By Casey Maddren : citywatchla – excerpt
NEED MORE THAN SUBURBS–Anybody who pays attention to the news knows that there’s a heated, ongoing debate in LA, and across California, about how to solve our housing problems.
There are lots of different proposals floating around, but the message we hear most often from elected officials and the development community is that we have to up-zone to allow a whole lot more density. The argument goes that it’s just a matter of supply and demand. If we up-zone our cities and up-zone our suburbs, that will unleash the power of the free market and we’ll have plenty of cheap housing for everybody.
One idea that’s especially hot right now is the proposal to up-zone areas dominated by single-family homes (SFH). Some State legislators have embraced this approach, resulting in bills like SB 1120.
The City of LA hasn’t yet made a move to up-zone SFH areas, but the concept is popular among local progressives who believe we just need to build more housing. Heated debates have erupted over the topic on social media. At a recent hearing on the Hollywood Community Plan Update (HCPU) some members of the public expressed enthusiastic support for ending SFH zoning…
If the key issue is the lack of affordable housing, up-zoning by itself does nothing to solve the problem. As Patrick Condon points out in his book Sick City, when a city just increases allowable density, it’s really increasing the cost of the land, and that additional cost is ultimately paid by the household that’s renting or buying. The benefit goes to the landowner, not the renter or buyer. For a solution, Condon holds up Cambridge, Massachusetts, where city officials adopted an ordinance that allows increased density but only for the construction of permanently affordable units…
Casey Maddren is President of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA [www.un4la.com]), a community group focused on better planning and better governance, and a CityWatch contributor.) Image: Curbed. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abram…(more)