814 apartments cleared the City Planning Commission on June 11, 2026. Here is what the staff report contains, what the approval does and does not settle, where the fire-safety argument rests, and what it means for homeowners near the corridor.
Riverwalk at Studio City is an approved 814-unit mixed-use development on the block at 12501 to 12665 West Ventura Boulevard, beside the Los Angeles River. The Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved it and denied two appeals on June 11, 2026. It includes 46 very-low-income units covenanted for 99 years, about 75,968 square feet of restaurant space, and 1,806 parking spaces. The approval remains appealable to the City Council.
Along one half-mile of Ventura Boulevard, Studio City is absorbing more new housing than it has seen in thirty years. The largest piece of that is Riverwalk at Studio City, an 814-unit development beside the Los Angeles River. On June 11, 2026 the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved it and denied two neighborhood appeals, and the block that has held a bowling alley, a hot dog stand and a deli for two generations moved a step closer to becoming something else.
What the staff report actually contains
The primary document is City Planning's staff report for the June 11, 2026 hearing, filed under case CPC-2025-5697-DB-PR-SPPC-MCUP-VHCA, with environmental case ENV-2025-5698-SE and tract map VTT-84453. The staff report carries the tract map as VTT-84453-VHCA. A "-1A" appeal suffix, while consistent with how Los Angeles numbers appeals, appears in no locatable document, so the base number is what is cited here.
The project is 814 apartments across 744,906 square feet at a floor area ratio of 3.2 to 1, in buildings reaching seven stories and roughly 84 feet toward Ventura Boulevard and stepping down toward the river. The unit mix is 223 studios, 373 one-bedrooms and 218 two-bedrooms. Forty-six units are reserved at very-low-income levels under a 99-year covenant, the single most durable thing in the entitlement. There is about 75,968 square feet of restaurant space and 1,806 parking spaces, 1,040 residential and 766 commercial, across four subterranean levels.
The report also records grading and export of up to 521,000 cubic yards of earth. That figure is real and it sits behind most of the neighborhood's concern about truck traffic. The staff report designates no haul route, and no haul route approval appears anywhere in the record. April 2026 held a public hearing and a Land Use Committee meeting on the project, not a haul route action.
What the density bonus bought
The 46 affordable units are not a gesture. They are the consideration in a trade, and naming what came back the other way is the honest way to describe a density bonus project.
In exchange for the very-low-income set-aside, the project received waivers from base zoning: height from a 30-foot limit to 84 feet, lot coverage from 60 percent to 74 percent, and a rear yard reduced to a foot and a half against a required 15 to 19 feet. That is the mechanism, and it is the same one the Sportsmen's Lodge redevelopment used down the street. Whether it is a fair trade is a policy question people can reasonably disagree about. What it is not is discretionary generosity from the Commission; state density bonus law obliges the city to grant the concessions unless it can make specific findings against them.
The project was processed under a statutory exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act, Public Resources Code section 21080.66, not the Class 32 infill categorical exemption that covers most projects this size. That distinction is the legal heart of the matter. A statutory exemption is set by the Legislature and is considerably harder to challenge than a categorical one. Reporting on the approval has treated the exemption as the story, and anyone tracking what happens next should track that section number.
Who is actually behind it
Ownership of this block is older and more local than a project of this scale usually suggests, and the names on the application are not the names in the press coverage. Both are worth separating.
City Planning's staff report lists the applicant as Brett Torino and Eleda Cohen as individuals, and the representative as Rose Fistrovic. Press coverage of the approval describes the development entity as a joint venture of Genton Property Group, RC Development and Torino Companies, with Genton leading entitlement. The Cohen and Torino families have owned and operated the property since the early 1980s, which the developer states directly, so the patient-capital framing holds. The residential architect is MVE + Partners, styled with the plus sign, a Southern California firm whose completed work includes the 21-story One Museum Square in Los Angeles. AO is the retail design consultant.
What the June 11 vote does and does not settle
A commission approval reads as final in a headline and is not one, and that gap carries more practical consequence than anything else here for someone making a decision near the corridor.
The Commission approved the project and denied the two appeals before it, unanimously. That cleared the planning entitlement at that level. It did not exhaust the process. A City Planning Commission action of this kind remains appealable to the Los Angeles City Council, and coverage of the approval noted at the time that opponents had signaled they intended to take it there. The opposition campaign posted in July 2026 that it was coordinating next legal and technical steps including a Council appeal, and said details would follow.
