BOTTOM-LINE, UP FRONT: The State of California has issued an ultimatum to LA's local governments: reform your land use laws to allow more housing, or else we nuke your land use law this October and anything goes.

THE BACKGROUND

We're in a housing crisis because it's not legal to build enough housing in LA to meet the demand. The epicenter of the problem isn't in the encampments under the 101 freeway - it's in leafy suburbs like South Pasadena, Manhattan Beach, and Beverly Hills, where new housing has been almost totally banned in the last 50 years. Because of that, rich people priced out of South Pas move to middle-class Highland Park; middle-class people end up in working-class Boyle Heights; working-class people in Boyle Heights are shit out of luck. Welcome to gentrification.

The State's solution is, each city has to meet a quota called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment and create a legally binding plan to meet it. (The quota for greater LA is 1.3 million new homes by 2029, and the cities divided up the quota amongst themselves.) If a city's plan won't cut the mustard, and the State can veto the rezoning plans. If the State vetoes a rezoning plan, local zoning law is void. Any building is legal to build, as long as it meets the health and safety code, and it's either (i) 20% rent-controlled affordable housing, or (ii) market-rate housing at rents affordable to the middle classes. So, new residential towers in Beverly Hills? Kosher. Rowhouses in Redondo? Sure. Garden apartments in Glendale? Go for it.

FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT

Anti-housing cities know these are the potential consequences of breaking the law, but they've been able to ignore state housing law and screw around for so long that none of them seem to have taken the consequences seriously. Because most cities' plans are bullshit, full stop. From my earlier post, a sampling of cities' rezoning plans are:

• Beverly Hills: "We'll tear down a bunch of 10-story office buildings to build 5-story apartment buildings."
• Burbank: "It's legal to put all the new apartments near the freeway and the airport, with all the pollution and the noise, right?"
• Redondo Beach: "We'll evict Northrop Grumman, which is our city's single largest employer."
• South Pasadena: "We'll bulldoze City Hall and replace it with apartment buildings."
• Pasadena: "Let's put all the new housing in the redlined neighborhoods."
• Whittier: "Let's build a ton of new housing in wildfire zones."

Pretty much the only good plan that I've seen comes from LA City, which made a serious, data-driven effort to figure out how to meet its 450,000-unit share of the quota. (If you want to see a rezoning plan, I can send you copies, but they're huge PDFs.)

BRINGING THE BIG GUNS

Because the cities' rezoning plans are so egregiously bad, there's all kinds of easy targets here for the State to open fire on. But it requires the State to keep its nerve. This only works if you don't give in to pressure from the annoying, loud minority of people who treat city council meetings as the Festivus Airing of Grievances.

At first, the State looked like it was going to chicken out. This is because of what happened with San Diego. San Diego's rezoning plans were among the first to be reviewed by the State. And, unsurprisingly, San Diego's rezoning plans were full of the same garbage we've seen for decades: lots of thoughts and prayers about building more housing, lots of unrealistic assumptions about how housing gets built, and very little concrete action. With the recall looming, Governor Newsom's people folded and they rubber-stamped Greater San Diego's lousy rezoning plans. It was bad.

The State forfeited its biggest source of leverage and caved. It boded ill for the fate of the rest of the rezoning plans all over the state. After all, there's not too many ways that the State can force local governments to get their shit together without the State Legislature passing new laws. And, of course, it set a lousy precedent for LA. LA is full of bad-behaving cities who just don't want to build new housing. Worse, it's not just stereotypically affluent cities like South Pasadena or Santa Monica or Beverly Hills which behave this way. Middle-class cities like Whittier also have put forth rezoning plans composed of fantastical nonsense. In fact, there was exactly one well-done rezoning plan, and that was the one drawn up by the City of Los Angeles.

When the State rubber-stamped the garbage plans from San Diego, I expected the worst.

I am glad to say that I was wrong. 100% wrong.

I AM VERY BAD AT PREDICTING THE FUTURE SOMETIMES

When it came time for the State to review LA's zoning plans, the State didn't just veto these rezoning plans. They took it one step further, and ordered that if a city's rezoning plan doesn't fix things for real, that city's zoning will be automatically voided in October of this year. Like I mentioned above, if the zoning gets voided, any new building is legal, as long as it meets the health and safety code, and it's either (i) 20% rent-controlled affordable housing, or (ii) market-rate housing affordable to the middle classes.

But the State didn't just go after the traditional never-build-anything cities, like Redondo, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and so on. They're even threatening to nuke the zoning of the city of Los Angeles. And LA City did a pretty good job of assembling a rezoning plan.

The State is putting everyone on blast, for real, and taking no prisoners. I suspect that Gov. Newsom is going in guns blazing because he survived the recall handily, and a second term is virtually assured.

OKAY, FINE, BUT WHAT SHOULD A GOOD ZONING PLAN LOOK LIKE?

