Archinect - News

LA City Council approves changes to boost housing stock despite detractors

2024-12-12T15:57:00-05:00

The Los Angeles City Council has decided on regulatory updates to the 2021-2029 housing element that will center new development mainly in commercial districts and existing high-density residential neighborhoods while avoiding single-family zones in spite of the benefits proven to be offered by the latter.

The 15-0 vote allows for additional building in those areas provided a certain percentage of affordable housing units are included. Some have labeled the single-family zoning exception as 'exclusionary' as those plots cover 72% of the city. The update also allows for development on lots owned by public agencies or religious organizations. Los Angeles is currently facing an immense housing crisis and will have to present a plan to create an additional 255,000 homes to the state by mid-February.

(h/t Urbanize LA and the LA Times for the update)

LA’s cramped rezoning plan still short of housing goals says UCLA study

2024-11-19T11:09:00-05:00

Under state laws designed to remedy a housing shortage, the city has to set aside land for the construction of 250,000 more homes than allowed through existing zoning rules. Measures under consideration by a City Council committee are likely to satisfy the state requirements, the UCLA analysis found. But when analyzing the likelihood of what developers would actually build, researchers found the number of new homes would be far lower.

The L.A. City Council is expected to vote later this afternoon to approve the rezoning measure. The report's co-author Shane Phillips of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies says the city would be better served if its generous slate of incentives was expanded to cover the remaining 72% of neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family houses. Others have labeled this plan as exclusionary for that reason. Planners face a state mandate to find space for at least 250,000 new housing units by mid-February.

New LA housing permits fall while planners look north

2024-11-13T09:22:00-05:00

A new report from Hilgard Analytics and Zenith Economics has the numbers behind the turndown complicating LA’s multi-pronged housing crunch. According to the available Los Angeles City Council data, the number of new permits this year has fallen 30.7% on pace toward a new five-year low.

Permits are on the rise this year only in the eastern precincts of the San Fernando Valley after a 2022 high in all other City Council districts recorded. This follows news of a flatly less resourceful Planning Department decision on single-family zoning’s future. The city has to build at least 2.5 million homes to meet demands by the end of the decade. (h/t Urbanize LA.)

L.A moves new rezoning plan forward, critics say it will codify exclusion

2024-09-28T10:07:00-04:00

Will L.A. continue to preserve communities dominated by single-family homes? Or will the city make a historic shift to allow for more affordable housing in areas that have long excluded it?

City Planning officials voted on Thursday to approve the plan, which the LA Times pointed out is limited to just 28% of the city and areas that are heavily zoned for commercial and/or multifamily construction.

The publication had to use a F.O.I.L. Act petition to obtain a copy of the city-funded Architectural Resources Group/USC-UCLA report on outdated single-family zoning policies, which reads: "Detached single-family residences cover a disproportionate amount of the land zoned residential. This has resulted in an unaffordable housing market due, in part, to a pervasive lack of supply and the fact that single-family homes are more expensive than multi-family residences."

City Council has until February to approve a final rezoning plan in line with the state's original 2022 mandate.

Backed by SB4, church groups prepare to make housing their mission in LA

2024-08-20T11:17:00-04:00

The Archdiocese of L.A. announced Wednesday it will partner with a newly formed nonprofit called Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing Alliance to develop affordable housing in Southern California. Their first project — located on Archdiocese land currently used by Catholic Charities — will construct affordable apartments next to L.A. City College for community college students and youth transitioning out of foster care.

The transitional housing project at Los Angeles City College joins another for Pasadena City College that will enable better access to higher education for the 30,000 youths enrolled in L.A. County’s foster care system currently. Statewide there are 171,749 acres of developable land owned by nonprofit colleges or faith-based organizations, according to the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation’s assessment from a year ago.

SB4, motivated by the national “Yes in God’s Backyard” (which began in San Diego, eases the process for churches and nonprofit organizations can build housing at sites that previously had been limited by lot size restrictions and the California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA).

