The Low Rise Design Lab

Laying the Groundwork for Missing Middle Housing

In 2020, the City of Los Angeles organized Low Rise: Housing Ideas for Los Angeles, a design challenge to explore sustainable, affordable, low-rise multi-family housing solutions in single-family zones. The design challenge helped foster creative design solutions, which marked the start of a multi-year effort to develop a program that will ultimately support greater housing opportunity, including ensuring that greater housing production is accompanied by high-quality design for households of all income levels.

Following the success of the Low-Rise Design Challenge, the Department of City Planning initiated the Low-Rise Design Lab, a program intended to promote new infill housing opportunities that expand access to both ownership and rental options, helping Angelenos find attainable paths to housing while reducing existing barriers. The Low-Rise Design Lab worked closely with urban design, architectural, and economic consultants to analyze physical and economic barriers to low-rise and missing middle housing, conduct massing studies of typical single-family conditions, and develop informational guidance documents to support the production of these housing types.
Within this context, “low-rise” refers to housing development at densities consistent with State law and housing typologies that complement single-family residential development within the City of Los Angeles, some of which also support development of “missing middle” housing.

The Low-Rise Design Lab was conceived to help the City analyze and improve development conditions for Low-Rise housing, and to help the City respond to changing State housing laws, like the The HOME Act (SB 9/450). The passage of The Starter Home Revitalization Act (SB 684/1123) while the initiative was already underway pushed the City to expand the program to include higher density developments in keeping with the legislation’s accommodation of small lot subdivisions with up to ten units in single family zones. The Low Rise Design Lab has produced a variety of products since its inception in 2021. These products and milestones in the process are outlined below.

The first outcome of the Low-Rise Design Lab was an Existing Conditions and Opportunities Assessment which analyzed built conditions within a range of 13 selected lot and site types found within the diversity of Los Angeles’ single-family-zoned neighborhoods. The report studied a variety of developments and buildings across 100 years of history, revealing numerous parcel configurations (e.g., through-lots, mid-block, corner lots, and lots with alley access). Using this analysis, the report identified the types of sites where Low-Rise projects involving one- to four-unit developments are most likely to be feasible.

As a next step, the Low-Rise Design Lab developed a White Paper which first examined the current development (zoning) regulations that have historically guided and shaped Los Angeles’ single-family neighborhoods and then outlined recommendations for Zoning Code amendments that can help to improve the uptake of recent State laws in a way that  addresses the variety of lots found throughout Los Angeles with preliminary recommendations to improve the uptake of the new state regulations in Los Angeles. The White Paper recommendations were also informed by feedback collected during Advisory Group meetings with architects, for-profit and non-profit housing developers, and neighborhood representatives held in January of 2024.

As Next, the Low-Rise Design Lab developed a series of Massing Studies located in five different sites representative of typical lots found in single-family Los Angeles neighborhoods selected from the Existing Conditions and Opportunities Assessment.These 13 hypothetical development scenarios included redevelopment under SB 9 and SB 1123, and experimented with preservation or replacement of existing structures. One of the goals of this exercise was to explore existing regulations along with opportunities for updates to the City’s Zoning Code to facilitate the construction of low-rise/missing middle housing as a strategy for meeting the City’s housing needs.

The Low-Rise Design Lab has engaged Keyser Marsten and Associates to prepare an economic feasibility report that sheds light on the feasibility of development at this scale and explores various traditional and non-traditional financing options for homeowners. The economic analysis will inform the Zoning Recommendations Report which will include a summary of recommended targeted code amendments. Resources will be published in an illustrated guide, Accelerating Low-Rise Missing Middle Housing, a guidebook to support Angelenos in making informed choices about development on their property.

The Accelerating Low-Rise Missing Middle Housing guide will serve as an educational tool for property owners and will present a series of options for Low-Rise development and financial insights on several examples of Low-Rise development scenarios by explaining how The HOME Act (SB 9/450) and The Starter Home Revitalization Act (SB 684/1123), along with ADU opportunities, may apply to their lot. The Guidebook will include a decision tree that property owners may use to determine which use case (SB 1123/SB 684, SB 9 – two unit or lot split development, or ADU) may best fit their economic scenario (for instance, retaining home ownership while receiving rental income, selling all or a portion of the lot, etc.), taking into consideration property value, development costs and return on investment and financing tools. The Guidebook will also present an illustrated Guide to Low Rise Development focused on helping property owners make informed decisions about the personal and financial implications of pursuing Low-Rise development on their land.

To continue the work of the Low-Rise Design Lab, in October (2025) Los Angeles City Planning launched the Missing Middle LA program, a new effort to expand pathways to more attainable housing options. This exciting, new initiative will include a package of citywide Zoning Code amendments, building on recent state housing laws and the recommendations of the Low- Rise Design Lab to create more flexible housing opportunities, while also advancing the goals of the City’s Housing Element. The program will emphasize the importance of high-quality design and livability through the introduction of objective design standards aimed at ensuring neighborhood-scale development, reducing areas of paving and hardscape on lots in favor of mature tree preservation and landscaping whenever possible, and incentivizing the preservation of existing  buildings  that make up the neighborhood fabric while encouraging small-scale infill development.

To learn more about the Department’s current Missing Middle LA initiative please visit the dedicated program webpage here.

For more information on the Low-Rise Design Lab, please refer to our resources:
Existing Conditions and Opportunities Assessment Working Paper
Supportive Zoning for Low-Rise Development White Paper

Contact Us

For questions or additional feedback related to Low-Rise Design Lab, please email planning.urbandesign@lacity.org. For questions regarding the current Missing Middle LA program please email planning.missingmiddlela@lacity.org.

To stay up-to-date on the Low-Rise Design Lab and Missing Middle LA work effort, including future events, please sign up for updates here by selecting Missing Middle LA under Current Planning Initiatives.

Staff Contact
Michelle Levy, Danai Zaire, and Dorothy Qian
planning.urbandesign@lacity.org