The Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (Citywide ARO) builds upon LA’s successful 1999 Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, which helped to revitalize Downtown. The Citywide ARO focuses on creating new housing by converting underutilized commercial buildings, expanding the success of the original ARO to neighborhoods across Los Angeles. The Citywide ARO was adopted by the City Council in December 2025.

Adaptive reuse is one of the least disruptive forms of development for adjacent neighborhoods. It avoids most of the disruptive construction impacts like demolition, excavation, and grading. Switching a building from office to residential use also reduces the daily vehicle trips generated by the building, reducing local traffic.

Adaptive reuse is a sustainable building practice in that it repurposes existing structures, reducing the embodied carbon associated with construction – concrete, steel and glass are some of the carbon intensive materials. Adaptive reuse also diverts waste from landfills compared to demolition.

Adaptive reuse of underutilized commercial structures can reactivate neighborhoods with high commercial vacancies, with new residents supporting local businesses and serving as “eyes on the street,” especially at later hours or on weekends when offices tend to be vacant.

Since 1999, L.A.’s Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) has been a powerful preservation tool and roadmap to bringing much-needed new housing: a win-win for revitalizing neighborhoods and meeting community needs while preserving cultural heritage. Thanks to the ARO, once underutilized–even abandoned–buildings downtown were reimagined to provide 12,000+ new housing units and address hospitality needs that helped spur a new era for downtown L.A.’s historic corridor.

As L.A.’s housing crisis has deepened over recent years, and Downtown office vacancy rates increased, specific changes to the ARO have become necessary, making it more flexible in use, applicable to more existing buildings, and citywide in scope. The two most major changes allow newer buildings to be converted (15 year old structures are permitted by-right and 5 year old structures may be approved by a zoning administrator) and also remove minimum units sizes.

The City Council approved the draft Citywide ARO in December 2024, directing the City Attorney’s office to draft an implementation ordinance. In December 2025, the ordinance was presented to the Council and approved. The Conservancy spoke in support of the Citywide ARO, which can be powerful incentive to preserve rather than redevelop historic buildings. We stressed the importance for financial incentives like the Mills Act and Federal/State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits in financing future conversions.

The Citywide ARO as adopted also contains incentives to retain legacy small businesses and other commercial tenants, which will hopefully limit the displacement of existing small businesses. The Conservancy has had increased success in supporting legacy business incentives like this through our Legacy Business initiative.

For more information on the Citywide ARO please consult the fact sheet compiled by the Department of City Planning or watch the public hearing recording from June 2024.

The text of the adopted Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, approved by the City Council in 2025 is also available for review.