A Tiny Homes Village is planned for Sun Valley, located in the parking lot of the local Metrolink Station at 8360 San Fernando Road. Residents don’t want them in their backyard and believe they will negatively impact nearby residents and possibly even cause the Metrolink station to close.
The Climate Corps Initiative (TCCI), a nonprofit organization for environmental justice, is rallying to demand that the project be stopped.
Mihran Kalaydjian, vice president of TCCI, said the project is going to “paralyze the character” of Sun Valley, and will bring a surge of people with serious mental health issues and increase littering, theft, burglaries and vandalism.
TCCI and the nearby community are holding a rally at the station Thursday evening and want Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who represents Sun Valley, to stop the project – which is supposed to start either in early October or November.
Kalaydjian claims Padilla never did outreach to the community to inform them of the plans, nor did she attempt to get feedback from residents.
“This was done behind closed doors, against all of our wishes, and they are neglecting [to hear] feedback and opposition,” Kalaydjian said. “This is going to negatively impact school traffic and public safety, and it’s going to create safety [hazards] against the community.
“[Padilla] is abusing her power and taxpayer money in order to push [the project],” he continued. “If that happens, … that area is going to be closed. That Metrolink [station] is going to be jammed, which helps many Sun Valley residents go to the downtown area. This is a huge, huge problem.”
In the San Fernando Valley, there are nine Metrolink stations that service residents, allowing them to travel not only throughout LA, but to the neighboring Antelope, Orange and Ventura valleys.
Kalaydjian, who works as an engineer, recounted how he learned about the upcoming project by chance less than a month ago while he was attending a Metro Public Works event for the 2028 Olympics. While speaking with one of the planners, they asked if Kalaydjian had heard about the project.
After doing some digging, Kalaydjian found out about the plans and recalled feeling “shocked.” He said that he’s tried to contact Padilla to ask about the Tiny Homes, but he has yet to receive a response.
“There is no communication between Imelda and the community,” Kalaydjian said. “She doesn’t talk [to us]. … She ignores having any sort of communication with the community.”
Although Kalaydjian understands the purpose of constructing Tiny Homes, to get people out of encampments and transition them into housing, he argues that the effort needs to be practical and make sense for the whole community.
Kalaydjian is concerned that if the parking lot is to be used to place Tiny Homes, the station itself may close. The Sun Valley Metrolink Station lies on the Antelope Valley Line, taking residents as far north as Lancaster, and is between the stations in Sylmar and the Burbank Airport.
Scott Johnson, Metrolink’s director of communications, told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol that they were notified about the project just a week ago by a member of the city’s Department of Transportation Transit Facility Management team, but were not provided with additional details.
Johnson explained that the Sun Valley Station and parking lot are owned by the city of LA and the project is independent of its services and operations.
“Metrolink service will not be affected by this proposed project,” Johnson said in a statement. “The average number of weekday customer boardings at the Sun Valley Station from July 2024 through June 2025 was 82.”
Kalaydjian said that the community, upon learning about the plans, is “devastated” and angry over the lack of transparency from Padilla. He explained that many people in Sun Valley rely on public transportation, especially students who attend colleges in LA like the University of Southern California, and disrupting that could potentially be a “disaster.”
The rally on Thursday will be the community’s first regarding the Sun Valley project, but Kalaydjian said they will not stop until it is halted. He added that they’re planning to have a town hall with experts to discuss the impacts the project would have, though details are still being discussed.
The San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol reached out to Padilla for comment about the project, but she did not respond by press time.
Outreach is necessary and required, especially if they are using “space”for a different or specific purpose than originally intended & planned for…
Personally, I have no problems with tiny houses being built for Homeless Peoples in need, but NOT if I had to use that Station & Train; and/or the nearby park-n-ride; or if my kid had to use this train station for School / College daily.
I would NEVER want this to be built there because it would be potentially dangerous for everyone involved, and could further promote negative healthcare issues for any one using the station area and train.
**Suggestion: Find a large unused concrete parking lot at a business that has closed its doors and use that area to create a nice little “gated community for a Tiny House Community” of homeless people (away from busy moving trains, lots of people coming & going at stations, and to support working people in wanting to use Public Services of such, and who have paid to use!
Also, you can also have an easier connection area for “visiting” Healthcare Workers; Social Workers; Therapists, and Cleaning Services at designated times in a more “private” area specifically designated to connect with the Homeless.
