Plan Check, CALGreen, and the Move to 18 Stalls

Since my last update, plan check handed us one more adjustment. Our architect walked me through the latest correction set on May 29. Mission Hills now carries 18 fast-charging stalls.

Let me be clear about the cause, because this is not the canopy story again (LADWP required space for transformer maintenance). It is a separate requirement.

Los Angeles enforces CALGreen (https://www.dgs.ca.gov/bsc/calgreen), the state's green building code. One section requires bicycle parking, and it applies to our site regardless of how many riders ever arrive. Our drivers pull up in electric cars, not on bikes. The code applies anyway, and we comply. In practice it asks for three things: a short-term bike rack near the entrance, a secure long-term bike storage facility, and a marked recycling area on the plans. For a drive-up site like ours, each lands at the minimum. One rack. One enclosure. One marked area.

The problem is space. The lot is tight, the canopy revision has already shifted equipment around, and fitting the required bike parking pushed us from 19 stalls to 18.

Now the numbers, since that is the real question.

Losing one stall out of 19 removes 5.3% of our charging capacity. Total site revenue drops about 5.0%, not 5.3%, because the $120,000 fixed base rent from our nourishment partner does not shrink when a stall comes out. That fixed income cushions the top line. Operating costs move in our favor at the same time. The south canopy took its lighting, cameras, and facade with it, and we now run one fewer charger. Less revenue, and less cost to carry it. The net effect on returns is smaller than the stall count alone suggests. These figures come from our current model. They are projections, not guarantees.

None of this changes the trajectory. We bought this property on March 15, 2024. It has been a long road, and we are now weeks from breaking ground. Eighteen Tesla V4 stalls, the full Experience-Driven Charging build, and the first site in a pipeline that does not exist anywhere else in the market. The codes are doing what codes do. We are clearing them one at a time.

Best,

Warren Navarro, Co-Founder & COO, EV Initiative