The term “unsubsidized 100% affordable project” was once an oxymoron. Under Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles is now approving them by the hundreds.in December 2022, shortly after being sworn into office. In the year and change since, the city’s planning department has received plans for more than 16,150 affordable units, according to filings gathered by the real estate data company, ATC Research, and analyzed by CalMatters.
Throw those two policies together and building new apartments for working class Angelenos is suddenly a booming business.Andrew Slocum and Terry Harris, the developer pair behind the seven-story project on West Court Street, represent the type of developer suddenly wading into Los Angeles’ affordable housing market. They aren’t leading nonprofits or charities. They don’t run websites with feel-good mission statements.
“This is clearly a monumental shift in how affordable housing is developed in the state,” said Mahdi Manji, policy director at Inner City Law Center, a legal service provider and affordable housing advocacy group in Los Angeles’ Skid Row. “We just haven’t seen this before.”Privately funded developers hoping to crack Los Angeles’ affordable housing market tend to follow a familiar pattern.
Then comes the next step. Most so-called “ED1 projects” also make use of a hodgepodge of statewide “density bonus” laws that allow developers of 100% affordable housing projects to pack far more units and floors onto a given lot than would otherwise be allowed under local zoning rules. These laws also let affordable developers pick and choose from a wide range of goodies and freebies that cut costs further and allow for yet denser development.
That bet is still very much in play. It will be months before the first of the apartments approved under Executive Directive 1 are tenant-ready. “It shouldn’t be odd” that a developer might choose to build an $1,800 per month studio without taxpayer support, said Manji with the Inner City Law Center. “It’s only odd because we’ve made it odd.”
Translating the mayor’s order into permanent city law and ending the emergency declaration could weaken Fix The City’s legal challenge, at least as it applies to future projects, though Everoff disputed that point. But whether a majority on the city’s council will agree to do so — and how much of the mayor’s original policy they will opt to rewrite, soften or jettison in the process — is an open question.
Source: Real Estate Daily Report (realestatedailyreport.net)
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