The article mentions a separate state report, which found that one-quarter of all community college students in California experience homelessness at some point during the school year.

Costco to deliver 800-unit mixed-use housing scheme to Los Angeles

2024-07-03T12:41:00-04:00

A plan from big-box giant Costco to deliver an 800-apartment mixed-use scheme designed by AO in Los Angeles is garnering some positive reviews online for its response to the city’s vexing housing crisis.

SFGate.com has more on the latest attempts to tackle the emergency, which remains at the top of a list of municipal priorities despite recent progress on the issue from several fronts.

Rendering courtesy Thrive Living

They say the five-acre development will include a "fitness area, multi-use community space, multiple courtyards and landscaped paths, a rooftop pool, and other amenities like gardens," in addition to parking spaces for both tenants and store customers. A total of 184 apartments will be set aside as affordable housing. A recent popular X post detailed the complex regulatory considerations the scheme maneuvered and contributed to its modular design. The client is Thrive Living, a privately owned developer of workforce housing.

The now 50-year-old AO is also notable for ...

The New York Times gets inside the debate on ‘tiny homes’ and LA’s fight against homelessness

2024-06-24T15:13:00-04:00

“The city of Los Angeles has worked very hard to brand these as tiny homes as if they are a housing solution, which they absolutely are not,” said Shayla Myers, a senior attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. “In reality, these are tiny sheds.”

Firsthand accounts of what it’s like to live inside one of the eleven tiny home villages scattered across parts of the San Fernando Valley and northeast LA often underscore their value as bulwarks against unsheltered homelessness in the city. Feedback from on-site mental health professionals also is underreported and left out of the debate surrounding their existence. Still, the need for shelter weighted against the reluctance to add density and public pressure on the issue makes their existence a necessity as a dearth of more permanent solutions abounds.

California environmental review process is hindering affordable housing development, according to new state agency report

2024-05-28T12:57:00-04:00

A new report on California’s entrenched housing crisis from the state's independent Little Hoover Commission has identified the 54-year-old California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA) as the greatest barrier currently in the way of architects and planners looking to meet the demand for 2.5 million new units statewide by 2030.

LAist.com has more on the report, which took over a year to compile. Among its findings is the concerning fact that 25% of all lawsuits initiated under CEQA have been challenges to infill housing developments in densely populated urban areas (e.g., Los Angeles). Authors say this could grow into all-out “urban warfare” that, in turn, overburdens exurbs and more inland areas. LA has been more proactive recently under the mayorship of Karen Bass but must still overcome hurdles to meet its mandate to build 500,000 new homes before 2029.

Brookings research gives Los Angeles communities guidance for future ADU implementation

2024-05-02T18:02:00-04:00

New research published recently by the Brookings Institution has provided details of how local government in Los Angeles can galvanize a newfound abundance of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) through policy changes in order to combat an ongoing housing crisis currently affecting more than one million Angelenos.

Authors Jenny Schuetz and Eve Devens state: “The Los Angeles region offers a useful setting to explore the prospects of affordable ADUs. Four jurisdictions within the region have developed affordable ADU pilot programs. One program, the city of Los Angeles’ LA ADU Accelerator Program, offers operating subsidies for existing ADUs, while the other three offer development subsidies as well as vouchers to cover operating costs.”

This research can be used to bolster architects’ so-called “toolkit” of affordable housing solutions in conjunction with the recent Harvard Center for Housing joint study that compared the strengths and failures of California’s policies with those in othe...

LA City Council orders graffiti removal on infamous unfinished Oceanwide Plaza towers

2024-02-12T13:33:00-05:00

City Council Members in Los Angeles have issued a mandate to owners of the graffiti-tagged Oceanview Plaza development in Downtown to remove the artwork weeks after its unfinished exterior became a national news item and the latest flash point in a debate over the citywide housing crisis that has lingered for a number of years.

