Los Angeles is a city sprawled out within Southern California. Its famous for place4s such as Hollywood, its beautiful beaches, and much more. But through the guise of all these wonders lies a massive problem. That problem is the extreme lack of affordable housing in the county. This is problem that has persisted and will continue to persist given the current approaches to the problem. Los Angeles county and city have made attempt after attempt, but the net result has been negative to say the least.
The county is currently in a housing deficit over 510,000. These numbers are expected to rise in the future when you must consider the predicted growth rate of the population. Now how might one take steps to help solve this major issue. Los Angeles has made it easier in some capacities to build and even tax breaks to lower incomes individuals. But overall, these have shown little to no affect on production of affordable housing. Los Angeles needs to incentivize the developer. The current landscape is a deterrent to developers. If they are supplied with tax breaks and even federal subsidies. Making a more friendly environment for developers to produces higher quality but affordable is the answer.
Recently Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a bill that involves the elimination of single-family zoning. This is monumental in the fight against the lack of affordable housing. Now this allows for developers to build multifamily housing developments where prior they were only zoned for single family use. This will allow us to use the little land within Los Angeles to produce more housing units in less space. If you combine this current legislation like the tax incentives, I mentioned earlier you will have a much easier fight when it comes to affordable housing.
Los Angeles is facing a crisis that will shape our city socially and physically. The current approach has proven over the years that it simply doesn’t work. When need to new and pragmatic approaches that will work. Cut the governmental red tape and allow developers to develop. That is how we produce more affordable housing and end this crisis we helped create.
This is such a relevant topic that that affects residents of the LA area, including USC students. I think you make a good point that we must incentivize the developers to develop in places that aid the housing crisis, and the government needs to loosen up regulations in that realm. It's great that Gov. Newsom passed that bill to prevent single family zoning, since it allows for more efficient allocation of this limited land.
Such an important topic that you covered. I did not know that Newsom signed that bill - such a step in the right direction. I really liked how you explained that Los Angeles needs to incentivize developers and they are currently being deterred from building. Great post.