The Brief

It’s been one year since the city of Los Angeles began collecting money from a voter-approved tax on high-priced property sales. The measure’s goal was to raise up to $1 billion annually for new affordable housing and tenant protections. So far, results have been mixed.

Measure ULA levies a 4% tax on L.A. properties selling for $5 million or more, and a 5.5% tax on properties selling for $10 million or more. So far, revenue generated has come in far below initial projections, raising just $215 million since taking effect in April 2023. That’s a fraction of the $600 million to $1.1 billion voters were originally told the tax could yield.

Some housing policy experts also see signs that the tax could be deterring new development in a city that, under state law, needs to plan for nearly half a million new homes by 2029.

On the positive side, proponents say ULA funding has so far supported hundreds of proposed affordable housing units and staved off thousands of evictions by providing rent relief to tenants.

“Measure ULA has already proven to be one of the greatest revenue sources L.A. has ever seen for affordable housing,” said Joe Donlin, director of the United to House L.A. coalition, which backed the measure.

ULA has raised more in its first year than other initiatives, such as the city’s Measure HHH, which collected about $120 million per year for the development of permanent supportive apartments for the unhoused, Donlin said. A rush to sell off top-dollar homes before the tax took effect last year dampened revenues, he said, but ULA collections are on an upward trend.

“We think that trend is going to continue and it's just going to increase as people factor in the tax as a regular part of doing business,” Donlin said.

New revenue brings wave of relief to some tenants

Researchers from Occidental College, UCLA and USC published a new report on Thursday analyzing the impact of Measure ULA so far. In it, they cite a number of outcomes from the tax:

• $54.7 million proposed to support the development of 795 affordable housing units
• $24 million in rent relief paid out to 4,652 tenant households
• An expansion of StayHousedLA, a program that provided full legal representation to 1,262 L.A. tenants facing eviction and limited legal advice to 3,387 tenants in 2023

Some tenants who have benefited from Measure ULA say it kept disastrous evictions at bay.

Maria Gonzalez — a renter living with her husband, two kids and one grandchild in South L.A. — received about $9,300 in emergency rental assistance. After her husband lost work as a gardener and handyman during the pandemic, they fell far behind on rent.

When she got word that her rent relief application had been approved, Gonzalez said she felt her anxiety slip away.

“I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders,” she said in Spanish. “I felt like I was floating.”

Without that help, Gonzalez said, her family likely would’ve been forced out of their home. She doesn’t know what they would have done.

Is the “mansion tax” hurting apartment construction?

While ULA is helping to keep many tenants housed, some housing policy researchers say the measure could also be leading to fewer new homes overall. It’s been dubbed the “mansion tax,” but it also applies to sales of apartment buildings worth more than $5 million.

Shane Phillips with the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies says even when completed projects are not sold right away, the possibility of getting hit with a hefty tax deters lenders from working with developers who already struggle to acquire expensive L.A. land, cover rising construction costs and successfully navigate the city’s byzantine approval process.

“Future developers might look at [Measure ULA] and say, well, if they did this, what's next?” said Phillips, who supported the initiative when it was put up for a vote in Nov. 2022.

Phillips is now working on an analysis of Measure ULA’s impact by comparing sales of land ripe for development between the city of L.A. and other parts of the county that don't levy the tax. The results are preliminary and not yet published, but, Phillips said, “we are seeing a pretty significant reduction in Los Angeles compared to those other cities.”

Phillips now believes the city would be wise to exempt new apartment buildings from ULA the first time they are sold, only applying the tax to subsequent transactions.

“To the extent that we are seeing fewer land sales and potentially less housing production because of measure ULA, I think a first sale exemption would probably entirely solve that problem,” Phillips said.

Building permits for new dwelling units in the city of L.A. fell by about 25% in 2023 compared with the previous year. ULA proponents say this decline can be seen across the state, and is primarily driven by high interest rates and inflation pushing up the cost of building.