By a vote of 14-0, Council Members approved Kevin de León’s motion calling for the city to foot the bill for cleaning up the stalled $1 billion towers if China-based developer Oceanwide fails to meet their February 17th deadline for removal. (CoStar first reported on the motion this weekend h/t Bizow.com.)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chop ‘em Down Films (@chopemdownfilms)

The internet sensation was covered in tags last month by artists apparently inspired by an early December operation in downtown Miami and able to bypass the security detail on site, which has been embroiled in a payment dispute with developers since last ye...

Kadre and Lehrer Architects team up for a new transitional housing community in Los Angeles

2024-01-04T12:50:00-05:00

A new supportive housing concept in Los Angeles has been introduced by LA-based practices Kadre Architects and Lehrer Architects. The design teams shared it can become a new model for design resourcefulness and occupants’ dignity at a time when the city, as do many others in America, faces a desperate need.

The new 95-unit Cypress Park New Beginnings Community was inaugurated in early December after first breaking ground in May of 2022. The new housing scheme aimed to serve “displaced populations and environmental and/or socio-economic crises.”

Image courtesy of Kadre Architects.

Their brief called for the construction of 350-square-foot micro-housing units on a disused plot between the Arroyo and Golden State Parkways. Site conditions for the 35,000-square-foot development were extremely challenging in an echo of Lehrer’s previous work on the Tiny Homes Villages in different parts of Los Angeles.

Image courtesy Kadre Architects.

Faced with this challenge, the design team responded ...

New Terner Center for Housing Innovation paper unpacks five years of SB 35's impact on the California housing crisis

2023-08-21T18:05:00-04:00

The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has released a statewide assessment of the development of housing five years after the implementation of California's Senate Bill (SB) 35 began in 2018.

The bill eased the barriers to housing production for builders, in some cases removing the required review process under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other policies that had been targeted as key impediments to the effort to meet a crisis that has become the defining issue of the time for embattled local governments, residents, and planning officials.

Statistics revealed that 18,000 new units were able to be developed thanks to the streamlining of nearly a thousand multifamily infill housing projects as a direct result of SB 35. The rate of successful developments peaked in 2020, with a noticeable dip recorded in the past year. The study also found encouragingly that most projects covered by SB 35 were considered 100 percent affordable.

Related on Archine...

AXIS/GFA's record-breaking Weingart Center supportive housing development tops out in Skid Row

2023-07-21T12:34:00-04:00

A record-breaking supportive housing development in the overburdened Los Angeles market is one step closer to completion this week after AXIS/GFA Architecture + Design’s new 19-story Weingart Center Tower 1 project topped out near Skid Row.

Once completed, the development will provide a total of 228 studio and one-bedroom apartments reserved exclusively for people who had previously experienced homelessness. Proponents say it will be the largest single-addition housing project of its kind in the city.

Los Angeles is currently in the midst of a crisis caused in large part by state and local policy failures, the lack of financing, and a compendium of related issues, including developers' reticence, corruption, and the resounding absence of low-income housing countywide. New Mayor Karen Bass recently signed an ordinance that makes it easier to realize constructions under 49 units, but the hope and need for larger developments is also glaring. Therefore the project stands as a new high...

LA exempts affordable developments from Site Plan Review process as housing needs grow

2023-07-10T11:40:00-04:00

Mayor Karen Bass on Thursday signed into law an ordinance updating the city's zoning code to exempt all affordable units from the time-consuming Site Plan Review process that often delays final approval of much-needed housing projects. The city's existing building code required all housing developments of more than 49 units to undergo Site Plan Review, which can add months to the completion of a project and increase expenses.

Bass had promised to alleviate the burden on developers as part of her mayoral campaign and has since cut down the city’s end of the approval process and added a new Deputy Mayor of Housing to the administration, though structural problems within the political apparatus still remain.

The city has approved 22 new developments in the calendar year with the aim of aiding a 9% growth in homelessness and an economic situation where nearly a third of all renters are considered "severely cost-burdened” countywide.

