A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council signed off on a rezoning plan Tuesday that will focus on new markets and affordable housing in commercial corridors and densely populated neighborhoods.
The effort is part of a federal housing directive that seeks to ease the housing crisis by requiring the city to find land on which to build 255,000 additional homes and the plan to be in place by mid-February.
In hours of public comment, members of the Land Use Planning and Management Committee heard from Angelenos who wanted to preserve single-family neighborhoods and those who wanted to open up the areas to more development to reduce economic and racial segregation.
“We need affordable housing everywhere – everywhere,” said Maria Patiño Gutierrez, policy director of the nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.
Patricia Carroll, a resident of St. Andrews Square in downtown LA, he told the committee that even though he lives in a multi-family neighborhood, he enjoys walking around neighborhoods filled with single-family homes, lawns and trees.
“If this were to disappear … LA would be a very sad place to live,” Carroll said.
Ultimately, the committee voted 4 to 0 to approve a recommendation from the City Planning Commission that leaves the single-family lots alone.
The proposal is still subject to amendment by the full City Council and some council members who are not on the PLUM committee have expressed interest in changing the practice when it comes to single-family homes.
“By opening up some of these neighborhoods — to new housing — we're actually taking steps to end the urban segregation that many policymakers have imposed on this city,” Council Member Nithya Raman told the committee.
As of this writing, the proposed Citywide Housing Incentive program would enable developers to build more than is currently allowed in commercial and residential areas where apartments are already permitted. To do so, developers will need to include a certain percentage of affordable units — and the location must be near transit or near a highway near jobs and good schools.
100% affordable projects can be eligible for incentives in the city wide area.
These incentives will apply to single-family properties only if the property is owned by a government agency or religious organization, which is a small portion of the city's single-family properties.
Some tenant advocates fear that by opening up existing multi-family housing to new developments, it will create a wave of evictions as existing buildings are demolished.
These activists want more restrictions on demolitions, which the Planning Department said would significantly reduce the construction of new homes, including units approved to pay for low-income households.
The PLUM committee did not accept those additional restrictions, but recommended that a report be called to investigate them.
In a letter to city officials, the California Department of Housing and Community Development warned that restrictions like these could put the city out of compliance with state housing law.
However, the PLUM committee made changes despite these warnings.
The committee passed an amendment that would limit the number of houses religious organizations would be allowed to build under their plan.
The Western Regional Council of Carpenters, along with other council members, expressed concern that religious organizations that build houses will choose to use the city's incentive program, which will not approve union wages, instead of using the new state law. provides non-profit colleges and religious organizations with building incentives if they pay such salaries.
“We cannot solve the housing problem by pushing construction workers further into poverty,” carpenter Nicolas Reyes told committee members.
Brooke Wirtschafter, director of community planning with the Jewish congregation IKAR, told the committee that IKAR is looking to build 78 units of affordable housing.
He urged the city to keep its faith-based proposal as originally proposed, because doing so would open up “more opportunities for churches to build houses, especially in communities with high resources.”
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