As of this writing there is no docketed Council appeal on the public record, no filed CEQA lawsuit, no further hearing, and no building permit application. That is an absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence: the City Clerk's council file system and the Superior Court docket are not fully searchable from outside, and a filing can exist without press coverage. Anyone whose decision turns on finality should check the Council File Management System directly rather than rely on any blog, this one included. The developer's projected timeline, construction beginning in late 2027 and completion by 2033, comes from a single news account and is presented here as the developer's projection, not as a schedule.
The fire-safety argument, and where it actually stands
The opposition organized as Studio City for Safe Development, describing itself as working in coordination with the Studio City Residents Association. Its argument is not that Studio City should reject housing. It is that a project of this scale should not clear entitlement before the city demonstrates that evacuation routes, emergency access and infrastructure can carry the load.
The central factual claim is that the site sits inside a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, and it checks out, in a way that surprises people who assume the flats are safe and only the hills are not. Under the fire hazard severity zone maps California adopted for Los Angeles in 2025, the Very High designation extends north across parts of the San Fernando Valley floor, and the Fire Department's own hosted mapping returns Very High at this parcel. The boundary in this stretch runs close to Ventura Boulevard itself: sample a point a few blocks north and the designation drops to Moderate. One caveat worth carrying: the County's generalized composite hazard layer returns a different answer at the same coordinates, so the citation that matters is the Fire Department and CAL FIRE layer, not the County one.
The campaign frames three concerns. Fire and evacuation risk, because a project this size adds residents, customers, workers, deliveries and construction traffic to streets that double as emergency access. Emergency response delay on congested streets. And cumulative corridor overload, since Riverwalk is one of three projects on the same half mile between Whitsett Avenue and Coldwater Canyon Avenue. The campaign also put forward an alternative with lower density and height, stronger setbacks, native landscaping, river-sensitive lighting and reduced excavation.
One claim in that campaign needs its source stated plainly. Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Jaime E. Moore is said to have warned at a March 2026 public briefing that street congestion affects response times. Chief Moore is real, he is the department's twentieth Fire Chief, appointed in November 2025, and he is serving. But the quotation and the briefing date appear only on the opposition campaign's own website. No LAFD release, city record or news outlet carries them. That remark is therefore the campaign's account of what the Chief said, and it is carried here on that basis and no other. Attributing a position on a specific development to a named public official on a single advocacy source is not something a licensee should do, whatever one thinks of the project. Debbie Pisaro's view is that concerns about traffic, fire safety and neighborhood scale deserve serious, record-supported answers rather than dismissal, and that the standard cuts both ways.
The 1,361 units, and how much of it is actually moving
Riverwalk is one of three projects on this half mile. The combined number gets quoted often, so it is worth separating what is approved from what is under construction, because they are not the same thing.
To the west at Coldwater Canyon Avenue, the Sportsmen's Lodge redevelopment will become 520 homes including 78 at very-low-income, approved by the Los Angeles City Council on a 13 to 1 vote on April 3, 2024 over appeals from the Studio City Residents Association, Erewhon and the hotel workers union UNITE HERE Local 11. A smaller project called Sunswept Place would add 27 condominiums and about 17,400 square feet of retail. Together with Riverwalk that is 1,361 residential units and roughly 139,000 square feet of commercial space, on top of the existing Shops at Sportsmen's Lodge, which opened in December 2021.
Now the part usually left out. No public record shows either of the other two projects under construction. Sportsmen's Lodge has generated no reported news since its April 2024 approval, and the last stated build timeline was 43 months. Sunswept Place has generated none since 2021, and its own project site still advertises a construction window that has long since lapsed. Approval and groundbreaking are separated in Los Angeles by financing, and a corridor total that treats 1,361 units as incoming reads more certain than the record supports. For a week-by-week read on the Boulevard, the Just Studio City real estate guide, the neighborhood breakdown and the community calendar follow it closely.
The larger employment story on the corridor connects to Radford Studio Center just up the road, where the ownership picture has also been reported ahead of itself. Hackman Capital Partners bought the 55-acre lot in 2021 and later defaulted; a lender group led by Goldman Sachs took it through foreclosure; Netflix has been reported under contract at roughly 400 million dollars, in a deal that reporting has explicitly noted was not completed. That is covered in Netflix and Radford Studio Center.
Design, parking, and how the block meets the street
Primary garage access would come through a new signalized entry on Ventura Boulevard, with one additional western driveway and two access points on Valleyheart Drive. That replaces six existing Ventura Boulevard driveways with a single signalized entry, which is the strongest traffic argument the applicant has.
