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AFFORDABLE HOUSING - The biggest problem we face in dealing with homelessness and housing affordability today is that no one is managing the bureaucracy. For whatever reasons, our elected leaders do not have managerial backgrounds, and they do not seek out managers with real management expertise. As a result, the bureaucracy is crawling at a snail’s pace, if they move at all. They have no direction, no leadership, and nothing gets done. Below are two examples
The City of Los Angeles has been stalling (they call it “reviewing”) a fully- funded private proposal to build transition housing for “emancipated youth” for eight (!) years, with no end in sight.
Los Angeles County is saying that a conditional use permit to allow student housing in a housing zone next to a university will take 12 months to approve.
Elected officials, in addressing the homeless crisis in our city, have all been parroting for the last 20 years, "Expedite the permit process” in order to house the homeless population and build affordable housing. It’s a simplistic answer to a serious problem. Mayors have relied on advice for homeless issues on deputies whose backgrounds are community organizers, attorneys, psychologists, and bureaucrats, who have risen to their positions through seniority. None has gone through the process of building anything, and thus, despite spending billions of dollars and employing thousands, the crisis gets worse by the day.
Encampments are all over the city, and the multibillion transit system is close to being considered obsolete, because the paying riders have unwillingly ceded the system to drug users and the criminal element
In November 2016, voters approved a $1.2 billion bond measure, Proposition HHH, to fund the development of supportive housing in the City of Los Angeles, with the intent to create 10,000 new apartments over a decade for people experiencing homelessness. Six years later, with the city`s homeless population 1.5 times what it was when the measure passed, some wondered whether Proposition HHH should be considered a success or failure. Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin noted in an audit that the city initially thought HHH housing would cost $350,000 to $414,000 per unit, depending on the number of bedrooms. Yet, in 2019, the median per unit cost had grown to $531,373 with more than 1,000 units projected to cost more than $600,000 each. The city`s Housing Department said the HHH program will produce 8,600 units by 2026, whereas the voters were told the number would be 10,000.
Why this crisis in building affordable housing?
A developer may seek funding from the city or county as well as the state and federal governments. But rather than apply to all the various agencies simultaneously, the developer must secure funding from the city and county first, before being able apply for state funding. And the developer may not be able to apply for federal funding until being awarded the state funding. If the developer’s application is not selected, he/she has to wait until the next round of funding to reapply, which could take from several months to a year. In addition to the lengthy process of securing funding, the city`s approval process can add to the timeline because developers must wait for multiple departments to sign off on their plans, a process that can take up to a year.
Nothing adds to cost more than time, the time that it takes to go through the process.
Miguel Santana, a veteran public servant who is experienced, knowledgeable, pragmatic and emotionally attached to the issue of homelessness, believes that “our system to resolve homelessness is so complicated that whether you are a service provider or a developer or a councilmember, you are a slice of a very big pie. The system is uncoordinated and unaligned.”
Proposals to reduce the costs of affordable housing
There are numerous ways the state, the county and the city can reduce the cost of affordable housing, including the following:
Coordinate all plan check, permit, and other approvals needed from not only the Department of Building and Safety and City Planning, but also from the Bureau of Engineering, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the Fire Department.
Appoint a person or small team of people with authority to move all city approvals and decisions on a guaranteed, pre-set timeline.
Reduce or eliminate multiple approvals by the City Council and mayor. The Housing Department should not be required to secure City Council/mayoral re-approval of a loan unless the project or loan terms have substantially changed since the initial approval.
Implement the planned universal application process as soon as possible, before the next funding rounds at the city, county or Housing Authority of the City.
When approvals can't be provided across all local funding sources at the initial application, ensure that applications that meet a certain threshold can be funded in the next round(s) solely via updates to pro formas, not require a full re-application.
Clarify the Housing Authority rental subsidy timeline and availability, and coordinate decisions.
Make accessibility/certified access specialist review and approvals to the Department of Building and Safety and reduce subjectivity in approvals.
Shorten the Housing Department’s process for approving draws and releasing funds, including commitment to funding draws within three days of approval and the ability to wire funds instead of cutting and mailing checks.
Reduce and better define the timeline for city attorney review and approval. Assign a dedicated city attorney to each project, and ensure the developer is notified of the assigned attorney, so that other funders can be informed.
Streamline the funding applications and approvals for all local sources of funds, with a universal application for capital funds and rental subsidies.
Identify less traditionally desirable sites to drive down acquisitions’ costs. Design creativity can make sites work advantageously.
Add density to existing structures, such as Star Apartments.
Use of modular/container at significant scale, 500+ units. Cost efficiencies should allow for custom design of common/community spaces and intimate scale in large building.
Pre-permit standard design components for partial or complete housing product, such as bathroom and kitchen units, to control risk costs related to entitlement process.
Modify regulations to allow building on sites adjacent to freeways. Eliminate the 500-foot exclusion rule from infrastructure for nonprofit developers.
Examine alternative living arrangement unit types, such as co-living, which potentially reduces number of expensive bathrooms and kitchens per resident.
No parking minimums - L.A. City Zoning 12.21A4 (a)
No apartment size minimums - HCIDLA/Affordable Housing Guidelines, LADBS Code CH 12
No private open space requirements (balconies) –L.A. City Zoning 12.21G
Strike down unit calculations - L.A. City Zoning RD1.5, R3, R4
Other Potential Solutions to address homelessness
To more effectively address homelessness reduction, changes need to be considered in how affordable housing is added to the supply.
