Build our way out of L.A.'s housing crisis

The answer to the homelessness crisis is more homes, and our cities, counties and the state of California are not just part of the problem.

They are the problem.

The anti-housing regulations imposed by those entities makes for what Santa Monica architect Brian Lane told Bloomberg News this week is “1,000 ways to say no” to affordable housing projects because of the bureaucracies' suffocating costs and red tape.

But in the city of Los Angeles, one early promise made by Mayor Karen Bass as soon as she took office in December 2022 is actually beginning to make a difference.

Her Emergency Declaration 1 “promised to open a new era,” Bloomberg's Patrick Sisson reports, “directing city departments involved in planning and decision-making to expedite 100% affordable projects, sidestepping codes and regulations that have long added delays and costs. Approvals that might otherwise have taken a year or more are now mandated to happen within a 60-day window, with building permits to be issued within five days.”

As of early this month, that declaration has helped facilitate the construction of more than 16,000 affordable housing units in L.A., the nonprofit news site CalMatters reports, most without any government subsidy or tax credit. “Especially in the state's expensive coastal cities, the term `unsubsidized 100% affordable project' is an oxymoron, but Los Angeles is now approving them by the hundreds,” CalMatters' Ben Christopher writes.

During the 60-day window for completely “affordable” projects — which here means for people making less than $100,000 a year — when projects meet basic criteria, they must be approved, without City Council hearings or “neighborhood outreach” meetings, and no environmental impact studies required.

Another key element: Developers of affordable housing are not required to pay “prevailing wages,” which essentially means matching union pay, which can be ruinous to ever getting a shovel in the ground.

Here's a novel idea: Let's make Mayor Bass's plan a template to apply to all levels of housing in all cities and unincorporated areas in Southern California, all of which have an affordability crisis. Build, baby, build. When we're overbuilt, the market will be sure to let us know.