Los Angeles gets a new Deputy Mayor of Housing

2023-02-03T08:30:00-05:00

New LA Mayor Karen Bass has elevated current City Planning Commissioner Jenna Hornstock to a newly-created post as the Deputy Mayor of Housing, according to the city's announcement on Wednesday afternoon.

The appointment aligns with Bass’ comprehensive shakeup of the city’s existing multifaceted housing apparatus. It will create an office that is accountable for efforts to address the dual crises of affordability and homelessness that have become hot-button political issues for Angelenos over the past decade.

Honstock comes to the position with experience as the acting Deputy Director of Planning and Land Use for the Southern California Association of Governments and was a former aide on the Housing and Business team of former Mayor James Hahn. According to her Linkedin page, she is also the current board of advisors member for the Urban Land Institute and holds an MPP in Urban Economic Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Related on Archinect: Political disorder is...

Frances Anderton says LA must end the stigma of apartment dwelling to survive

2023-01-12T17:38:00-05:00

Anderton’s book provides further powerful evidence that density is not something to be scared of, but is fertile ground for architectural invention, creating more neighbourly, walkable communities, and ultimately making Los Angeles a more livable city for all.

The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright joined Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles author Frances Anderton for a walking tour of select historic apartment buildings that included Richard Neutra’s 1937 Strathmore Apartments in Westwood (noteworthy as the first apartment Charles and Ray Eames rented after they moved to the city in 1941) and the Irving Gill’s 1910 Horatio West Court, whose new neighbor is a just-finished transitional housing project from Brooks + Scarpa.

“There’s still an ingrained cultural stigma here, that renting an apartment means you haven’t quite made it," Anderton reminds us. The city's broken political culture, meanwhile, isn't making the issue much easier.

The former host of KCRW's popular radio show, DnA, has been a frequent collaborator on Archinect. Anderton joined us in December 2020 on the Archinect Sessions podcast to talk about her career and "the backstory behind her transition from architecture student to journalist to radio personality."

Lis...

Political disorder is impeding much-needed housing progress in Los Angeles

2023-01-10T12:54:00-05:00

To ease Los Angeles’ crushing housing shortage, the city needs a lot more new homes, especially affordable ones. Yet the City Council has been sitting on two community plans that would make it easier for developers to construct housing and boost the number of low-income units in downtown and Hollywood. What’s the holdup? Politics and scandal.

One of the plans, the Downtown Community Plan, which aims to add 100,000 new homes to Los Angeles’ downtown core through 2040, was put on hold after an audio recording surfaced revealing three council members making racist and offensive comments about their colleagues and constituents. Two of the council members involved, former LA mayoral candidate Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, helped shape the plan but are now unavailable to push it forward.

The Los Angeles Times highlights the problematic nature of the political structure around development, in which council members have total control over land-use decisions, which, in the case of the Downtown Community Plan has backfired. This, along with the Hollywood Community Plan, which is also experiencing a prolonged delay, is designed to make the approval process quicker for mixed-income developments.

If the City Council doesn’t act on the plans by May, the documents will expire and the approval process will restart.

...

LA Mayor Karen Bass announces first round of reforms aimed at expediting the construction of affordable housing

2022-12-20T17:24:00-05:00

New Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass is wasting no time dismantling the regulatory process that’s long been held up as the source and exacerbator of the city’s intertwined homelessness and affordable housing crises.

Declaring that the “time for useless regulations is over,” Bass went to the construction site of the new 49-unit Boyle Heights Lorena Plaza development last week to announce an executive directive mandating all city departments involved in the review and approval of new housing and shelters to complete their portion of the process within 60 days.

The directive will also waive the discretionary review process of all developments not requiring zoning changes. These types of developments are often curtailed to 49 units or less in order to get under the review and public hearing process, which requires all developments of 50 units or higher to be subject to them. According to reporting in the LA Times, there are currently 31 projects in the city that will be affected by the ch...

McMansions are making LA’s housing crisis a lot worse

2022-12-19T12:05:00-05:00

There is another cause of overcrowding and homelessness. It is mansionization, the demolition of older, smaller, less expensive houses by real estate speculators who quickly replace them with spec McMansions: boxy, shoddily built houses that max out the permitted building envelope.

