Mayor Bass’ signature affordable housing program has been a resounding success. Why is the city trying to water it down?

We urge the city to make ED 1 permanent without reducing the flexibility that has made the policy so successful.

What if we told you that a little-known change made by Mayor Bass last December has unleashed the greatest torrent of affordable housing projects L.A. has ever seen? About 11,000 affordable homes have been proposed in less than a year, most of which will cost taxpayers nothing. And what if we told you that the city is now proposing changes to the policy that would slow that torrent down to a trickle?

When Karen Bass was sworn in as mayor on December 12, the first thing she did was declare a State of Emergency on homelessness. Later that week, she enacted Executive Directive 1 (ED 1), which expedited 100% affordable housing projects by simplifying a complex and often multi-year approval process into one that can be completed in under two months. Importantly, streamlining these badly needed projects also shields them from political corruption, frivolous lawsuits, and baseless appeals.

The “aha” moment: private home builders realized that the combination of ED1’s streamlined approval process with state affordable housing bonus programs made building affordable housing significantly less risky, costly, and time-consuming. For the first time in decades, these developers are prioritizing building affordable rather than market-rate apartments. This is a game changer: based on our analysis, we estimate that between two thirds and three quarters of ED1 projects are being funded by private developers with no public money.

Let’s put that in perspective. Remember Proposition HHH, when we voted to spend over $1 billion in taxpayer money to build affordable housing? Proposition HHH is on track to build 8,000 homes in 10 years. More affordable homes have been proposed through ED 1 in 10 months, and most of these won’t cost taxpayers a dime.

Given the incredible success of ED 1 and the desperate need for affordable housing in L.A., the city should be doubling down on the policy. Indeed, the City Council recently asked the Department of City Planning to write a permanent law to replace ED 1, which expires at the end of the year. Unfortunately, the ordinance Planning drafted contains a poison pill that would cripple the program.

A key driver of ED1’s success is the ability of projects to use state affordable housing bonus program waivers, which allow a project’s developer to request exemptions from local rules that would either increase the building cost or make the project physically impossible. Given the complexity of LA’s zoning code, with some rules dating back to the 1930’s, many affordable housing projects would not be possible without this flexibility. 

Under the proposed ordinance, all but two waivers would have to come from a pre-set menu written in 2008 that doesn’t reflect the needs of most projects. Furthermore, the ordinance places additional restrictions on projects located in non-commercial residential areas, including a limit on floor area increases and a rule that buildings can’t be located closer to the street than neighboring buildings.

Our analysis suggests that these proposed restrictions would be devastating. Of the 117 ED1 projects submitted to the city so far, 48 would be ineligible under the new rules. This would cut the number of new affordable homes by 57%. Looking just at the projects proposed in multifamily residential zones (as opposed to commercial areas), the impact would be even more stark, with 73% of homes ineligible for streamlining.

We also looked at the impact of the draft changes through an equity lens. LA has historically concentrated affordable housing in the city’s poorer neighborhoods. The Westside and West Valley have about five times less affordable housing per capita than the rest of the city. Los Angeles is morally and legally obligated to produce more affordable housing in affluent  neighborhoods that have long resisted new housing.

Well, it turns out Planning’s poison pill reinforces existing patterns of economic segregation. Of projects proposed in the poorest neighborhoods, only 32% would be ineligible under the restrictions in the draft ordinance. In moderate resource neighborhoods, 52% of projects wouldn’t move forward. And in the wealthiest neighborhoods, over 80% of projects would be ineligible if these changes were to go into effect.

Mayor Bass has spoken with great moral clarity on the need to maximize the speed and production of affordable housing to fix this crisis. And she has backed up those aspirations with an extraordinarily effective policy. Kneecapping that policy would be a huge mistake.

We urge the city to make ED 1 permanent without reducing the flexibility that has made the policy so successful. Thanks to Mayor Bass, we’re finally making real progress on our affordable housing shortage. Let’s keep the momentum going.

Scott Epstein is the Director of Policy and Research with Abundant Housing LA. Joseph Cohen May and Oren Hadar are members of Abundant Housing LA’s Housing Advocates Council.