Mayor Karen Bass further restricts where affordable housing can be streamlined in LA

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass introduced new limits this week to her administration’s program to streamline affordable housing. The changes will further restrict where low-income apartments can be fast-tracked in the city at a time when rents are rising further out of reach for many residents.

In a message on the July 1 update, Bass framed the changes as creating “additional protections for existing residential tenants” and ensuring the “protection of historic resources.” Others see a significant rollback of a promising program that has spurred lots of much-needed development.

The long list of new restrictions includes a prohibition on fast-tracking affordable housing in the city’s designated historic districts, an idea proposed earlier by City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy in response to plans for low-income apartments in pricey Windsor Village.

Another new restriction will ban fast-tracked affordable housing projects on properties that already contain rent-controlled apartment buildings with 12 or more units.

From ‘remarkable’ to ‘status quo’

Housing policy experts said the latest changes will likely curtail plans for new affordable housing, especially from private developers who have used the mayor’s streamlining initiative to propose thousands of low-income apartments without any public funding.

“It's just turning something that was really remarkable into another status quo type tool,” said Jason Ward, an economist and co-director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness. “That's never going to get us where we need to go in terms of housing production.”

LAist reached out to the mayor’s office to ask what prompted the latest round of changes to ED1. Bass spokesperson Clara Karger responded in an email, saying, “Mayor Bass believes that policies should be constantly evaluated and improved upon. That’s what this revision seeks to do. She also believes that we will be able to build more housing if everyone has buy-in.”

Reeling from a housing affordability crisis that has kept homelessness levels elevated and pushed young families out of the city, L.A. is currently facing state requirements to plan for about 185,000 new low-income housing units by 2029. So far the city — like most other parts of California — is not on track to meet those goals.

How we got here

Bass signed the program in question, Executive Directive One (ED1), during her first week in office. She promised that her planning department would deliver city approvals for new 100% affordable housing developments within a matter of weeks, rather than the previous norm of months or years.

Housing advocates have so far largely seen the program as a success. Bass has said more than 18,000 units of income-restricted housing have been proposed through ED1 to date.

But with all those new proposals has come fierce opposition from homeowners and neighborhood groups who feel ED1 has taken away their ability to slow down or kill projects they believe will harm their communities.

Some residents near proposed ED1 developments have complained about lack of parking, perceived harms to nearby property values and the ability for developers to bypass lengthy environmental reviews.

Group seeking to ‘protect neighborhoods’ applauds changes

Maria Pavlou Kalban is a founder of the group United Neighbors, which says its mission is to “protect neighborhoods” and “ensure local control.” Her group has been lobbying the mayor’s office for changes to ED1, a program she says has been harmful to many neighborhoods. Kalban said Bass seems to have taken many of their concerns to heart.

“A lot of the stuff we were fighting for, we found in these revisions,” Kalban said. “So we really think the mayor stepped up.”

Kalban cheered changes Bass made to ED1 regarding how many waivers and incentives developers can request. Developers typically rely on a number of concessions — often involving increased height, less required open space and smaller setbacks from property lines — to make their projects pencil out financially.

Last year, Bass changed ED1 to ban streamlined affordable housing in areas with single-family homes, which make up 74% of the city’s residential land. The new changes further shrink the areas where developers can propose ED1 projects. But Kalban thinks L.A. still has plenty of room for new housing along commercial corridors, such as low-slung strip malls that could be redeveloped into apartment buildings.

“We're trying to solve the problem of how we need more housing, but we don't feel you have to destroy existing housing in order to get that,” Kalban said.

A win for exclusionary neighborhoods?

Other housing policy watchers say Bass is bending to the demands of wealthy homeowners in neighborhoods long resistant to new housing. Scott Epstein, the director of policy and research for Abundant Housing L.A., said carving historic districts out of ED1 is a mistake.

“There are many parcels in [historic districts] that are not historic at all,” Epstein said, such as vacant lots. “These are also pretty exclusionary communities.”

Jason Ward, the RAND economist, said nonprofit affordable housing developers with decades of experience navigating the complexities of building low-income housing in California will likely continue to benefit from ED1. But he said when it comes to the many low-income housing proposals coming from for-profit developers, these changes leave ED1 “functionally gutted.”

“At some point in Los Angeles, if we’re serious about increasing housing affordability, we need some leadership that's willing to just take the hits and make permanent changes that will be painful to many stakeholders that are used to having their way,” Ward said.

If you care about local housing affordability

For people who live in L.A., the Board of Supervisors and City Council have the most direct impact on housing affordability in your neighborhood.

• Learn more about who influences local housing policy

The best way to keep tabs on your own local government is by attending public meetings for your city council or local boards. Here are a few tips to get you started.

• Find meeting schedules and agendas: City councils usually meet at least twice a month, although larger ones may meet weekly. Committees and boards tend to meet less often, typically once a month. You can find the schedule and meeting agenda on your local government’s website, or posted physically at your local city hall. Find more tips here.
  
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• Learn the jargon: Closed session, consent calendars and more! We have definitions for commonly used terms here.
• How to give public comment: Every public meeting allows community members to give comment, whether or not it’s about something on the agenda. The meeting agenda will have specific instructions for giving public comment. Review more details here.