LA city planners hear from a chorus of Angelenos wanting more housing in single-family neighborhoods

Los Angeles city planners held a virtual meeting Thursday night to gather public feedback on their plans for meeting ambitious housing production goals. Dozens of speakers repeated the same refrain throughout the evening: allow new apartments in single-family neighborhoods.

The L.A. Planning Department has outlined a blueprint for achieving a state-mandated housing goal of nearly 457,000 new homes by 2029. Officials say the city can get there by essentially doubling down on development in already dense areas by offering incentives to builders.

Doing so would be critical under the current plan because it leaves out the 72% of residential land in L.A. zoned for single-family homes. That approach has pleased homeowner groups, but spurred criticism from renter advocates, homeless service providers and affordable housing developers.

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Calls for a new approach

Thursday’s meeting was primarily focused on public input. Most speakers urged the city to reverse course and provide more opportunities to build up single-family neighborhoods.

“We live in the second largest city in the country, with so much economic opportunity, and yet we are landlocking 75% of our residentially zoned land for exclusively wealthy people,” said Kiersten Stanley of Studio City. “One wealthy family can come in and build a mini-mansion that’s 4,000 square feet. But God forbid four families move into four 1,000 square foot places.”

Many speakers described the decision to exempt single-family neighborhoods as an issue of racial and economic justice. Some pointed out that erecting barriers around areas that remain wealthy and exclusive today perpetuates the legacy of redlining and other zoning restrictions that had racist origins.

“Historically it has been established to exclude people of color from predominantly white neighborhoods,” said Andres Perkins. “This drove a lot of unequal access to housing, education and jobs. Continuing that will further that segregation we’re trying to move past.”

Some homeowners support city’s plan

A smaller number of homeowners attended the meeting to speak in support of leaving single-family neighborhoods alone. They argued new housing belongs on the city’s dense main thoroughfares, where they said apartments will be closer to transit lines and businesses.

“There’s simply no reason to wreck these neighborhoods with random density until we’ve built out our corridors closer to our commercial districts,” said Tracy Thrower Conyers with the group Concerned for Westchester/Playa Del Rey.

“I often hear groups like the one I represent called NIMBYs,” she said. “It’s unfortunate that local planning has been reduced to pejorative name-calling.”

What happens now 

Planning officials said no immediate decisions would be made on amending the plans. They said feedback during the meeting would help inform revised drafts, which will first go to the city Planning Commission before heading to the L.A. City Council for a final vote by February 2025.

City planners had originally considered allowing more density in single-family zones. They later dropped the idea “based on feedback we received during our department’s outreach, as well as direction from the Los Angeles city council,” senior city planner Blair Smith said during the meeting.

“That said, we’re looking for your feedback today and we appreciate all the folks who’ve come out here today to share their perspective related to single-family,” Smith said. “We’re very much in a listening phase.”