Housing sides clash at L.A. City Hall hearing on density, renting, homeownership

A longstanding debate over where and how much housing – including affordable housing – should be built in Los Angeles got more vocal this week when Angelenos told city planners what they think about proposed strategies and programs that would pave the way for hundreds of thousands of new housing units to be built over the next several years.

Most of the public comments centered on whether developers who build in single-family residential or coastal zones should be allowed to build bigger or taller buildings, squeeze more units into a project, have their applications go through a speedier review process, or take advantage of other incentives intended to encourage more development, especially of affordable units.

Ordinances drafted by the Los Angeles Department of City Planning – which can still be tweaked before the L.A. City Council votes on them – would, among other things, give incentives to developers to build more affordable housing.

Some of the perks offered under the proposed Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP) currently don’t apply to projects in single-family residential or coastal zones.

Some housing advocates who want to see affordable housing equitably distributed in neighborhoods throughout the city say the incentives should be available to developers looking to build in single-family and coastal zones, in order to encourage more of them to build below-market rate units.

They say that in single-family and coastal zones, excluding projects that are eligible for incentives removes opportunities for poor people to be able to move to highly desirable places, which in turn could continue a pattern of segregation.

West Hollywood resident Matthew Christensen urged city planners not to throw away an opportunity to make L.A. affordable for more people.

“Los Angeles does not belong only to those of us affluent enough to live in single-family homes,” he said during a public hearing on Thursday, July 25, held by the city’s planning department to gather input on the draft ordinances.

On the other hand, some homeowner groups say building higher-density apartments in single-family areas that are out of scale or character with the neighborhood is the wrong approach and could result in inadequate parking and sewer lines and other infrastructure to accommodate the increased population.

They say there are ample opportunities to build higher-density housing along commercial corridors without needing to go into single-family neighborhoods.

“Most people who are seeking to preserve single-family neighborhoods would say you’ve got many opportunities now to repurpose office buildings and other commercial structures,” Barbara Broide, president of the Westwood South of Santa Monica Blvd. Homeowners’ Association, said in an interview Friday.

Azeem Khanmalek, executive director of Abundant Housing LA, which advocates for affordable housing, said in an interview that his organization also supports building housing in “opportunity corridors” near public transit lines and walkable areas in so-called “Higher Opportunity Areas” near jobs, good schools and amenities like parks.

“We think this idea is a really good one — to say let’s look at our highest and high opportunity areas and find ways to incentivize more housing,” he said.

The problem, he said, is that not all incentives in the proposed CHIP initiative apply to residential or coastal zones. “All of a sudden you’re cutting down a lot of the areas where the policy would be most impactful and could add the most additional density,” he said.

During Thursday’s public hearing, a number of speakers said that over 70% of residential land in the city is zoned for single-family homes – a figure that’s been cited by various news outlets and by City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

But Broide refuted that figure, saying that a large portion of land that’s zoned for single-family homes is actually made up of ecologically sensitive areas, is part of a high-risk fire zone or is otherwise not practical for building on.

By her calculations, only about 45% of “developable” land in the city is zoned for single-family homes.

“It’s very misleading to say that three quarters of L.A.’s land is” for single-family homes, Broide said. “It’s a lie. We have to look at developable land.”

What’s driving these conversations about where the city should allow more housing is California’s housing shortage.

Because of the pressing housing needs, the state requires all municipalities to plan for more housing in their cities in the coming years. Los Angeles has a target to build 486,379 housing units.

To meet this obligation, a few years ago the L.A. City Council adopted the city’s 2021-29 “housing element” – a plan that lays out L.A.’s current housing conditions and needs and establishes goals and policies to guide future decisions about where housing should be built and the type, size or density of housing projects that should be allowed.

The city must update zoning regulations to allow another 255,433 housing units to be built to meet its overall housing goals.

During Thursday’s hearing, some members of the public said that they want the CHIP program to include incentives for developers to build housing for “acutely low income” households since many at the most extreme levels of poverty still can’t afford to rent apartments meant for low- or moderate-income tenants.

Some also asked for stronger tenant protections in a proposed Resident Protections Ordinance. For example, if a rent-controlled building is demolished to make way for new apartments, the developer should be required to replace the rent-stabilized units at a two-to-one ratio and be required to pay relocation benefits to the displaced tenants, they said.

Thursday’s public hearing was not the only opportunity for members of the public to weigh in.

The city’s planning department will accept written comments on the draft ordinances through 5 p.m. Aug. 26. The comments should include the ordinance number for each of the three draft ordinances. Comments can be emailed to housingelement@lacity.org.

The ordinances are tentatively set to be considered by the planning commission later this summer or fall before they are forwarded to the L.A. City Council for consideration.

For more information, visit Planning4LA.org/CHIP.