David Wagner
covers housing in Southern California, a place where the lack of affordable housing contributes to homelessness.
Published December 6, 2023 5:00 AM
A fence surrounds a defunct private school in Winnetka where a developer hoped the city would fast-track 360 new low-income apartments.
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David Wagner/LAist
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Topline:
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass took office last year with a big promise: she would get new affordable housing projects approved much faster across the city. But since then, her administration has stalled nine projects proposing more than 1,400 low-income apartments.
What’s new: The denials stem from a change Bass made in June to an executive order on streamlining affordable housing, known as ED1. The new rules said any project located in a neighborhood with single-family homes would not be eligible for fast-tracking. Now, developers are appealing the city’s denials.
Why it matters: L.A. has a severe affordable housing shortage. With 74% of the city’s residential land zoned for single-family homes, housing policy experts say excluding suburban areas from ED1 could make it challenging for the city to plan for 185,000 new low-income homes by 2029, as required under state law.
What’s next: State housing officials have weighed in to support the projects moving forward. If L.A. doesn’t change course, one pro-housing group says it will sue the city.
To cap off her first week in office last December, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass gathered reporters at a dusty patch of dirt in Boyle Heights. From a podium, she explained that construction of affordable housing on that site had taken 16 years to break ground.
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Bass said she would no longer tolerate such delays. She was there to sign Executive Directive One (ED1), an order for city staff to approve applications for 100% affordable housing developments within 60 days, and to issue building permits within five days.
“Affordable housing projects are only being built in certain locations and not others,” Bass said at the news conference. “This is at a time when we need housing all across Los Angeles.”
Six months later, with less fanfare, Bass updated the rules to say that projects in single-family neighborhoods would be ineligible.
Since that change in June, an LAist review found the city has placed nine affordable housing projects near single-family homes in limbo, creating an uncertain future for 1,443 potential units of low-income housing.
“[Developers] were hoping and relying and expecting on the benefit of ED1 — and then the rules changed,” said land use attorney Dave Rand, who is now representing a number of developers trying to appeal the city’s ED1 denials.
“The end result will be a lot of lost housing units that could have been built in these areas,” Rand added. “Some people may celebrate that and think that's a fantastic thing. I think it's the loss of a good number of much-needed affordable homes.”
L.A. needs more affordable housing, fast
The minutiae behind the processing of applications for development projects may sound tedious, but the stakes are high for Angelenos increasingly struggling to pay their rent.
Between 2010 and 2019, as rents climbed, L.A. lost about 111,000 homes considered affordable to low-income families by government standards. At the same time, the city only built about 13,000 new affordable homes. Plus, affordable housing covenants that restricted rents on buildings constructed in the 1980s and 90s have been expiring, in some cases leading to mass evictions.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass stands at a construction site in Boyle Heights to announce her executive order fast-tracking affordable housing approval in the city.
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David Wagner/LAist
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ED1 was designed to confront these problems by getting new affordable housing projects ready to break ground faster than any other time in L.A.’s recent history.
Bass’s directive has found success outside of single-family neighborhoods. L.A. planning officials told LAist the department has already approved applications for 59 projects representing more than 4,620 new affordable apartments.
But Rand said city officials should expand on that success by processing applications based on the rules in place when they were filed. By retroactively changing the rules, he said, L.A. could lose many desperately needed low-income homes.
“It could be the difference between deciding to do the project or not at all,” Rand said.
Some developers have withdrawn their applications, acknowledging that their projects no longer make financial sense without ED1 fast-tracking. Others may decide to re-file their applications, but this time including more expensive market-rate apartments.
California officials weigh in
State housing officials have sided with the developers. California Department of Housing and Community Development officials have sent letters urging the city to quote “apply the law consistently.”
Applicants who submitted paperwork “may proceed under the ED1 regulations that were in effect at the time the preliminary application was complete,” wrote Shannan West with the state’s Housing Accountability Unit in October.
A mayor’s office spokesperson told LAist in an email that ED1 has accelerated thousands of units of affordable housing.
“The city has seen an 85% increase in the number of affordable housing units proposed,” said Bass press secretary Clara Karger.
While not eligible for ED1, projects near single-family homes can still go through the normal approval process, Karger said. That process can involve years of environmental review and contentious public hearings with L.A.’s Planning Commission.
“The mayor believes that any policy implemented should be evaluated to ensure there are no unintended consequences on communities, especially the very ones we are trying to help,” Karger said.
