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PLANNING WATCH - The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), like most other school districts, has experienced a significant decrease in enrollment. In 2012-13, the LAUSD had 656,000 total students. Last year, after a decade of continuous decline, the LAUSD had 535,000 pupils. There are multiple reasons for this, but one cause stands out. Spiraling housing prices in Los Angeles are forcing families with children to move to less expensive areas.
LA’s costly housing is not an Act-of-God but results from deliberate policies, reinforced by State and Federal housing legislation. In combination, they raise housing costs to the breaking point. How disturbing to know that these prohibitive costs could be reduced or even eliminated. To do this, however, the profitability of private sector housing, which includes nearly all apartments and houses, would take a hit. Since City Hall’s unstated mission is to ensure that real estate investments remain highly profitable -- despite public school disenrollment and homelessness -- there is little reason for these unintended consequences to disappear on their own.
What are the housing policies that drive prices so high that families with school-age children leave Los Angeles? The most counter-productive housing policy is re-zoning, more accurately up-zoning laws that permit more housing units on a specific lot. For example, recent State of California legislation automatically allows three accessory dwelling units (ADU’s) on residential lots previously restricted to single houses.
In addition, Senate Bill 9 allows owners or developers to demolish an existing house, subdivide the underlying lot, and then build a duplex on each half. To date, few people have taken done this, even though this legislation’s rationale was to increase the number of rental units. Nevertheless, Senate Bill 9 remains, along with the inflated property values it created.
At the local level there are also proposed ordinances that allow developers to build apartments on parcels formerly zoned for single-family homes. Los Angeles has 35 Community Plans, and 17 are being updated to allow more housing units on each residential parcel. Since these updates are years behind schedule, Los Angeles has a second way to up-zone: the city’s Housing Element. Its implementation program 121, RHNA Re-Zoning, states:\
“To accommodate the remaining RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) of 255,432 units, LA City Planning will identify and recommend rezoning for a minimum of 124,880 moderate and above moderate units and a minimum of 130,553 lower income (VLI and LI) units by October 30, 2024. More than 50% of lower income rezoning will occur on sites with residential uses or allowing 100% residential uses.”
The fallacy of upzoning is clear. When the number of potential income-generating housing units on a parcel increases, the parcel’s market value increases. The cover story for this slight-of-hand is the claim that zoning laws cause a housing shortage. When these zoning laws are rescinded, developers supposedly build more housing, prices fall, and homelessness disappears. As I have previously written, this argument is fallacious because repealing zoning laws increases the cost of land, which drives up housing costs. This prices residents out of housing, which increases homelessness. This purported “cure” make the housing crisis worse!
This ludicrous explanation for homelessness also ignores four other factors:
- Evictions. In 2023 Los Angeles County landlords filed 46,000 eviction cases. Kyle Nelson, of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, told the LA Times, “We have a lot of work to do. . . to keep tenants housed.”
- Economic changes. According to the Orange County Register, “Both homeowners and renters are struggling with high housing costs. Millions of potential homebuyers have been priced out of the market by elevated home prices and interest rates. … For renters, the number with cost burdens has hit an all-time high as rents have escalated.”
- End of HUD public housing. President Richard Nixon cancelled most HUD Federal Public Housing programs in 1973. Local public housing funding ended in 2011 when the State dissolved California’s 413 local Redevelopment Agencies.
- Corporate purchase of houses and apartments. Blackrock, a major real estate holding company, has been on a buying spree of Southern California real estate assets in recent years. The downside of their purchases is increased housing costs, and therefore increased homelessness.
These factors could and should change to eliminate homelessness. Until this happens homelessness will continue to rise. Hard-hit areas like Los Angeles will therefore lose families with school-aged children because they have been priced out of housing and move.
(Dick Platkin is a retired LA city planner. He reports on local planning issues for CityWatchLA. He is a board member of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA). Previous columns are available at the CityWatchLA archives. Please send questions to [email protected].)