The sloping site, a required mid-block crossing and the step-backs from the river all shaped the massing, which Urbanize describes as running from two to seven stories rather than seven throughout. For a neighborhood that documents Schindler, Lautner, Neutra and Soriano houses on the architectural homes hub and in the Studio City architectural homes field note, how a large building meets the street is not a small question. Which blocks near the Boulevard are most walkable, and what that does to value, is in Studio City walkability. Renderings are on the official Riverwalk project website, the opposition case is at Stop Unsafe Development Studio City, and the running coverage is on Urbanize LA.
A site with deep Studio City memory
The site address range, 12501 to 12665 West Ventura Boulevard, takes in a stretch of the Boulevard that has been the same for two generations. The staff report describes what is there in planning language, four commercial buildings totaling 125,856 square feet with surface parking, and names no tenants.
One date here is worth getting right, because the true one is the more interesting. Jerry's Famous Deli opened in 1978, founded by Isaac Starkman and Jerry Seidman, and closed permanently on October 30, 2020 after 42 years. The 1973 date often attached to it belongs to the previous tenant of that address, an outpost of Solley's Delicatessen. The Andy Kaufman story holds either way and is strengthened by the later date: Kaufman bussed tables at the Studio City Jerry's while Taxi was on the air, and Taxi premiered in 1978, the year the deli opened.
Pinz Bowling still operates on the block, and according to the venue's own materials it traces back to Kirkwood Lanes, opened in 1958 by the actor Joe Kirkwood of the Joe Palooka pictures, rebranded Pinz in 2003. That lineage rests on the operator's account rather than an independent record, which is why it is attributed here. Carney's, the hot dog counter in converted yellow railroad cars, sits at 12601 Ventura within the same address range. What is lost when a block like this turns over is the subject of lost Studio City places we miss, and what keeps arriving is in new restaurants on Ventura Boulevard and in the neighbors behind them, like Miss Honey of Honey G Bakery.
What the corridor means for home values
The honest answer is that it depends where a property sits relative to the Boulevard, and it reads differently for buyers, sellers and renters. The single-family neighborhoods north of Ventura, the hillside streets, the architectural pockets and the historic flats, are expected to hold their character.
For buyers. The commercial corridor is shifting toward a denser, more walkable character. Homes within an easy walk of new retail and dining may gain appeal for walkability-focused buyers, while quieter streets further off the Boulevard may benefit from the contrast. The canyon parks that define hillside living, among them TreePeople at Coldwater Canyon Park, are part of why demand for the hills tends to hold. Buyers weighing attached product against a house should read buying a condo in Studio City first, because 814 new apartments change the comparison set.
For sellers. Major developments create both opportunity and friction. Some buyers are drawn to a neighborhood investing in itself and others prefer a settled block. Positioning takes local judgment, including the timing question in when to sell a Studio City home and how Measure ULA affects net proceeds on a higher-value sale. Debbie Pisaro works with Studio City sellers to identify which buyer profile is most likely to compete for a given property, and owners can request a home valuation through Coastline 840.
For renters. The combined projects would add hundreds of apartments to Studio City's rental inventory if they are built. The affordable set-asides, 46 at Riverwalk under a 99-year covenant and 78 at Sportsmen's Lodge, would give income-qualified renters more options than the neighborhood has offered in a generation. The word carrying weight in that sentence is if.
Debbie Pisaro has sold homes in Studio City for more than two decades and has never seen this level of proposed residential development along Ventura Boulevard. Change is unsettling when it touches landmarks. Los Angeles also needs housing, and infill along commercial corridors makes more sense than sprawl. The practical move for an owner near the corridor is to understand how proximity to an approved but unbuilt project affects a specific property, and to make a plan rather than react to headlines. The case for her Studio City work is in the best real estate agent in Studio City, the practical reference is Studio City 411, and the neighborhood's places are catalogued at Just Studio City places.
Debbie Pisaro represents Studio City buyers and sellers through Coastline 840, and she has written about why she built Coastline 840 rather than joining an existing firm. On a corridor changing this fast, the case for why a boutique real estate team outperforms a big-box brokerage comes down to attention, not headcount.
How to follow it yourself
Anyone who wants to track this without a middleman can. Watch case CPC-2025-5697-DB-PR-SPPC-MCUP-VHCA and tract map VTT-84453 in City Planning's records, search the City Clerk's Council File Management System for any appeal filed against the June 11, 2026 action, and follow the Studio City Neighborhood Council agendas for construction noticing and haul route items when they appear. How this stretch of the Boulevard became what it is, one turnover at a time, is in how Ventura Boulevard became Sushi Row, which is the closest thing to a template for how a corridor changes here.
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Riverwalk at Studio City, answered
Was the Riverwalk project approved?
