L.A. Mayor Launches a New Strategy to Boost Housing Production
David Zahniser
Los Angeles Times
November 11, 2023
For nearly a year, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has placed a huge emphasis on the need for low-cost housing, ordering city agencies to tear down bureaucratic hurdles that slow the approval of new, affordably priced apartments.
On Wednesday, Bass expanded that effort, signaling that she is also interested in lifting obstacles for at least some market-rate units — particularly if they are located within projects that include some affordable housing.
The proof of that shift was Executive Directive 7, a mayoral order that calls for a fresh look at the city’s “site plan review” process, which requires that developments with 50 or more net new market-rate housing units undergo an environmental analysis.
For real estate developers, site plan review is one of the more reviled elements of the city’s planning process. In many cases, that review can be the difference between applying for over-the-counter permits at the Department of Building and Safety and going through a public process that consumes six months or more, said attorney Dave Rand, who has represented an array of developers at City Hall.
Rand said site plan review also can open the door to lengthy challenges from neighborhood groups, construction trade unions and others. That makes the mayor’s push to rework the process “a big deal,” he said.
“For years, it’s been it’s been a significant barrier to housing production,” Rand said. “The mayor is making real moves to do something about it in a way that we have not seen before.”
In her order, Bass instructed the city’s planning department to report on the preparation of an ordinance that would increase the threshold needed to trigger site plan review. That raises the possibility that she could seek to raise the minimum to 75 units. Or 100. Or 150.
For now, Bass is not saying which number she would choose, if any, or whether such a change would apply to only certain types of projects. However, she has been offering a broader argument about the need for a larger supply of homes at all income levels.
“The high cost of housing obviously is most extreme in the 46,000 people who are on our streets every day,” Bass said earlier this week. “But people who are housed or who are graduating college and want to live in the town they grew up in are consistently priced out.”
Bass’ executive order also calls for new research on other housing production strategies, such as the conversion of vacant office space into housing and the removal of barriers to the construction of for-sale homes. However, the proposal for redesigning site plan review is the first on the list of policy changes contained in the mayor’s order — and builds on work that began in December, when Bass took office.
Bass first moved to exempt 100% affordable housing projects from site plan review in December, just as she declared a citywide emergency on homelessness. Seven months later, the City Council expanded on that effort, approving an ordinance that ensured that any affordable unit — including those found in mixed-income projects — would not be counted toward the 50-unit threshold.
Any effort to also exempt market-rate units from site plan review would require council approval. However, such a move could also spark opposition from neighborhood advocates, who say that site plan review plays an important role — ensuring that community members have a voice in the development process and are informed about the environmental impacts of a large-scale project.
“Shutting site plan review down is a way of saying they don’t want to know at City Hall what the impacts will be, and how you might make it a better project,” said Laura Lake, co-founder of Friends of Westwood.
Lake’s organization sued the city in 1986 over a proposed office tower on Wilshire Boulevard and prevailed — a legal victory that led to the creation of the site plan review process under Mayor Tom Bradley.
Bass, for her part, said any changes pursued as a result of Executive Directive 7 will be carried out “in partnership with our communities and with their input.”
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