Sandra Sanchez explained that she had a severe headache. They occur when she starts thinking about where her husband and two sons will live.
To make way for a larger apartment complex, her landlord plans to demolish the six-unit bungalow court in South Los Angeles that the family has called home for decades. The stress can be overwhelming because her husband makes only $38,000 a year at a nearby factory, and the rent for a nearby apartment is hundreds of dollars more than she is currently paying.
“They are forcing us to live on the streets,” said Sanchez, 55.
Some tenant advocates worry that such demolitions and evictions will become more common in Los Angeles.
Currently, apartment owners in Sanchez are taking advantage of one of the city’s building incentive programs, which allow developers to make more money than usual by including at least some income-restricted affordable units in new projects. This means that it is possible to construct buildings of.
Now, in an effort to build more housing to alleviate the affordability crisis, the city is moving forward in ways that could make it even more financially meaningful to implement such projects. We are proposing to significantly increase these incentive programs.
Officials are proposing to do so on land already zoned for multifamily housing, where people tend to rent, rather than in areas zoned for single-family homes, where people tend to own.
That fact has raised concerns among a coalition of tenants and housing advocates who want the city to pivot to reducing evictions.
Are there any particular concerns? The loss of older units like Sanchez, which make up the majority of Los Angeles apartments and are subject to the city’s rent stabilization ordinance, which limits annual rent increases and provides a measure of stability.
“[This] “The housing stock is the reason working-class Angelenos are able to stay in Los Angeles,” said Laura Raymond, director of the ACT-LA coalition. “It makes no sense to put this huge foundation of housing policy solutions at risk.”
Los Angeles is proposing the changes because state housing rules require the city to find land on which developers can add 255,000 new homes, just over half of which Affordable for low-income households.
L.A.’s answer is a proposed citywide housing incentive program ordinance, scheduled to go before the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Control Committee on Tuesday. The proposal would allow developers to build more than is currently allowed if they include a certain percentage of affordable units, and the properties are located near transit or near workplaces or prime areas. Height restrictions and parking allowances will apply if the property is located on a main street near a school.
100% affordable projects are eligible for the city’s extensive incentives.
Incentives vary by location and type of project, but here is an example. On parcels near both subway stations and express bus lines, developers could build 120% more units than the underlying zoning allows, creating much-needed affordable housing for low-income residents. The proportion of units is also taken into account. They range from 11% to 27% for new projects.
If such land is located in a so-called high-opportunity area, close to jobs and good schools, the developer will not face a cap on the total number of units and, given other restrictions on height and density, You will be limited to only what fits within.
The planning department says that under its proposal, 56% of the projected growth would target high-opportunity communities, many of which have long fought development. The percentage could have been higher, but the department left the areas dedicated to single-family homes, which make up most of the land in these wealthy areas, largely untouched.
In single-family residential zones, the incentives would only apply if the property is owned by a public agency or faith-based organization, but that property represents 1% of the city’s single-family land.
Instead, the majority of parcels eligible for the proposed incentives are located in residential areas currently zoned for multifamily housing. Most of the remaining land is in commercial areas. There, most lots are likely to be occupied by strip malls or office buildings, but there are also some apartments in commercial zones.
While working to permit more housing (economists say a housing shortage is the root cause of the housing affordability crisis), the city has taken steps to strengthen protections for evicting tenants. I am teaching.
Another proposal, also scheduled for a public hearing before the PLUM Committee on Tuesday, would allow low-income residents displaced by demolition to move to new developments at either their old rents or affordable rents commensurate with their incomes. They will have the right to occupy the land. lower.
The city said these residents would receive expanded relocation assistance to help them pay market-rate rent for 42 months, the average time it takes to build a new apartment, but such They estimate that payments to households could exceed $100,000.
The current maximum relocation payment is $25,700, but it could run out quickly if long-term tenants protected by rent stabilization suddenly have to pay rent at current prices. .
Some of the tenant protections in the city’s proposal are already required by state law, but are set to expire in the next few years. The city’s proposal would make them permanent and also require all rent-stabilized units to be demolished and replaced with income-restricted affordable units.
The planning department does not have an estimate of how many apartments would be demolished under the proposal, but the additional tenant protections would increase costs for developers and limit the number of existing rental properties that would be demolished. He said he was deaf. The department said it has also taken steps to reduce evictions of low-income Angeleno residents by offering greater incentives in high-opportunity communities, especially along major thoroughfares where commercial tenants are likely to congregate.
Overall, these factors are why the planning department expects most new units to be built in commercial areas, even though most of the lots eligible for incentives are in multifamily areas.
Advocates for low-income families are calling on the city to do more.
They want officials to require developers to replace not one but two rent-stabilized units they demolish with income-restricted affordable housing. They also want construction incentives to apply to high-opportunity single-family residential zones like Westwood and Studio City.
Doing so, they say, would provide several benefits. It doesn’t make economic sense for developers to replace existing rent-stabilized housing, and some builders instead choose to build in single-family neighborhoods where residents demolish homes they choose to sell. I would.
By adding low-income housing to these neighborhoods, the patterns of racial and income segregation that a city-funded report determined zoning for single-family homes plays an important role in preserving. will be eased.
“We want to make sure that we can break the curse of decades of segregation for Black and brown communities in Los Angeles,” said Estuardo, co-director of Californians Alliance for Community Empowerment.・Mazariegos said. Advocates for low-income communities.
The city is proposing to allow developers to build more where there are existing apartments, but also to impose additional costs through new tenant protections and replacement requirements, so planning departments said it’s unclear whether more rent-controlled properties will be demolished in the future than currently. . But Greg Bonnett, an attorney with the pro bono law firm Public Counsel, said the city’s current proposal creates possible risks.
He said evictions can also be devastating, leaving departing tenants “in a bind” who may not receive their money or be able to find temporary housing and return to a new home.
The planning department has warned that a one-for-two substitution could be counterproductive.
The company said in a staff report that the cost of housing would likely prove too high for many developers, requiring that the housing be made rent-affordable for low-income households, not just rent-stabilized. He said this could significantly reduce housing construction.
The city’s rent stabilization ordinance limits annual rent increases for tenants, typically 3% or 4%, but does not mandate affordable rents. Landlords can also arbitrarily set the rent each time a tenant moves out.
“The policy challenge is how to appropriately balance the very important goals of housing production with the equally important goals of conservation and tenant protection,” the department said in a recent report. ” states.
Last fall, the city withdrew a plan to include some areas reserved for single-family homes in the incentive program after opposition from homeowners groups. However, the Planning Department presented council with several options to include these areas if appropriate.
Many residents of the single-family residential area wrote a letter to the city council, asking the councilors to take firm action. They said allowing apartments to be built in neighborhoods would reduce homeownership opportunities and reduce quality of life by increasing traffic. They noted that the city determined it could meet state housing mandates by retaining single-family residential areas and planning to redevelop commercial and multifamily areas.
“Having sacrificed so many years of our lives to live here, are we okay with another group of people, who are probably much younger now, being brought into our community by the government?” in the San Fernando Valley A resident wrote:
Maria Briones has a different perspective.
The 69-year-old street vendor, who lives in a motel near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, was forced there by law enforcement to move out of an illegal garage she had rented for about $500 a month, and ended up homeless there. He said he had arrived. Now a member of the California Citizens Alliance for Community Empowerment, she advocates for low-income housing to be built in single-family neighborhoods near good jobs and schools.
“Why do only wealthy people have the right to beautiful homes and beautiful surroundings?” asked Briones. “Why can’t low-income families get the same things?”
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