The mayor’s office did not agree to requests to interview Bass directly.
A car drives past an elementary school in Winnetka. The school is across the street from a project site that had its ED1 application denied following the mayor’s June update.
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David Wagner/LAist
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The politics of building in single-family zones
If the city doesn’t reverse course, pro-housing activists say they’ll sue. Sonja Trauss with YIMBY Law, a group that takes legal action against cities it believes are flouting state housing law, told LAist that her organization plans to file a lawsuit soon.
“It's not the right way for the city to treat people who are creating affordable housing,” Trauss said. “Hopefully the mayor gets the message that backpedaling wasn't as politically necessary or beneficial as she thought.”
Most of L.A.’s residential land — 74% to be exact — is zoned for single-family homes. Building large apartment developments in those areas has long been seen as politically risky, because it tends to enrage homeowners opposed to neighborhood change.
UCLA urban planning professor Paavo Monkkonen said leaving suburban areas untouched brings its own risks. The city of L.A. has some big housing goals to meet under state law. The city must plan for 185,000 new low-income homes by 2029.
State law also requires the city to reverse long-standing patterns of segregation by putting many new affordable homes in wealthier areas, such as single-family neighborhoods.
“Once you take them off the table, it's really hard to live up to the fair housing mandate,” Monkkonen said.
In Winnetka, an uncertain future for a shuttered school
Without a guaranteed path forward, it’s unclear what’ll happen to project sites where plans for low-income apartments were already in the works.
Along a busy thoroughfare in the San Fernando Valley, cars going 40 mph zoom past a padlocked fence surrounding a boarded-up private school in Winnetka. Weeds poke through the cracked asphalt outside a building covered in graffiti.
A developer wants to turn this site into 360 low-income apartments. Standing outside the defunct elementary school, Winnetka Neighborhood Council president Mihran Kalaydjian said the community is against it.
“It needs to be away from residential,” he said, explaining that he believes affordable housing developments shouldn’t create difficulties for local businesses, shouldn’t affect homeowners’ property values, and shouldn’t be located near schools.
Winnetka Neighborhood Council president Mihran Kalaydjian stands outside the derelict property where a developer has proposed hundreds of new low-income apartments.
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David Wagner/LAist
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The site is across the street from a public elementary school. It’s also next to a gas station and across the street from a Mercedes-Benz service center. But Kalaydjian said the single family homes down the street make this the wrong place to build.
“There are many other locations they need to take into consideration,” he said.
The area’s councilmember, Bob Blumenfield, is also against fast-tracking this project and others in his district.
“ED1 basically removes the community input from the process,” Blumenfield said in an interview.
That kind of streamlining is acceptable in parts of the city that already have large apartment buildings, he said. But in low-density areas, “removing the public input is not appropriate at this point.”
The view from South L.A.
Tenant advocates say that by cutting single-family neighborhoods out of ED1, the Bass administration has increased development pressure on poorer parts of the city.
“The majority of the affordable housing is happening in South L.A. or in areas that are not high resource,” said Maria Patiño Gutierrez with Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.
In some cases, Gutierrez said working class tenants are seeing their old, rent-controlled buildings demolished to make way for development of new ED1 projects.
Under state law, low-income renters have a right to move into new affordable housing built in place of their demolished homes. But Gutierrez said tenants often find the process confusing and unmanageable.
“Though there are state protections and local laws, we don't think that all the community members know they have the right to return,” Gutierrez said.
Graffiti covers a building on a site that no longer has a guaranteed pathway to becoming affordable housing under ED1.
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David Wagner/LAist
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When housing fights in single-family neighborhoods get ugly
City councilmember Nithya Raman believes L.A. should keep ED1 projects proposed near single-family homes in the fast lane. She has voted to advance an ED1 project in her district, and has cast lone votes supporting projects in other districts.
“We should be following the law,” Raman said in an interview. “We should be pushing towards a system where many more of our planning decisions are not discretionary votes that are coming in front of an individual council office, or to the council at all.”
Raman and her staff have faced harsh pushback from some constituents over her support of an ED1 project aiming to build 200 units of affordable housing in a seven-story structure on Ethel Avenue in Sherman Oaks.
A number of Raman’s district staff, including two who identify as Muslim, attended the Sherman Oaks Street Fair in October. They say protesters opposed to the Ethel project surrounded their booth, waved signs and distributed flyers about saving single-family neighborhoods, and called Raman and her staffers “terrorists.”
