Los Angeles Aerial. Image via trekandshoot / Shutterstock
Cities in the United States are short of millions of housing units. Compounded by other factors, this shortage is radically increasing the cost of both renting and buying houses. Los Angeles is no exception; with 74% of its land zoned exclusively for single-family homes, multifamily housing construction is limited to an extremely small swath of the city, making the construction of new affordable housing difficult. Complex multi-year permit approval processes often make these projects even less feasible.
That’s why, in December 2022, Mayor Karen Bass took a drastic approach by declaring a state of emergency to speed up approval for affordable housing projects, allowing developers to expedite rent-stabilized projects through fast permitting times and exemptions from zoning rules. Executive Direction (ED1) created a surge of affordable housing applications, surprisingly not just from developers using public money but from private ones.