The disincentive to build multifamily and affordable housing is made worse by the popularity of these easily repeatable home designs, which also cost more to construct while taking up more space and using more water and electricity. Certain communities around L.A. County have developed effective anti-McMansion ordinances that work by limiting the size of structures, although loopholes abound.

A possible solution can be taken from LA's 35 existing community plans, which contain some version of language to “protect existing stable single-family and low-density residential neighborhoods from encroachment by higher density residential uses and other uses that are incompatible as to scale, character, or would otherwise diminish quality of life.”

An underutilized hotel retrofit offers inside view of LA homelessness crisis

2022-12-15T14:28:00-05:00

The historic hotel, with its haunted reputation and 600 rooms, reopened in December 2021 as a privately funded permanent supportive housing project. With most of the rooms reserved specifically for those in the bottom 30% of the area’s median income, it’s open to any [...] with a government-funded voucher. Many viewed the project as a promising new model in L.A. because of its size and flexibility. And yet, a year later, two-thirds of the Cecil remains unoccupied.

The rare privately-funded $80 million conversion project for the influential Skid Row Housing Trust is one of many case studies on the issue of vacant single-room occupancy (SROs) in Los Angeles. The city housing authority’s Section 8 director thinks an absence of in-unit bathrooms and kitchenettes is to blame for the empty rooms at the Cecil, but bureaucratic hold-up and a lack of coordination between disparate agencies that serve the vulnerable is the primary factor that’s causing the project to fall short of its weekly move-in targets by 66%.

Los Angeles to convert vacant courthouse into affordable housing

2022-10-27T13:16:00-04:00

A long-closed Los Angeles County courthouse in Sawtelle that was once a popular draw for skateboarders may soon be redeveloped for affordable housing. The County Board of Supervisors voted to buy the former West Los Angeles Courthouse at 1633 Purdue Avenue for a mixed-use, affordable housing development, City News Service reported via KFI AM 640.

As detailed by The Real Deal, a motion to buy the courthouse, which has been vacant since June 2013, was proposed, asking Los Angeles County to source funds to acquire the space from the Judicial Council. The County has reportedly, so far, paid more than $3.5 million to the Council to incentivize development.

Doubling as a popular skate venue since the 1990s, the courthouse site became a legal location for skating following its 2013 closure, in which it’s been dubbed the West LA Courthouse Skate Plaza. Los Angeles County has chosen Arlington, Virginia-based West LA Commons as the prospective developer. The current terms of the project call for the developer to pay the County $32.3 million. The County Board of Supervisors will meet to discuss the project again on November 15th, when the public will have the opportunity to comment on the project.

Brooks + Scarpa reveals Westside LA transitional housing project inspired by Irving Gill

2022-10-24T14:38:00-04:00

Brooks + Scarpa has released images of their recently-completed Rose Apartments complex, a community housing initiative for formerly homeless teenage youths transitioning into adulthood in Venice, Los Angeles.

The 20,900-square-foot, four-story design includes some 35 units of highly affordable residences for young adults who are at risk for homelessness after being separated from the state-administered system at the age of 18.

Image courtesy Brooks + Scarpa

Located nearby Venice Beach's central retail strip, the scheme takes its cues from Irving Gill’s neighboring Horatio West Court apartments and other examples of courtyard housing that predominated the city in the years prior to the Second World War.

Image courtesy Brooks + Scarpa

Per the architects: “The courtyard is only one aspect of a successful design. By including affordable housing for transitional aged youths, it allowed the non-developer to take advantage of California State Assembly Bill AB7...

TALLER announces plans for a first-ever rowhouse development in Los Angeles

2022-10-18T17:39:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based architecture firm Taller has announced plans for what would be the first project built under L.A. County's compact lot subdivision ordinance on a single parcel of land at 925 Brannick Avenue in East Los Angeles. Plans call for razing an existing single-story, two-bedroom house, clearing the way for the construction of four single-family homes.