But critics of the tax, like UCLA Anderson School of Management adjunct professor of accounting and real estate Eric Sussman, say ULA shares some of the blame.

“It’s just another impediment to get projects built in an incredibly housing constrained market,” Sussman said. “[The city] should be making it easier — reducing taxes and fees for developers who want to add to our housing stock. And instead, they're doing the exact opposite.”

What lies ahead for ULA 

Supporters say the tax will do more to keep Angelenos housed in years to come by supporting renters facing landlord harassment and through a right to a free attorney in eviction court.

There is a possibility that voters could choose to overturn the tax, though. An initiative supported by the California Business Roundtable has qualified for the Nov. 2024 ballot, seeking to require two-thirds voter support for new local taxes. ULA passed with 58% support.

However, it remains to be seen whether the initiative to overturn measures such as ULA will appear on the November 2024 ballot. State legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom have asked the California Supreme Court to prohibit it from going to voters, arguing it proposes to unlawfully revise the state’s constitution.

For renters who need assistance

How to have a voice on housing affordability

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law that requires large companies to disclose if they or their predecessors profited from chattel slavery.

The Truth in Disclosure Act will require major companies operating in the state to disclose these historical and financial ties to enslavement-related transactions. 2

The bill was a top priority for the California Legislative Black Caucus this year. No other state requires corporations to account for their historical role in the slave economy, according to advocates.

Authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Culver City, the law applies to companies with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million. Assembly Bill 2599 also requires relevant records and disclosures to be made publicly available through a searchable digital to be established by the state’s Civil Rights Department.

The sworn filings will be subject to the penalty of perjury. The first affidavits are due by Jan. 15, 2029.

Supporters say the database could be a useful tool for academics, journalists and advocates to examine the connections between current corporate wealth and historical participation in the slave economy.

An example of a type of company that would likely have to make such disclosures in California is JP Morgan Chase. According to the California Reparations Task Force report, in 2005, the banking giant wrote a formal apology because two banks that it had taken ownership of had taken 13,000 enslaved people as security for loans in Louisiana. When enslavers could not pay back the loans, the banks took ownership of 1,200 people.

The law only applies to companies that existed or whose predecessor company existed on or before December 1964.

“I’m thinking agriculture. I’m thinking banking, insurance. I’m thinking anything in the financial sector,” Bryan said about the types of companies he expects may have to file disclosures.

“Once the public has this disclosure and we have a full accounting of the impact, then it’s up to us to decide what that means and what we’re going to do about it,” he added.

Several insurance companies opposed the measure as it moved through the Legislature. They said they already disclosed their connections to slavery through a 2000 California law that resulted in a publicly available report.

The newest law is the latest in a slow, uneven effort to act on the findings of the state’s reparations task force.

Newsom created the task force in 2020. After two years of study, it released a 2023 report detailing California's history of enslavement and discriminatory policies and made more than 100 recommendations. Economists estimated the state owes Black residents at least $800 billion for harms in policing, housing, and health.

Lawmakers have since taken small steps. In 2024, Newsom signed six of the Legislative Black Caucus' 14 priority bills that drew from the task force report, including a formal state apology. That year, the caucus declined to advance two ambitious reparations bills, opening a painful split with grassroots advocates.

The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation and Truth applauded Newsom and Bryan for the new law.

“California has long been a state that prides itself on justice and equity and AB 2599 moves the needle closer to the transparency that is necessary to recognize and rectify these historical injustices and understand the roots of modern economic disparities,” said CAIR-CA Chief Executive Hussam Ayloush in a written statement.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has been investigating the Lineage warehouse fire since the first week of July, contradicting Mayor Karen Bass’ recent statement that the elected attorney had chosen not to.

City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto had not publicly disclosed the investigation, and it’s unclear whether Bass knew about it when she told student journalists at The LA Local that she had asked Feldstein Soto and state officials to investigate the fire but was met with inaction.

