The Issues

There is no question we have a shortage of affordable housing and a huge homelessness problem in Los Angeles. We get that. We, and most of the neighbors we talk with, want to support solutions, but the current strategy of giving away our single family and small unit residential neighborhoods to high density, three to 15-story apartments simply makes no sense.

There are still so many untapped alternatives that offer more sustainable solutions to increase housing, to the extent housing is even really the core problem.

Is There A Need For High-Rise Density?

To understand why we are getting hit from all sides with density, you need to first understand the needs context because this legally mandated number drives everything and if LA misses its number, it loses a lot of state funding.

The state, via the California Department of Housing & Community Development, creates a Regional Housing Needs Assessment (“RHNA”) every six years. That number is then divided across several government regions.

The City of LA gets its number from Southern California Association of Governments (“SCAG”). SCAG allocated 456,643 units to the City of LA across several income categories for the current RHNA cycle. LA decided it needed to add a buffer to the number of approximately 7%, setting a target capacity of 486,379 units.

Given the city of Los Angeles currently has approximately 1.3M units, this number is a 35% increase in units. 😳

Did we mention that HCD picked the RHNA number without waiting for the 2020 census data, and they certainly didn’t have the benefit of post-COVID migration patterns, including the great exodus from California.

There are also legal challenges to the methodology used to count needed units.

Simply put, the housing need is overstated in the first instance.

How Much Is Enough?

The city acknowledges it has 230,964 potentially developable units, leaving a shortfall of 255,315 units for the current RHNA cycle.

The RHNA number was already overstated. Now we’ve discovered the city plans on rezoning 1,432,059 units or 5.6x more than needed to cover the overstated number.

This number of units can house 3.7M people when neither the state nor SCAG projects population growth for Los Angeles of more than a million people in the next 25 years (and the RHNA cycle is only six years long).

As part of its plan, the city intends to upzone wide swaths of our single family residential communities to meet its stated “need.” Find the current Westchester Playa maps here.

And guess what happens when these properties are upzoned? Often, older more affordable units are razed and their occupants displaced. A few affordable units might be part of a project, but it’s not unusual for a project to net fewer afforable units than it lost and people are displaced during construction.

And by the way, the recent DTLA and Hollywood Community Plans were approved, with plans to build 259,500 units. Those two plans alone cover the missing 255,000 units. The RHNA goal has been met. No further random upzoning is needed. There is room now for smart planning, not the dumb knee jerk reaction we’re currently seeing from City Planning in the form of the Housing Element Update and Community Plan Updates.

And The State Piles On

Aside from this crazy city upzoning, we also have SB9, a recently passed state law that allows development of most single family lots into multi-units without community input and definitely without community notice. Accessory Dwelling Units (“ADUs”) and Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (“JADUs”) can also be built on almost any single family lot as well.

Conseqently, single family property owners are under assault in all directions. Extra upzoning by the city is overkill and we need to fight back.

So while the City is busy rezoning, most neighbors are unaware of SB9 and the City’s rezoning efforts.

That ends now. Can you help us share the message that the city is overzoning for an overstated need?