A video taken that day shows the protesters following staffers while they packed up to leave the street fair. At first, the protesters tell the staffers they never used the word “terrorist.” Then, one of them says, “Well, if you’re inflicting terror on us, then I guess you’re terrorists.”
Raman condemned the use of the word “terrorist” by protesters.
At the same time, Raman said she also understands concerns about large developments coming to residential areas. If it were up to her to design affordable housing projects for the area, she said, she wouldn’t make them seven stories tall.
But saying no to developers who complied with the city’s guidelines could scare others away from proposing more affordable housing, Raman said.
“If we create a system where, even if you follow the rules, your project will not move forward, I think we make it much harder for us to generate the kind of construction that we do need,” Raman said. “That's an existential threat for the city.”
Outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground ahead of the NFL game between the Rams and 49ers. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)
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Asanka Brendon Ratnayake
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Associated Press
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Topline:
The longest road trip in NFL history has brought the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams to Australia’s sports capital for a season opener in front of more than 100,000 football-hungry fans packed into the Southern Hemisphere’s largest stadium.
Why it matters: The NFC West rivals are playing Australia’s first NFL game, and the starkly differing ways in which they made this epic journey have attracted almost as much attention as the two star-studded rosters preparing to put on a show.
The backstory: The 49ers have been Down Under for more than a week, adjusting their body clocks and winning over thousands of Aussie fans who appreciate their commitment to the historic moment. The Rams were only scheduled to arrive in Melbourne around dawn Thursday, roughly 28 hours before the Friday morning kickoff that’s necessary to play the game Thursday night in prime time in the U.S. That’s because head coach Sean McVay is convinced they can thwart jet lag and optimize their game readiness by staying home on California time.
What's next: The Rams and 49ers kick off at 5:35 p.m. Thursday night on Netflix.
The longest road trip in NFL history has brought the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams to Australia’s sports capital for a season opener in front of more than 100,000 football-hungry fans packed into the Southern Hemisphere’s largest stadium.
The NFC West rivals are playing Australia’s first NFL game, and the starkly differing ways in which they made this epic journey have attracted almost as much attention as the two star-studded rosters preparing to put on a show.
The 49ers have been Down Under for more than a week, adjusting their body clocks in the traditional manner and winning over thousands of Aussie fans who appreciate their commitment to the historic moment.
The Rams were only scheduled to arrive in Melbourne around dawn Thursday, roughly 28 hours before the Friday morning kickoff that’s necessary to play the game Thursday night in prime time in the U.S. That’s because head coach Sean McVay is convinced they can thwart jet lag and optimize their game readiness by staying home on California time.
Both teams agree this contrast in preparation is not a referendum on the best way to handle a pair of 16-hour flights with a football game in between — even if the rest of the world might see it that way after the final whistle.
Instead, this game is primarily a difficult early test for both the Super Bowl favorite Rams and the talent-laden 49ers, who also intend to be a title challenger. The coaching staffs and veteran players all know each other thoroughly after a decade of competition between Shanahan and McVay, who are both constantly looking for an edge.
“I don’t think there’s any right way to do it,” said defensive end Myles Garrett, who will make his Rams debut in Australia. “They have a plan, and I’m sure they consulted different teams and people to find out a way to combat jet lag and such long travel. We’ve done the same thing. I think we’re both riding our methodologies.”
Garrett will be joined by star cornerback Trent McDuffie and cornerback Jaylen Watson in their debuts with Los Angeles’ revamped defense.
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published September 10, 2026 5:00 AM
A fruit vendor sells on Whittier Boulevard in East L.A.
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Andrew Lopez
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Topline:
A recent AirTalk segment highlights the decades-long debate over street vending in Los Angeles. Despite efforts by the City Council and statewide law, enforcement remains murky at best, even though it's a fixture of Los Angeles culture.
Why now? During a recent debate, Mayor Karen Bass made a series of comments that cast street vending in an unsavory light, prompting an almost immediate backlash from her opponent, Nithya Raman, who has devised her own nine-point plan to address street vending if elected.
Why is it important? Street vendors are as much a part of L.A.'s identity as its restaurants — but the system meant to support them is so broken that only a fraction operate with full legal standing. As this becomes a defining issue in the mayor's race, it's worth knowing the difference between political rhetoric and how the rules actually work on the ground.