The rare public admission of the nearly three-month old investigation came a week after The LA Local reported that the two candidates vying to replace Feldstein Soto said her office could do more to help Angelenos in the wake of the fire. The City Council asked the city attorney to report in closed session on what legal options are available to them. But that report has not yet been completed and may not reach the public when it is.

Bass had previously declined to comment on possible legal action related to the fire despite residents’ demand for help. On Wednesday, student journalist Edgar Vasquez asked if she would request the city attorney open a corporate accountability investigation.

“I asked [Feldstein Soto] to open one quite a while ago,” Bass responded. “I also asked Attorney General Bonta to open one. I am not in charge of them. They are independent elected officials. They can choose to do it or not. So far, they have not chosen to do it.”

Karen Richardson, the city attorney’s communications director, told The LA Local that Bass may have “misspoke” and defended Feldstein Soto’s decision to keep the investigation from the public and presumably from other elected officials in the city.

“We do not comment on pending investigations or litigations but in this instance our office will confirm that we have had an open investigation since the first week of July and that investigation is ongoing and active,” Richardson said by email. “The City Attorney, in her capacity as Chief Prosecutor for the City, investigates and brings actions without prompting or reporting to City Officials or the press. As a prosecutor, the client of the Office is the People of the State of California, not the City of Los Angeles.”

Richardson did not immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry about the nature and scope of the investigation or if those impacted by the fire will be told of its findings.

Bass’ office also did not immediately respond to questions after the city attorney’s team told The LA Local about the months-old investigation.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for this story.

Marissa Roy and John McKinney, one of whom will become the next city attorney, previously told The LA Local that the city attorney’s office should have acted publicly sooner. Both said they would be more transparent and would launch a corporate accountability investigation of the fire if elected. Depending on how long the current investigation takes to complete, the next city attorney could inherit it.

Past L.A. city attorneys have pursued such investigations and won settlements for people harmed by corporate misconduct. Roy has worked on similar lawsuits for the California Department of Justice, contributing to a landmark settlement against the tech company Meta. 

Community advocacy groups, meanwhile, have asked the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to open a criminal investigation of the fire. That agency declined to comment for this story. 

McKinney, who currently is a deputy district attorney, said if the investigation found criminal activity, he would pursue filing charges. 

Bass told the student journalists that the fire department’s investigation “was a preliminary one” and that more can be expected. 

“There’s other investigations coming, and by the way, I really want those investigations because you know I’m blocking them from rebuilding,” Bass said Wednesday.

Bass and the City Council established a temporary suspension of the permit to rebuild Lineage’s damaged facility. 

Lineage’s CEO has said that the company has not decided yet if it will rebuild the damaged facility. Bass conceded that the company has a legal path to rebuild if it chooses to. But after several public disputes about blown cleanup deadlines and other matters, Bass said she does not support the company rebuilding.

“I know it’s your right, but you lost your right by the harm you inflicted on this community,” Bass said. “Then if they don’t rebuild. Then the community has to ask itself: then what?”

MacArthur Park will close every night once an 8-foot-tall fence goes up around the green space, with Los Angeles police officers sweeping the park for encampments and people sleeping there before the gates shut. The Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners approved the plan Thursday.

Construction of the green metal fence is expected to begin in November and continue through spring 2027, Recreation and Parks officials said during a public meeting.

The park will stay open while the fence is being built. Once construction is finished, the gates are expected to close from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. LAPD officers will patrol the park while it is open.

Officials said the fence is not intended to be permanent.

The Department of Recreation and Parks plans to review the fence after three years, looking at maintenance, crime and feedback from people who use the park. The department has set specific benchmarks that could eventually lead to the fence coming down.

The three-year review will include a comparison with Lafayette Park, which Recreation and Parks is using as a benchmark for maintenance and crime.

The department wants MacArthur Park to eventually have no more than about twice as many maintenance and repair requests as Lafayette Park. MacArthur Park covers about 35 acres, while Lafayette Park covers about 10 acres. General Manager Jimmy Kim said Thursday that MacArthur Park had a 230% higher rate of repair work orders than Lafayette Park.