The plan is one of a series of novel attempts to deliver to market the much-needed stock of "missing middle" housing brought on by developer recalcitrance and new zoning laws that incentivize multifamily development more heavily. The residences range between 885- to 1,118-square-feet and will be constructed using an insulated panel system that TALLER says is 30 percent stronger than typical stick-framed designs.

"[The] Brannick Homes are a deliberate investment into a working class neighborhood with deep roots in Los Angeles," the firm describes in a statement. "The homes are state-of-the-art projects that prioritize contextual aesthetics, sustainability, great design, and—of course—attainability. They have been thoughtfully wrought to maximize efficiency in order to keep building costs low, allowing for the new homes to enter the market at below-median prices and still remain profitable to our investors."

An open letter to LA's next mayor outlines 10 proposals to speed up the production of affordable housing

2022-09-30T13:20:00-04:00

The Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA|LA) has released an open letter to mayoral candidates Rick Caruso and Karen Bass suggesting 10 fixes to zoning requirements and the approval processes that would positively impact citywide efforts to tackle an ongoing housing crisis that has taken center stage ahead of the November election.

Echoing the tone of a recent LA Times op-ed, Koning Eizenberg principal and AIA|LA Government Outreach Committee member Brian Lane wrote on behalf of the organization, saying that, as the system is currently arranged, there are "a thousand ways to 'no.'" Their letter claims that city bureaucracy gets in the way of the design community's efforts and that production can be significantly increased via the proposed set of solutions.

"Dear Mayor," the text begins. "It takes about $600,000 and 5 years to build one affordable housing unit. That’s one person or family moved off the streets of over 69,000 experiencing homelessness in LA...

'Despair is useless': Mike Davis reflects on California, the climate crisis, life, and legacy as he faces his own mortality

2022-09-13T18:44:00-04:00

I’ve seen miracles happen. I’ve seen ordinary people do the most heroic things. When you’ve had the privilege of knowing so many great fighters and resisters, you can’t lay down the sword, even if things seem objectively hopeless.

The terminally-ill City of Quartz author sat down recently with The Guardian to discuss his waning health and look back at prescient early warnings of the state’s slow-motion social and ecological demise that has taken three decades to manifest. True to form, Davis was critical of everything: from “fascist” LA novelist Raymond Chandler to Governor Gavin Newsom’s penchant for arrogating his administration’s response to the climate crisis that has been exacerbated by even increasingly harmful and foolhardy attempts to mitigate the housing crisis in Los Angels and other non-urban areas across the state.

Related Feature Interview on Archinect: Meeting Mike Davis

“Our ruling classes everywhere have no rational analysis or explanation for the immediate future,” he said. “A small group of people have more concentrated power over the human future than ever before in human history, and they have no vision, no strategy, no plan. It’s not just global warming, and drought, it’s the fact that two...

LA County may soon have a new dedicated agency to address its affordable housing woes

2022-08-30T10:00:00-04:00

The ongoing housing crisis in Los Angeles County may soon become the subject of a new dedicated government agency after the California State Assembly voted on Wednesday to approve SB 679.

If signed into law, the bill would authorize the county to create an entity called the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (or LACAHSA) that seeks to address the crisis through a consolidated approach the bill’s author, Democratic State Senator Sydney Kamlager, described as “clear, focused, [and] integrated” when compared to the current system’s diffuse and ineffective nature.

A recent LA Times editorial op-ed mentioned that the bill was amended to include provisions for union contractors in line with the city’s Project Labor Agreement as well as an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which is often used cynically as a means of preventing such developments. The editorial also pointed out that funding for the agency, to which the bill allocates a tota...

California's inventory of disused strip malls may be an overlooked option to shore up its housing stock by 2030

2022-05-02T12:35:00-04:00

Converting empty or underutilized strip malls and shopping centers into mixed-use residential and retail developments could help solve California’s housing shortage crisis and allow stores to stay afloat amid the shift to online shopping, said housing experts and industry leaders during a panel at the Urban Land Institute’s spring meeting last week in San Diego. However, that transformation will require cities to change their land-use policies.

