residential units, with about 10% set aside as affordable units, Curbed reported. Caruso has also pledged an additional $500,000 to the city’s affordable housing fund under the new deal.

• The building’s opponents say the height reduction is an insufficient compromise that would allow Caruso to build a tower in an area zoned for buildings approximately three stories tall, the Times reported, noting that the developer and others close to him gave $476,000 to city officials and projects in the last five years. The tower will be roughly the same height as the nearby Cedars-Sinai Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion.

Dive Insight:

Now back to the drawing board, Caruso's tower is set to add to the growing number of residential and commercial projects shooting up in Los Angeles.

In November, city officials gave the green light to the Reef, a $1.2 billion, 35-story, mixed-use luxury development in the city's South Central neighborhood. The project was also not without controversy after neighborhood advocates claimed lower-income residents unable to afford the higher costs of housing and other resources associated with the project would be forced out of the area.

Plans for a mixed-use scheme in the city’s Arts District were put forward in September by developer SunCal, with more than 1,700 residential units proposed along with retail, office space, a school and two hotels. The 14-acre development is racing the clock to secure the necessary variances from local density requirements before a March vote that could undercut its rezoning attempts.

Earlier this month, developer Lightstone Group announced it was moving ahead with a one-acre development comprising two mixed-use hotel towers in the city’s South Park entertainment district ahead of a forthcoming expansion to the city’s convention center.

And last week, the Federal Aviation Administration gave its approval for the construction of the Los Angeles Rams’ $2.6 billion stadium in Inglewood, CA, southwest of downtown Los Angeles, which will be a part of a 300-acre mixed-use retail, entertainment and residential development.

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