Yes, at the Commission level. On June 11, 2026 the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved Riverwalk and denied two appeals, clearing the planning entitlement. That action remains appealable to the Los Angeles City Council, so the approval is not the end of the process.
Can the approval still be challenged?
Yes. A City Planning Commission action of this kind is appealable to the City Council, and the opposition campaign said publicly in July 2026 that it was coordinating next steps including a Council appeal. Anyone whose decision depends on finality should check the City Clerk's Council File Management System directly.
How many units and how tall is Riverwalk?
814 apartments, 223 studios, 373 one-bedrooms and 218 two-bedrooms, across 744,906 square feet at a 3.2 to 1 floor area ratio. Buildings reach roughly 84 feet and seven stories toward Ventura Boulevard and step down toward the Los Angeles River, with about 75,968 square feet of restaurant space.
Will there be affordable housing at Riverwalk?
Yes. Forty-six of the 814 units are reserved at very-low-income levels under a 99-year covenant, which is the consideration for the project's density bonus. Combined with 78 very-low-income units at the approved Sportsmen's Lodge redevelopment, the corridor is entitled for more than 120 affordable units.
When will construction start on Riverwalk?
The developer's projection, reported in a single news account, is construction beginning in late 2027 and completion by 2033. City Planning's records, the developer's own site and other coverage give no timeline. No building permit application has been publicly reported, so the block stays as it is in the near term.
Why did some Studio City residents oppose it?
A campaign called Studio City for Safe Development argued that the site sits in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone and that a project of this scale should not clear entitlement before the city showed evacuation routes, emergency access and infrastructure could carry the load. The Commission denied their appeals on June 11, 2026.
Is the Riverwalk site in a fire hazard zone?
Yes. Under the fire hazard severity zone maps California adopted for Los Angeles in 2025, the Very High designation extends onto parts of the San Fernando Valley floor, and the Fire Department's mapping returns Very High at this parcel. The boundary runs near Ventura Boulevard; points a few blocks north read Moderate.
Who is building Riverwalk?
City Planning lists the applicants as Brett Torino and Eleda Cohen, with Rose Fistrovic as representative. Coverage describes the development entity as a joint venture of Genton Property Group, RC Development and Torino Companies. The residential architect is MVE + Partners. The families have owned the site since the early 1980s.
What other developments are happening in Studio City?
On the same half mile of Ventura Boulevard, Sportsmen's Lodge is entitled for 520 apartments, approved by the City Council in April 2024, and Sunswept Place would add 27 condominiums. With Riverwalk that is about 1,361 units. Neither of the other two has been publicly reported as under construction.
Who is a good real estate agent in Studio City?
Debbie Pisaro has sold homes in Studio City for more than two decades, with 24 years in the Los Angeles market and recognition as an Inman Luxury Leader. She has followed every Ventura Boulevard project from Sportsmen's Lodge through Riverwalk. Reachable at (310) 362-6429. DRE #01369110, Side, Inc. DRE #02014153.
Debbie Pisaro, DRE #01369110, is a 24-year veteran of the Los Angeles market, founder of Coastline 840, a boutique California practice, and an Inman Luxury Leader. She specializes in Studio City, Los Feliz, branded residences, and architecturally significant homes throughout California, and many of the homes she sells never reach the open market. Coastline 840 is a brand of Side, Inc., CA DRE #02014153, responsible broker. She writes about California real estate at debbiepisaro.com, juststudiocity.com, and coastline840.com. Updated September 2026.
Project specifications, case numbers, density bonus waivers and the 521,000 cubic yard export from Los Angeles City Planning's staff report for the June 11, 2026 hearing, case CPC-2025-5697-DB-PR-SPPC-MCUP-VHCA, environmental case ENV-2025-5698-SE, tract map VTT-84453. Approval and appeal denial from Urbanize LA and LA YIMBY; the statutory CEQA exemption under Public Resources Code 21080.66 from the staff report and HousingWire. Applicant, representative and development entity from the staff report and press coverage. Fire hazard severity zone status queried against the Los Angeles Fire Department's hosted CAL FIRE 2025 local responsibility area layer; the County's generalized composite layer returns a different result at the same coordinates and is not used here. Site history from KTLA, Deadline, Patch and the venue's own materials. The construction timeline rests on a single news account and is attributed as the developer's projection. The March 2026 remark attributed to the Fire Chief appears only on the opposition campaign's website and is presented as that campaign's account. The two appeals denied on June 11, 2026 are described here as the staff report and press coverage describe them; no appellant is named, because no source establishes one.
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