Greyfield land may be the most underutilized resource in the state’s harried attempt to create the more than 2.5 million housing units required to meet demands set forth by the Department of Housing and Community Development in March. A bill introduced last week by state rep Buffy Wicks would include them along with disused offices and environmentally unhealthy parking lot spaces in a zoning update that could allow developers to make relatively quick conversions into mixed-use sites with job-site provisions for apprenticeship employment.

With a portion of the state's population moving east, the measure has the most potential in embattled urban areas like LA or San Diego. According to a report from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, around 40% of the state’s 50 largest cities do not allow for residential development on designated commercial plots currently....

TIC townhouses are taking over Los Angeles — but who can actually afford them?

2022-03-23T12:45:00-04:00

An L.A. developer has a new approach to the so-called tenancy-in-common, or TIC, model, in which residents share ownership of the property. Instead of converting old, rent-controlled buildings into TIC properties, the developer is replacing single-family homes with new townhomes. Some real estate experts said the model could help the region’s gaping affordable-housing problem, particularly after a new state law opened more areas to similar development.

S.B. 9 allows for up to four units to be built on plots formerly reserved for single-family developments exclusively. Since the bill was enacted, many investors have begun to demolish single-family units in order to construct the newer TIC model of townhouses, which was supposedly pioneered by a developer called B&A Group.

The actual product of the new buildings, and whether or not their typically under-market rate but restrictive $700,0000–$800,000 price tags are in the end going to displace working-class residents living in cheaper rental units in LA neighborhoods like West Adams is a major concern for people like neighborhood council president Steven Meeks.

“Cheaper for who?” he told the LA Times of costs, which would fall under the category of a mansion in many other places. “What person in this neighborhood is going to afford that?”

...

California demands Los Angeles County rezone for 255,000 new housing units... by mid-October

2022-02-28T18:41:00-05:00

Los Angeles must rezone to accommodate an additional quarter-million new homes by mid-October after state housing regulators rejected the city’s long-term plan for growth. If city leaders do not fix the housing plan or complete the rezoning by the new deadline, they could lose access to billions of dollars in affordable housing grants, officials with the state Department of Housing and Community Development said in a letter this week.

Los Angeles County had previously planned to add exactly 10% of the new mandate in the form of housing specifically for the homeless by the year 2025. It has also given some additional leeway to homeowners wishing to install ADUs, which can play a crucial role in meeting the state’s pressing development needs. (Current estimates have the number of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles at over 66,000.)

The state’s report also derided LA County’s development plan for its overall lack of parks programming and investments into lower-income communities. The punitive measures against the plan seems paradoxical considering the dodges certain communities have attempted in other parts of California. Officials said they will amend plans in time for the next round of funding reviews in May, but that the breakneck pace of development required to meet the new state requirements in under eight months would outstrip even North Korea in terms of its speed and practicality.

“Rezoning the ...

One of LA’s top mayoral candidates wants to create a hub for affordable housing with an updated Civic Center development plan

2021-10-04T16:59:00-04:00

A stalled plan that would have added over 3 million square feet of office space to Downtown LA has gotten a second life thanks to a post-pandemic reimagining that seeks to address a statewide shortage of affordable housing.

The updated Civic Center Master Development Plan (CCMDP) proposed by mayoral hopeful Kevin de Leon would reverse the numbers in the previously approved plan from 2017, adding more than three times the amount of housing called for in the original while reducing the amount of planned office space by about two thirds.

California is under the gun to add over 1.8 million new units of housing by 2025 to keep up with demands, which so far have outpaced supply to the point where the state has now moved to ban single-family zoning in an effort to boost higher density development. LA itself has said it wants to add 25,000 units to the city in the same time period, and de Leon’s motion would go a long way in helping to meet those demands while at the same time consolidatin...