Last month, street vending became a flashpoint during one of the recent debates for L.A. mayor when incumbent Karen Bass said, "I do not think that you should have a food vendor in front of a restaurant. Period," drawing a comparison to unhoused encampments.
The remarks set off an almost immediate backlash. Mayoral candidate Nithya Raman, who has her own 9-point plan to support street vendors, said Bass "took a shot" at the street vending community and reiterated her commitment to work toward regulations and legalizing their operations.
Bass's office later eased its stance, saying it had directed the LAPD to stop issuing criminal citations to street vendors — and to dismiss any that had been issued in error.
Street vending remains part of the Los Angeles landscape, and the backlash from the debate brought to light just how confusing its legality can be. To understand how we got here, it helps to start with the basics.
Is street vending legal?
Yes. Since SB 946 in 2018, state law has decriminalized it. That means cities and counties can't criminally cite vendors or ban them from specific zones. They can, however, still enforce health and safety rules — things like sidewalk clearance and ADA access.
So why does it feel unregulated?
On a recent segment forAirTalk, Memo Torres ofL.A. Taco pointed to a stark gap between L.A.'s vending population and its permitted vendors. According to an email from the California Restaurant Association reported byFOX 11, an estimated 50,000 street vendors operate across Los Angeles — yet only 53 hold permits specifically for food sales.
Why so few permits?
Vending requirements largely mirror restaurant-grade standards — large refrigeration units, multi-basin sinks — that don't fit the reality of most vendor setups: flat-top griddles, folding tables, pop-up tents.
That isn't to say there haven't been efforts by the city to address the permitting gap. In 2024, the City Council, with Raman's backing, voted to drop the annual permit fee from $541 to $27.51.
Raman's mayoral campaign has since proposed another potential fix: extending a state permit category — currently used by vendors at farmers markets who share equipment like a communal three-compartment sink — to street vendors, so operators wouldn't need their own restaurant-grade setup to qualify.
What about health and safety?
County health inspectors technically oversee street food vendors, but both industry and vendor advocates agree enforcement is inconsistent — leaving reliable data on violations hard to come by.
Are vendors and restaurants actually enemies?
A 2015 Economic Roundtable study found that businesses located near street vendors were more likely to see job growth than those without nearby vendors.
What’s next
Proposals like Raman's permitting reforms aim to close the gap — but for now, most of L.A.'s vendors remain outside the formal system.
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Frank Stoltze
is a veteran reporter who covers local politics and examines how democracy is and, at times, is not working.
Published September 9, 2026 6:36 PM
The Jail complex in downtown Los Angeles
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Robert Garrova / LAist
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Topline:
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it has opened an investigation into the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, specifically looking into whether L.A. County has failed to provide environmentally safe, humane and habitable conditions for people held there.
The details: The jail has long been plagued by allegations of poor conditions. Monitors from the American Civil Liberties Union have documented problems including overcrowding, severe mold and mildew, and rodent infestations.
The context: The federal investigation is expected to focus on conditions within the facility and not the actions of the county sheriff’s deputies who staff it, according to the Justice Department. The new investigation is separate from a 2015 settlement between the county and federal government, which stemmed from allegations of inadequate mental health care provided at county jails.
What happens next: Investigators will determine whether the county has violated the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment, and 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law.
Reaction: L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger welcomed the investigation, and said she had said for year that the jail was “antiquated, inhumane, and unfit for our workforce and those incarcerated there.”
Jason Wells
manages the daily news product that you hear and read every day.
Published September 9, 2026 5:13 PM
Smoke rises from a brush fire near the Getty Center on Sept. 9, 2026.
(
CBS LA
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Topline:
Firefighters appeared to make quick progress against a brush fire the broke out Wednesday near the Getty Center.
What we know so far: As of 5 p.m., evacuation warnings had been issued for zones LFD-0895 and LF-0967, although the LAFD said no structures were immediately threatened as the water-dropping helicopters attacked the fire from above.
Read on ... for more on evacuations and weather conditions.
This story is no longer being actively updated. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:
Firefighters appeared to make quick progress against a brush fire the broke out Wednesday near the Getty Center.
As of 5 p.m., evacuation warnings had been issued for zones LFD-0895 and LF-0967, although the LAFD said no structures were immediately threatened as the water-dropping helicopters attacked the fire from above. Forward progress of the fire was reported stopped shortly after 6 p.m. at a little over 20 acres.