This was a haphazard and carelessly planned hazardous project for an undeserved Sun Valley community. A major oversight and another failure by councilmember Padilla who was born and raised in Sun Valley and who so grossly failed most of her real constituents. One may think she should have more vested interest and commitment to her own community. But that is definitely not in her agenda. Placing a tiny home project within a busy and facing a shortage of resources and government services neighborhood raises significant concerns for both long-term residents and local businesses. While the intention to address homelessness is important, inserting such a facility in the heart of an already active community will deepen existing challenges. Neighborhoods will experience increased strain on aging infrastructure, like broken roads and sidewalks, increasing homelessness, limited parking, and nonexistnet sanitation services, that are often ill-equipped for added population and service needs. The risk of environmental degradation, with more waste, runoff, and pollution, grows as dense urban life meets increased occupancy. Local families and businesses will definitely face reduced quality of life: higher noise levels, increased foot traffic, and greater public safety issues will follow, potentially discouraging investment and undermining property values. These impacts are worsened in disadvantaged areas that already lack investment in parks, safe sidewalks, and green spaces, such as Sun Valley. Community members, who work hard and pay taxes, deserve both support for those experiencing homelessness and real, sustainable improvements. Ultimately, transparency, community input, and careful impact assessment must guide decisions. Without them, placing a large-scale shelter in a bustling, under-resourced neighborhood risks disrespecting residents’ needs while failing to deliver long-term solutions for everyone involved.
this doesn’t surprise me at all. I lived in Sun Valley since I was born, but i left because of unplanned and reckless acts like this tiny home project, one of many in district 6, it’s like we are here to house the homeless for the entire city of los angeles a dumping ground for everyone’s unwanted. Politicians come and go in disctrict 6, it’s almost like a family run business, a mafia with connections, the ball passes from the next one on the throne. i am also a registered voter, but this time I refused to vote because there was not a single candidate that felt genuine and credible. and padilla only won because who was there in the race to be her opponent? no one. disgraced nury martinez didn’t care much either. but i can say for sure, this one, padilla by far is the worst of what we have seen in my 40+ years. this person acts like she owns everything and everyone around her, she lacks sense of community ownership, belonging, and she is not the sharpest tool in the drawer by the way, she makes decisions for everyone, arrogant and is disrespectful to everyone. word in the street is she is mean to her staffers and she is not liked but who wants to confront her. if a “leader” can bring a tiny home to the center of a community with houses and families, businesses, what can you expect. she promised everything impossible during her race, but now that she is at the power wheel, she denies everything, and she lies. try to make an appointment with her, she is always busy, full house, full calendar. district 6 issues that we all face for decades are of no concern to her or anyone else, be it a senator, congressman, assemblyman. they are all there for photoops, handing fake certificates to each other, glorifying what they do, which is nothing, being at the political spotlight and getting filthy rich at the expense of taxpayers in a struggling district, especially sun valley, arleta, panorama city, pacoima that have been in the crossroads before I was born. residents are sick and tired of empty promises. all they get is homeless shelters and tiny homes. why not use money to beautify the city, get rid of trash piled up in the streets. because there is no profit in that. the dough is in tiny homes and so-called low income housing developments, not in beautification. all these shady businesses that congest sun valley streets, most run illegally, without permits, polluting the community and not being slightly responsible…ms councilmember, do you have anything to say
Yetanuthah typically short-sighted LA City anti-solution!
LA has a drug problem, so we legalize the century’s strongest cannabis.
LA has traffic jams, so we carve out bicycle lanes to constrict roads even further.
We have ICE raids, so we lie about how wonderful the arresteees are.
Suburbs have a coyote problem, so one rep proposes importing wolverines!
Now, after we build a million-dollar transpo system, we’ll fill their parking lots with tiny homes we don’t even know if anyone will live in!
well said, Jon von Gunten, precise. If the foundations are rotten, everything’s rotten. LA is rotten at its core. City elections turn into a dog and pony show. look at district 6-there wasn’t even a real election with qualified candidates, how padilla won, i still don’t get it. but it’s LA after all. We take city elections with grain of salt. it’s the most connected and prone to be bent who manage to get to the top, not the most qualified. and that is why we have bike lanes that less than 5% of population uses; we have roads for cars closing down on us creating more congestion; we promote public transportation yet we have no infrastructure and street furniture such as efficient bus routes and sheltered bus stops; we spend millions on encampment cleanups so that they go back to trash again, we build tiny homes near busy transportation hubs and active communities to cause more distress on longtime residents by bringing in more filth, drug use, trash, and litter into the community because our councilmember is afraid to say “no” to almighty mayor bass, unlike her counterpart Monica Rodriguez (kudos to her); we pay billions to the cops yet we get no services, we think that if we put a mentally ill individual, who needs services, in a tiny home by themselves, they will be happy ever after – problem solved; we think that by yapping in empty townhalls we fool our constituent into voting for us again then they sure will…this is all so disgusting, cynicism has no boundaries…just look at district 6…the more funds pour into the district, the poorer the district gets, the richer the elected become…and transparency is nowhere in the horizon. this tiny home project shook sun valley residents, it came from the left and hit them hard because ms council member of district 6 conveniently hush-hush closed the deal behind closed doors. This is disrespect at its best. she is not even hiding it, she openly disrespects everyone, no exception, sadly, Sun Valley residents are not singled out, padilla is a hater, she only cares about herself
Give me a break! Its not that bad.