REPEALING COSTA-HAWKINS-Our city is the envy and destination of people worldwide – we have so much sunshine and an unbeatable climate enables a lifestyle that is perceived to be easier than most. They are drawn to the notion of “reinvention,” creating a new self-narrative, not just reserved for Hollywood but available to all. People do that daily, just as people move here daily.
Knowing even just a little about our city, who would not want to move here to bask in the perceived benefits they see in all the movies and television shows set in the Southland? It’s the land of opportunity, of starting over…it’s the best coast, the Gold Coast.
Outsiders do not get a “spoiler alert” about the choking traffic and high cost of housing. It’s almost enough to make one nostalgic for the quieter smog-filled basin of decades ago – the days when you could get anywhere in the city in 20 minutes from your very affordable housing.
Traffic is a local problem, but housing is mandated by the state that demands, through legislation, that its cities expand housing (in tech jargon, called the “housing element”,) in order to accommodate growing populations.
A collision course is not hard to avoid when all the facts of the “housing element,” are taken into consideration: the daily increase in population, the requirements for additional housing, and the reality that there is only so much land available for housing.
Land use and housing laws are supposed to modulate this tension between too many people and not enough housing by mandating inclusionary housing. Inclusionary zoning refers to planning ordinances that require a given share of new construction to be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes.
Existing and newly constructed stock of affordable housing is insufficient to meet the demand. Between 2000 and 2010, rents increased by 31 percent in real terms, while incomes only rose 1.2%. Sixty-two percent of Los Angeles residents are paying more than they can afford for housing and are therefore considered “cost burdened,” using a metric of that shows they pay more than 30 percent of income for housing costs -- a level considered by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to be unsustainable for most families.
What is spoiling the housing element plan may be partly attributed to the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act that was originally intended to provide affordable housing. But some say is actually an impediment to affordable housing. Noted land use attorney Sabrina Venskus offered that suggestion to a community meeting several nights ago.
But first, what is the “housing element” that controls housing and, indirectly, land use planning? The California state law that controls housing is administered by the state’s Business, Transportation and Housing Agency’s Department of Housing and Community Development. The state's Planning and Land Use law requires cities to adopt a general plan containing at least seven mandatory elements, including a “housing element” that is updated every six years.
Los Angeles is currently utilizing the 2013-2021 Housing Element that was adopted by the City Council on December 3, 2013.
This statute reflects the state’s recognition that housing is a matter of statewide importance: that, “the availability of an adequate supply of housing affordable to workers, families, and seniors is critical to the State’s long-term economic competitiveness and the quality of life for all Californians.”
Another state initiative, the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act (AB 1164 ),a law passed in 1995 by the California Legislature, cleared the way for owners in rent stabilized communities to establish initial rental rates when there was a change in occupancy at a dwelling unit – a policy known as vacancy decontrol.
However, several years later in 2009, Los Angeles developer Geoff Palmer successfully sued the city to block a mandate by the city that hisproject had to comply with a 1991 specific plan requiring that some of his units be made affordable to low-income households. His contention was that the city was effectively setting the rent for these units, a violation of the Costa-Hawkins Act. Both a trial court and the Second District Court of Appeals decision agreed with the developer.
Justice Steven Suzukawa wrote, for a unanimous three-judge appellate panel of California’s Second District Court of Appeal, that “forcing Palmer to provide affordable housing units at regulated rents in order to obtain project approval is clearly hostile to the right afforded under the Costa-Hawkins Act to establish the initial rental rate for a dwelling or unit,” effectively saying that, under state rent-stabilization laws, developers have the ability to set the rents when the unit is built.
Tension exists between the state's affordable housing law and the state’s Costa Hawkins Act. One requires cities and counties to provide their "fair share" of affordable housing and find ways to remove "constraints" (impediments) to the production and preservation of affordable housing.
On the other side, Costa-Hawkins prohibits the city from applying the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance (LARSO) to any multi-family rental property built after October 1978. It also prohibits inclusionary zoning laws, requiring developers to build a certain percentage of affordable housing in their market-rate buildings. The lack of inclusionary housing laws is what hurts the most. People on the margins of affordable housing have very little protection.
Los Angeles' inclusionary zoning law was struck down with the victory by Palmer in Palmer v. City of Los Angeles (Palmer/Sixth Street Properties LP v. City of Los Angeles, No. B206102, 2009 DJDAR 10859. Filed July 22, 2009.)
According to attorney Sabrina Venskus, “We have these two conflicting laws coming out of the state legislature: cities must do everything they can to remove constraints to the production and preservation of affordable housing so as to meet mandated targeted numbers of affordable housing units, yet ironically the state Costa-Hawkins Act remains in place even though it is one of the most significant constraints on Los Angeles' ability to meet its affordable housing unit numbers that the state mandates.”
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Venskus concludes, “If the city could apply the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance (LARSO) to all buildings built between 1979 and 1995, for example, that would add many units to the affordable housing stock, because those units would become rent stabilized. Even better, would be instituting inclusionary zoning requiring neighborhood-level affordability requirements in new construction and subjecting such new affordable units to regulation under LARSO.”
Many covenants, rules and regulations apply to land use legislation. Deciphering them and applying them to achieve “how it’s supposed to work” is challenging. A cottage industry of lawyers, facilitators and interpreters flourishes. Knowing what doesn’t work is simpler. Neutering the Costa-Hawkins Act accomplished that through the judgment in the Palmer lawsuit. It’s left a shell statute that confuses, misleads and falsely encourages people to believe that remedies for affordable housing exist in that legislation.
Sabrina Venskusmay be right. We need to send a lobbyist to Sacramento to fight and persuade legislators to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act.
(Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the Mid City West Community Council and on the board of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 81
Pub: Oct 06, 2015
