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Affordable Housing LA Can't Afford |
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A Discussion in Three Parts
By Ken Marsh
It's time to take a look at how the City Council has dealt with the affordable housing issue in the past 15 months. The results are not pleasing.
I. An Overview
FIRST, this last May the Council finally passed LAMC 151.28, which protects the City's rent control system in accordance with the Ellis Act that was passed by the State in 1985. The ordinance is part of related legislation placed on the Council's agenda in September, 2006, 21 years after Ellis became law.
State Senator Jim Ellis made it clear during the debate when passing the Act that its primary mandate was to stop government from preventing a property owner from getting out of the rental business. Aware of the problems this would create for tenants, Ellis built in discretionary protections to smooth out the rough edges for displaced tenants and to safeguard the local municipality's rent control system.
The protections were discretionary to allow each municipality to apply them to fit their individual circumstances. The protections for tenants designated payments of relocation fees and time allowances for the vacating of properties. It was also stipulated that new apartment units that replaced demolished rent controlled units must be subject to rent control going forward on a one-for-one basis.
Soon after Ellis became law, Los Angeles implemented relocation fees and time allowances for vacating properties, but did not act on the carry-over of rent control for new rental complexes. LAMC 151.28 finally addresses the rent control carry-over safeguard. Keep in mind that new units may be rented at market rates and then are subject to rent control thereafter.
The intent of the carry-over is to discourage speculators from trying to get around a municipality's rent control systems. However, the new rents do not have to meet government affordability guidelines and are not necessarily affordable. Defining affordability is the subject of another article.
For LAMC 151.28, however, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel with support of the Council devised an exception that in the name of giving affordable housing a crutch, cripples the spirit of Ellis. The ordinance exempts 80% of new units from one-to-one rent control carry-over if just 20% of them are reserved for tenants whose income is 80% or below the Average Median Income (AMI) for the area, in line with government affordability guidelines.
For example, if a 20-unit rental complex is demolished and a new 20-unit rental complex is built in its place, by making 4 units low-income, 16 are full market priced and free of rent control moving forward, in effect, a loss of 16 rent controlled apartments to the city in perpetuity.
Mr. Garcetti's rationale? Affordable rent controlled units were going to be destroyed anyway, so from his perspective the LAMC 151.28 exemption preserves affordable housing by guaranteeing some units, though far less than the number lost, and something is better than nothing.
As explained by housing activist attorney Noel Weiss the result is, "... if more rent controlled affordable housing is destroyed than created, with the future in mind the exemption is a gift to speculators and a spit-in-the-ocean for affordable housing."
SECOND, this year in February the Council adopted an ordinance implementing SB 1818, the state law mandating a provision for density bonuses up to 35% and the easing of certain zoning restrictions in exchange for inclusion of affordable units in a development.
According to many affordable housing advocates, SB 1818 provides a way for speculators to fly the affordable housing flag to significantly avoid or escape altogether: 1) zoning limits; 2) requirements to notice communities; and 3) procedural protections for tenants.
By facilitating the construction of 4-5 story buildings in existing low-rise neighborhoods, SB 1818 is also a license to destroy the character and scale of existing neighborhoods.
The state has defined three bases for denial of a developer's application for SB 1818: environmental, safety and historical, thereby assuring that the level of complexity in dealing with such applications will be extremely high.
In Los Angeles, the Planning Department is responsible for implementing of the ordinance, which includes evaluating the economics and profitability of each major project. A project's economic feasibility or lack thereof is a legal ground for the City's negotiating with the developer the terms of the exchange for bypassing zoning and other legal requirements. The already understaffed Planning Department has not been provided resources for qualified personnel to evaluate these projects' economics, let alone negotiate with speculators.
From the perspective of Noel Weiss and others who stay current with these things, the result will be rampant speculation and the destruction of the character of single-family neighborhoods; the "downtownization" of the bedroom community.
THIRD, just before its August '08 recess the Council voted in favor of the Housing Element, a very important document which is an integral part of the City's General Plan. The Plan puts forth the City's goals and values relative to how the housing needs of its citizens are to be met. The Council supported general goals in the name of housing affordability, but did not provide specific affordable housing objectives and the accountability for meeting them.
Instead of seizing the opportunity to make a firm commitment to ensure that a sufficient amount of affordable housing is produced to meet stakeholder needs, the Council passed a wish list, when what is needed are specific affordable housing objectives and a clear directive and binding commitment to increase our affordable housing stock by as much as ten thousand units by 2014.
In a review of the progress on housing development from 1998-2005, very-low and low-income housing was vastly under-produced while market-rate housing was overproduced; more reason for clear directives and binding commitment from the Council on affordable housing, unless it's all just lip service.
SB 1818 tradeoffs given developers and speculators are also an assault on our quality of life because they lead to increased congestion, loss of historically valuable sites and an overloading on an already-overburdened infrastructure; unless, of course, other laws are enacted to counter these impacts.
60% of the City's residents are renters. They consist of the working low income and middle class. No society in history has ever grown without a vibrant middle class. Reducing the level of affordable housing for fixed and low income residents is not a formula for growth, but a prescription for economic stagnation and reduced long term economic and political viability. This is the first of a three – part discussion on affordable housing in LA. Part Two in CityWatch on September 12. (Ken Marsh is a long-time community activist and a Mar Vista Community Council stakeholder. March is a CityWatch contributor.) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 72
Pub: Sept 5, 2008
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