A rendering shows a proposed green metal gate at one of MacArthur Park’s entrances.

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Courtesy LA Recreation and Parks

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From January through August 2026, MacArthur Park also recorded 136 robberies and aggravated assaults, compared with 20 at Lafayette Park. Neither park recorded a homicide during that period.

MacArthur Park recorded 694 arrests during those eight months, compared with 36 at Lafayette Park.

The department also plans to survey park users and conduct another community survey through the council office as part of the three-year review. 

The nightly closures will also change how law enforcement handles the park. 

LAPD plans to sweep the park every night before the gates close, according to Capt. Ben Fernandes, who represented the Rampart Division at Thursday’s Recreation and Park Commission meeting.

“For right now, we will do a full sweep of the park before the gates close on each side of the park,” Fernandes said. He added that LAPD has been “very good about keeping encampments out of the park.”

Officers will monitor the park while it is open, working with LAPD’s Security Services Division, Fernandes said. First responders will have keys and access to the park at all hours.

Community members attend a Recreation and Park Commission meeting Thursday, Oct. 1, where commissioners approved final plans for a new fence around MacArthur Park.

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Hanna Kang

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The LA Local

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The nightly sweeps also raised the question of what will happen to people who are found sleeping in the park. 

Fernandes said the mayor’s office would provide service providers who can assist people struggling with substance use and people experiencing homelessness.

“So, if we do come across someone who is asleep in the park during our sweep, we will be able to hopefully make them be involved in those services and hopefully get them housed,” he said.

Recreation and Parks says the fence would give the department more control over the park after hours. The department said MacArthur Park had a 230% higher rate of repair work orders for lighting, plumbing and graffiti than Lafayette Park between January 2025 and June 2026, and that damage and vandalism typically occur overnight.

Those improvements are part of a larger list of changes planned for the park. Recreation and Parks plans to restore access through the tunnel connecting the park’s north and south sides, improve accessibility, add free Wi-Fi and replace some of the park’s existing lights with solar-powered fixtures.

The department listed more recreational programming, including run and walk events, movies in the park, sports and fitness classes, quarterly community events and the return of pedal boats on the lake.

Recreation and Parks plans to return to the community later this month with another update on the project.

The post LA will start building a fence around MacArthur Park in November appeared first on LA Local.

The second of two state-commissioned, independent reports on the 2025 L.A. fires has been released.

The analysis by the Fire Safety Research Institute details the effectiveness of the response to the Palisades and Eaton fires, which killed at least 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 homes and buildings, mostly in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called for an independent investigation into the response to the fires just a few days after they started on Jan. 7, 2025. His administration commissioned the nonprofit Fire Safety Research Institute to carry it out. L.A. County (via the McChrystal Group) and the L.A. Fire Department have released similar reports.

The 724-page analysis released today details “the effectiveness of prevention and alerting efforts, conditions influencing the original fire situation, attempts to stop its rapid progression, and evacuation efforts.” The first report by the Fire Safety Research Institute recreated the timeline of each fire’s progression and associated emergency alerts.

The latest report highlights the unprecedented weather conditions ahead of the fires, the chaotic nature of the fires themselves and a lack of planning and coordination among authorities, despite many heroic rescues by field deputies, officers and civilians.

In the Eaton Fire, the report includes that observations by paramedics of embers into West Altadena was not conveyed to incident command hours before the first evacuation alert was sent there. In the Palisades, the report found that the L.A. Fire Department did not have a proper protocol to ensure the Lachman Fire was out, and a lack of communication among authorities led to heavily disorganized evacuations. And with multiple major fires occurring across a heavily urban landscape, firefighting and evacuation resources were stretched beyond capacity.

“The fires revealed implementation challenges, operational limitations, and areas where policies and practices have not evolved at the same pace as the wildfire risk facing California communities,” the report states.

The report also lays out 266 recommendations to improve before the next fire.

Find the whole report here.