Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson called this week for the rejection of a proposed 577-unit housing project, saying the city should go further by establishing “anti-displacement zones” around certain market-rate housing developments.

In a letter sent Tuesday to the South Los Angeles Area Planning Commission, Wesson said the six-story, market-rate project known as District Square would result in higher rents for the area’s low-income households, displacing “lifelong community residents.” District Square was originally supposed to be a two-story shopping center with a Target and a Ralphs supermarket when it was approved in 2010, he said.

“We voted as a council for a development that would improve, not displace, the community,” Wesson said. “We have no need for a six-story development consisting of 577 luxury apartments that will be unaffordable to most of the neighborhood’s current residents.”

....