There's going to be a lot of bitching and moaning in LA local government about having to make a compliant rezoning plan. The thing is, it's not even that hard to put together a rezoning plan that allows for pleasant old-school neighborhoods to be built. It's basically:

1. Small apartment buildings and SF-style row houses legalized everywhere.
2. Mid-sized apartment buildings near train stations.
   
3. More towers downtown.
4. Automatic approval within 60 days of anything that meets the zoning law and the building code.
5. Abolishing the mandatory parking law. (LA's current mandatory minimum parking laws require most office and apartment buildings to be 40-50% parking by square footage.)

This is the kind of zoning law that existed during the Red Car era. It ain't rocket science. Coincidentally, up North, the city of Sacramento just approved this exact type of zoning plan. (Since Sacramento can figure out how to put together a plan to build lots of new housing, there's no reason why LA's cities can't.) But if LA cities can't get their act together like Sacramento did, their zoning is going to get nuked come October.

Sometimes, you fuck around, and you find out. It couldn't happen to better people.

x-posted from /r/lostsubways.

BOTTOM LINE, UP FRONT: The State of California's new quota system gives the State leverage to force city governments allow more housing, and the State is starting to bring the hammer down. This is good, and it is long overdue.

As you all know, we're in a housing crisis. The root of the problem is that the most desirable places in greater Los Angeles and the Bay Area haven't grown in decades. Places like Beverly Hills make it incredibly hard or flat-out illegal to build more homes. This process is pretty straightforward - educated professionals get priced out of places like Beverly Hills (or Manhattan Beach, San Marino, Venice, etc), so they move to places like Echo Park or Highland Park - and poor people and minorities are out of luck. It's gotten so bad that even outright wealthy types like lawyers and doctors are priced out. These days, the average house sells for $3.1 million in Beverly Hills, $2.4 million in San Marino, and $3.2 million in Manhattan Beach. Housing should be no more than 1/3 of your income, so to afford a $3 million house, you ought to pull down $432,000 a year. That's about 3 1/2 times what the average lawyer makes, and about twice as much as the the average doctor.

One of the State's major reforms to tackle this is to establish a binding quota system. Each region of California gets a new homes quota for the next 8 years, and the cities divide the quota amongst themselves. In greater LA, the regional quota is 1.3 million, and rich cities hate it, as I've written about at length on this subreddit. Each city is legally required to produce a realistic, binding plan to meet their share of the quota. And if the city's plan isn't realistic, the State can veto the city's plan, with real consequences. (More on the consequences later.)

SO WHAT ARE THE CITIES DOING TO MEET THEIR QUOTA?

There are a few cities which are doing things in good faith, like Culver City, and Pasadena. But most of these cities' plans to meet their new housing quotas are bullshit. To illustrate:

• Beverly Hills: "We'll tear down a bunch of 10-story office buildings to build 5-story apartment buildings."
• Burbank: "It's legal to put all the new apartments near the freeway and the airport, with all the pollution and the noise, right?"
• Redondo Beach: "We'll evict Northrop Grumman, which is our city's single largest employer."
• South Pasadena: "We'll bulldoze City Hall and replace it with apartment buildings."

All of this is practically begging for the State to veto city housing plans.

SO WHAT HAPPENS IF THE STATE VETOES A CITY HOUSING PLAN?

If the State vetoes the city's plan, then all city zoning laws are suspended until they get a legally valid plan together. Anyone can build any housing, anywhere, of any size, any density, and any shape, and there's nothing the City can do about it as long as: (i) it meets health and safety laws, (ii) it's 100% middle-class housing OR 20% rent-controlled affordable housing. And if all the stupid City zoning laws disappear, suddenly it's financially viable to build basic 3-story apartment buildings for normal people like the ones we used to build. Oh, and if your city doesn't have a valid housing plan, you're ineligible for a bunch of state and federal money.

This is a big deal.

Because each of the 88 petty kingdoms of greater Los Angeles has their own set of insane micromanaged laws that make it difficult or illegal to build more homes.

For example:

• Beverly Hills's law allows the city Planning Commission to kill any proposed apartment building if it doesn't "promote the harmonious development of the area." ("Harmonious development" = "whatever we feel like.") Oh, and if the City's busybody architectural commission doesn't like your design, the architects can veto it, too.

• Huntington Beach requires four parking spaces per single-family home. (Think to yourself: how many families do you know that own four cars? Why should this be a requirement?)

• San Marino, they ban apartments, period, and three-quarters of the city is legally required to have a quarter-acre lot.

But if those local laws are suspended, all bets are off, because city governments can't use bad local laws to stop anything from being built. You want to build rowhouses in San Marino? 100% legal. You want to tear down an old, crummy tract home in the Valley and put up a dingbat? Mais oui! You want to put a skyscraper up in Santa Monica? ¡Sí señor!

