LA ROSAH Collaborative is a coalition of organizations committed to advancing equity, exploring joint development of affordable housing and parks, and preventing displacement in the Los Angeles region within the context of green infrastructure, park and open space investment.
Our mission is to advance policies and strategies that prevent displacement in vulnerable communities related to green gentrification and to advocate for accessible, community-driven parks/open space and affordable housing joint development.
LA ROSAH emerged as a new collaborative space to think broadly about urban parks in low-income neighborhoods and the broader issue of what has been called green gentrification.
We see urban parks and affordable housing as vital to healthy, strong and resilient neighborhoods. We also see the revitalization of the Los Angeles River as a cautionary tale about how greening, like new transit, can potentially cause harm and displacement in low-income neighborhoods despite good intentions and regional benefits.
We Bring Sectors Together. LA ROSAH unites experts from different fields and sectors to reimagine and collaborate to create livable, equitable, and resilient communities.
We Connect. LA ROSAH serves as a networking and project- generating space for members and partners to share resources, explore opportunities, and create new tools and practices together to create affordable housing + open space projects to serve as demonstration sites for joint development.
We Build Partnerships. LA ROSAH helps trusted community-based organizations build alliances with mission-aligned park and affordable housing developers and other partners to lead P+AH projects in communities.
We Shape Policy. LA ROSAH draws upon our member’s’ different areas of expertise to inform, develop and shift policies that address our core issues of land use, housing, green space, transportation, upward mobility, and community resilience.
We Innovate. LA ROSAH is creating a new vision on integrating infrastructure investments that bring real value, prioritize community-identified benefits, and increase sustainability and resilience.
Transit agencies have long worked with affordable housing developers to build affordable housing projects on agency land. LA ROSAH is working to partner with park and other public agencies to replicate the transit joint-development model, and enable long-term ground leases with housing developers for affordable housing on appropriately identified sites that could be acquired by public agencies.
LA ROSAH is working to expand eligibility of park and open space funding sources, including local, regional and state agencies, to make joint development of housing and open space explicitly eligible in existing and future funding sources, either through direct funds or by incentivizing integrated project applications.
As a new model for development, funding for parks and affordable housing joint development is limited. LA ROSAH is working to identify Conservation Authority/Park Agency new funding sources that affordable housing developers would be eligible to use for acquisition financing of parcels suitable for joint development. The conservation authority or other park development organization would partner with the developer to construct park and green infrastructure.
To learn more about joint development, read our report, “The Case for Parks and Affordable Housing Joint Development.”