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Should it cost $22K to oppose new housing? City raises fee but not as high as advocates were hoping
A construction worker walks through the Ruby Street apartments construction site in Castro Valley on Feb. 6, 2024. The construction project is funded by the No Place Like Home bond, which passed in 2018 to create affordable housing for homeless residents experiencing mental health issues.
(
Camille Cohen
/
CalMatters
)
In the city of Los Angeles, neighbors or homeowner groups who choose to fight approvals of new housing are required to pay a fee when filing an appeal.
Right now, that fee is $178 — about 1% of the amount the city says it costs to process the appeal. But that fee soon will go up.
On Wednesday, the L.A. City Council voted to increase the fee to $229 but rejected a proposal by the city administrative officer that would have raised the cost for appellants to more than $22,800, or 100% of the cost.
Some advocates for making housing easier to build argued the city should have adopted the higher fee.
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“Appeals of approved projects create delays that make it harder to build housing and disincentivize future housing from being proposed,” said Jacob Pierce, a policy associate with the group Abundant Housing L.A.
At a time when L.A.’s budget is strained, Pierce said, if someone thinks a project was wrongly approved, “They should put their money where their mouth is and pay the full fee."
The City Council unanimously approved another new fee structure put forward by the city’s Planning Department.
While fees will remain relatively low for housing project opponents, developers will have to pay $22,453 to appeal projects that previously had been denied.
A November report from the city administrative officer said setting fees higher to recover the full cost of processing would have aligned with the city’s financial policies. Generally, fees are set higher when applicants are asking for a service that benefits them alone.
“When a service or activity benefits the public at large, there is generally little to no recommended fee amount,” the report said.
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Pierce said he hoped a City Council committee would reconsider the higher fee proposal next year. With the city falling far short of its goal to create nearly a half-million new homes by 2029, he said the city needs to discourage obstruction of new housing.
“Slowing down the construction of housing is expensive for all of us,” Pierce said.
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