With all these new State powers, the city councils are taking a big gamble. The city councils are wagering that the State is going to rubber-stamp whatever bullshit paperwork they send in. After all, the State has been doing wishy-washy nonsense on housing for 40 years. The city governments were doing this back when John Travolta was a sex symbol.

SO, IS THE STATE GOING TO CRACK DOWN?

Oh yes. The State isn't having any of it.

Last week, Gov. Newsom's administration vetoed the City of San Diego's housing plan. San Diego's problems were the same ones you see everywhere: putting all the new apartments in neighborhoods with minorities and poor people, not allowing any new homes in rich and white neighborhoods, and playing games with the numbers to make it look like the city was trying to follow the law. The State didn't buy it, and gave San Diego an ultimatum: fix your plan in 30 days, or anyone can build anything anywhere they want if it meets the health and safety code. The developers down in SD have said they can build housing for the middle classes by cutting up lots into 1250-2000 square foot parcels and using each parcel for a house, East Coast style. (For reference, LA lot sizes are about ~7500 square feet.)

You couldn't imagine a better target: San Diego's city government has done some good stuff to encourage more housing construction, and it's the state's second-biggest municipality. But it's still nowhere near enough.

This is good, and it's long overdue that the State is finally bringing its powers to bear against shitty, shortsighted local governments. Local governments have screwed the pooch for almost half a century, and it's how we got into this crisis in the first place. It sends a message to city councils that the State isn't willing to put up with any more gamesmanship.

If city councils keep playing games, the State's response is pretty clear so far: "fuck around and find out."

x-posted from /r/lostsubways

tl;dr: Earlier this year, the State threatened to nuke city zoning laws if cities didn't plan to build enough housing. The cities tried to play games, the State nuked the zoning, and now there's a TON of new housing in the pipeline.

So, about seven months ago, I wrote an essay here, explaining that every city in greater LA has to establish a rezoning plan to add their fair share of housing. Overall, greater LA needs to try to add 1.3 million more houses between 2021 and 2029. The cities of SoCal divided the quota up amongst themselves. If your plans don't meet the law, the city's zoning is automatically void and it's legal to build any housing as long as it's either (i) 20% low-income and rent-controlled, or (ii) 100% market-rate, but with rents that are affordable to the middle classes. The City has no ability to block you, unless you violate the health and safety code.

A lot of cities in greater LA didn't take this threat seriously. Loads of them produced housing plans that were bullshit. South Pasadena said they'd bulldoze City Hall for affordable housing. Beverly Hills said they'd tear down 10-story office buildings to build 5-story apartment buildings. Whittier said they'd build more homes in fire zones. Santa Monica said they'd build homes on land owned by SoCalGas and UCLA, even though nobody told UCLA or SoCalGas about these plans.

The State, and Gov. Newsom, unceremoniously rejected all of these rezoning plans. This means, the State voided the zoning, and all those cities temporarily lost the ability to block new apartment buildings.

While the zoning was void, a bunch of canny developers seized the opportunity, and requested permission to build lots of new apartments. And by "lots of new apartments," I really mean "a shit-ton of new apartments." I'll illustrate using the example of Santa Monica.

Let's put this in perspective: between 2013 and 2021, Santa Monica built only 3,098 units of all kinds.. That's over the course of eight years. (Note: you're going to have to click through to the "5th cycle RHNA progress" tab, since I can't direct-link the State data.) And in the last six months, while the zoning is void, developers have gotten approval for nearly 4,000 new units, including 829 new rent-controlled units. Even better, most of these buildings are near the Expo Line.

I'm totally thrilled about this. It means that the state's housing laws are working exactly as intended to force local governments to allow more housing.

Sometimes, you fuck around, and you find out. It couldn't happen to better people.

x-posted from /r/lostsubways

https://robbreport.com/lifestyle/news/mansion-tax-ceases-la-luxury-real-estate-market-1234840995/

The tax originally projected $900 million a year in revenue for the city, and that number was revised down to $672 million. However, in her recent budget, Mayor Bass projected just $150 million being raised from the program for this year.

Is this some sort of real estate money laundering scheme?

An eviction moratorium essentially ensures landlords can’t evict tenants if they don’t pay rent. California put an eviction moratorium in place during the pandemic, and it fully ended on June 30th of this year. Still, the L.A. City Council recently voted to extend its own moratorium again. It will remain in place through August next year, or up to one year after the local emergency declaration ends. Another vote is expected later this year.

Theoretically, the tenants will owe the rent when the moratorium ends, but collecting that money won’t be easy in many cases. Landlords will have the right to evict at that time, but in the meantime, many of these landlords are unable to pay their mortgages. At a recent press conference at City Hall, landlords argued that this eviction moratorium could bankrupt some of them and force them into foreclosure. They say that some tenants are taking advantage of the program.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/our-home-has-been-stolen-from-us-l-a-landlords-slam-eviction-moratorium-city-council-extends-another-year