More attention needs to be paid to creating mixed-income housing. Integrating affordable housing into mixed-income developments allows for increased community acceptance and allows innovative, non-cash ways to finance affordable housing, including housing bonuses that allow a developer to create additional market rate units in numbers that exceed the affordable component (state law, for example, allows a bonus up to 35% of total units in exchange for 11% to 21% of the units being restricted to affordable price ranges, depending on level of affordability).
Purchasing existing affordable housing where affordability covenants are close to expiration or negotiating extensions of those covenants. Modest upgrades and rehabilitation would be substantially less expensive than new construction and eliminate the delay inherent in waiting for new construction units to come online.
Increasing emergency stay-in housing or rapid re-housing rent subsidy programs for households being priced out of their housing. Avoiding displacement, or minimizing the period of displacement, avoids additional costs associated with service provision, including physical and mental health or substance abuse issues that often are severely exacerbated by a period of homelessness.
Streamlining the approval process for developments that include affordable housing, making them ministerial rather than discretionary, which invites public hearing delays, redesign to address community issues the intent of which is often to stymie housing development, and extensive carrying costs.
Creating an affordable housing development entity for Los Angeles city and county. The current Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has very limited powers, it is mostly a funding intermediary for social services. The agency was created in the early 1990s to settle litigation among the city, county and Community Redevelopment Agency that originated with the city suing the county over the low rate of general relief payments to extremely low-income individuals and households. The county counter-sued and accused the city and CRA of being responsible for the loss of affordable units through redevelopment, code enforcement actions and down-zoning in communities, reducing the capacity of the city for housing development and compounding a demand-supply imbalance. The underlying issues of inadequate general relief payments and zoning caps remain unresolved.
Elected leaders must show fortitude in dealing with the NIMBYs
HOMELESS / PARKS
Few cities possess the natural beauty of Los Angeles, from its coastline to the rugged mountains. Fewer still enjoy a climate that allows such a great variety of plant life. Our city could be a botanical garden on a metropolitan scale, with the most extensive tree planting, the lushest parks, and the longest greenways. In cities whose quality of life we admire, parks and greenways are widespread. San Francisco devotes more than 8 percent of its land to parks, Seattle more than 15 percent. In New York City, the figure is as high as 17 percent. And in Los Angeles? A paltry 4 percent.
Parks are not a luxury or an extravagance. They bring enormous economic benefits, including increased property values, greater attractiveness for corporate relocation and tourism, commercial uses such as filmmaking, and improved air quality. We can remake Los Angeles into a city that is valued by its residents and remembered by visitors not as a city of asphalt and concrete, but as a city of trees and open space
Case in point is the property at First and Broadway. The city had spent tens of millions of dollars to purchase the land from the state and the county and millions more to demolish the existing structures and prepare environmental impact studies and architectural and landscape designs. After an international design competition, the landscape architecture firm of Studio-MLA, founded by Mia Lehrer, was awarded the contract to design the park. The firm designed a superb park. The budget was in place, funded by so-called Quimby fees, which are paid in lieu of dedicating land to the city for park and recreational purposes, but the funds were raided to be used at other sites.
The property is in front of City Hall, in the heart of Los Angeles. The proposed park would have been connected to the Gloria Molina Grand Park, a place for celebrations, festivals, concerts, and where families can spend a day in the park, considering downtown is void of desperately needed open space. The site is directly across from the former Los Angeles Times headquarters, but since The Times escaped to El Segundo, the newspaper has no vested interests to protect, thus it has been unusually mum. It is a travesty, an affront to the citizens of Los Angeles that our city leaders have allowed it to happen.
Echo Park is another place where the community has been deprived of a natural wonder. Then-Councilman Mitch O’Farrell’s office arranged for the park`s closure in 2021 and erected a fence after a huge homeless encampment housing more than 200 people was cleared from the area. Hugo Soto-Martinez unseated O`Farrell in the November 2022 council election with a campaign promise to remove the fence. In March 2023 the fence was removed to the consternation of the neighbors. "I`m disappointed the councilman didn`t work with the community to really listen to our concerns,” one neighbor said. "We fear that the quality of the park environment will be degenerating and go back to what it was before the fence went up."
“No worries,” Soto-Martinez said. He promised to send homeless outreach workers into the park seven days a week, while having a team of unarmed responders available at night. The “Homeless Industrial Complex” at work again
Additional parks with open space converted to homeless shelters:
Griffith Park
Lafayette Park
North Hollywood Recreational Center
Alexandria Park
Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park
Strathern Park West
Arroyo Seco Park
Eagle Rock Park
In July 2023, Judge Milan Smith, Jr. of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote: “There are stretches of the city where one cannot help but think the government has shirked its most basic responsibilities under the social contract: providing public safety and ensuring that public spaces remain open to all. One-time public spaces like parks—many of which provide scarce outdoor space in dense, working-class neighborhoods—are filled with thousands of tents and makeshift structures, and are no longer welcoming to the broader community.”
[Excerpts from the book by Nick Patsaouras The Making of Modern Los Angeles]
(Nick Patsaouras is a transportation and civic leader who served on the boards of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, advocating for bus transit. He has also held key oversight roles in Los Angeles city projects, as the former president of the Department of Water and Power board, UCLA/Harbor Medical Center expansion, and the LAPD headquarters construction.)
