Carrie Gammell

SMALL LOTS, BIG IMPACTS [2025]

[DOWNLOAD THE COMPETITION BRIEF HERE.]

I briefly contributed to this project as a Senior Research Associate at cityLAB-UCLA. The team consisted of Dr. Dana Cuff, Emmanuel Proussaloglou, Ryan Conroy, Cora Johnson-Grau, and Jane Wu. Our community partners included The City of Los Angeles, including Mayor Karen Bass, the Deputy Mayor of Housing, the Los Angeles Housing Department, and Los Angeles City Council members; LA4LA; Somos Group; Genesis LA; and the Small Lots, Big Impact Advisory Board.

Over the past two decades, cityLAB has successfully identified and unlocked housing development opportunities on land that has previously been overlooked. First, Accessory Dwelling Units doubled the density of California’s single family residential fabric. Next, Education Workforce Housing allowed California’s school districts to build housing for their teachers and staff on underutilized district land. Now, in coordination with the City of Los Angeles, cityLAB is working to unlock small parcels of public land for housing development to address the city’s housing affordability challenges. This initiative, titled Small Lots, Big Impacts, will build a path to a better future for Los Angeles—one where small parcels of city-owned land offer a new generation of homeowners the chance to thrive while improving their neighborhoods.

Within the Los Angeles city boundary there are 1,040 parcels owned by the City of Los Angeles that are big enough to build at least one unit of housing, already zoned for residential use, less than ¼ acre, and currently underutilized. 24,502 similar parcels are owned by private entities. If each of these were to hold 5 units of housing, that would produce ~127,000 new homes for Angelenos while gently increasing the city’s density.

To demonstrate the potential impact of this work, cityLAB is working alongside the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office, the Housing Department, and City Council members on a two-phase design and development initiative. In the first phase (2025), a design competition, designers, architects, and students were asked to propose homeownership models on some of the city’s small lots to help set the course for a more equitable, affordable, and sustainable future. In the second phase (2026–), through a development team RFQ process, the City of Los Angeles will award its land to development teams that use the innovative ideas from phase 1 to construct high-quality prototypes. The City of Los Angeles will lead the way for future private development by using city land to demonstrate the feasibility of Small Lots, Big Impacts projects.