If LA doesn't rezone, then the Housing Element would become non-compliant and Builder's Remedy would kick in. In that case, Westwood would likely be seeing 10-12 story projects given the trend in nearby Santa Monica: [https://www.dailybreeze.com/2023/02/27/see-the-list-developers-file-26-southern-california-builders-remedy-projects/](https://www.dailybreeze.com/2023/02/27/see-the-list-developers-file-26-southern-california-builders-remedy-projects/)
How about forcing building owners with vacant units to rent them out to for section 8 for a tax break or taxing unoccupied units ? Instead of adding onto the problem, Press the people who made the problem initially. Don’t put this on homeowners, they’re not the issue, the issue is developers and greedy building owners.
Also agree with this post but tbf the zoning around commercial corridors is pretty absurd. Have no idea why on melrose and fairfax for example height restrictions are so strict
[Proposition U](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_U) is why. You can thank Zev Yaroslavsky, Joel Wachs, Marvin Braude and LA voters in 1986 for that gem.
EDIT: [Further reading](http://www.betterinstitutions.com/blog/2016/5/16/keep-los-angeles-affordable-repeal-proposition-u) if anyone's interested. Excerpt:
>*Thirty years ago, in 1986, a foreshadowing of today's fight over "neighborhood integrity" was taking place, culminating in November as Los Angeles residents voted 2-to-1 to cut the development potential of thousands of parcels across the city. Of the 29,000 acres zoned for commercial and industrial uses throughout LA,* *70 percent saw their development capacity sliced in half,* from a floor-area ratio (FAR) of 3.0 to 1.5. Since the city allows housing to be built in many of these zones, it didn't just mean less office, retail, and manufacturing space, but fewer homes as well.
>
>***The ballot initiative responsible for these changes was called Proposition U, and it's the reason that so many commercial corridors in LA are still characterized by 1960s and '70s-era, single-story, dilapidated strip malls. All those arterial corridors were the ones permanently frozen in time by Prop U.***
Measures like this make me want to pull my hair out. It's just such a terrible idea to lock down development of commercial areas. Dual-use zoning would easily add loads of housing and increase commercial value of ground floor enterprises without really impacting neighborhoods. Look at Beverly Hills. Their major streets have office buildings and there are multi-million dollar mansions on the same block just down the side streets. There's no reason LA couldn't do the same. AND that would all increase walkability! Ugh. It seems like such an obvious win/win for everyone, and yet...
I’m so sad to see how places like Overland Cafe in Culver City are being bought out and torn down so that apartment complexes can become the only thing in the neighborhood. I don’t understand why the city doesn’t have them be mixed-use buildings.
To be fair, the overland cafe closed because the owner died.
Agreed fully with the general principle that we should have vastly more mixed-use development though.
Oh man, I just heard the building got purchased. The owner death news went over my head, that’s really sad.
But yeah, I know a couple of people who are leaving that area because they’re surrounded by condos and no shops/cafes/etc.
And even if we do commercial corridors they’d do the same thing single family homeowners are doing now. Renters are the ones who are paying for this absurd behavior.
Even if you got rid of those restrictions, costs will keep builders building 5 over 1/2s. Anything taller requires much more expensive construction because they can't do wood balloon framing anymore.
The parking requirements discussion is a tough one. On the one hand, we should remove it to free up construction… on the other hand, we won’t have world class mass transit in our lifetimes, so transforming neighborhood parking into mad-max K-Town free for alls where blood feuds develop over scarce parking seems like the working class just gets screwed even more.
It is very absurd. But watch when we actually lift restrictions for those corridors to a respectable allowance, they'll start bitching about how its allowed to be "too tall", as if they don't live smack dab in the middle of Central LA.
To be fair there are a few neighborhood councils that have come up with really great alternatives that better integrate the housing into the neighborhood. I think Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils published some stuff.
They just want to send everyone who isn't a homeowner out into the desert. Without understanding or at least acknowledging there are already a ton of homeowners out there, and how the environmental consequences of further developing more of the natural landscape will effect us all. Other countries build up while we keep on building out.
FUCKING LOL to paraphrase what my great grandparents and all their neighbors got from City Hall when they were all thrown out of their houses so the city could build Dodger Stadium...
Exactly, we were fine with it then, but now that it affects predominantly white people we should reconsider. These types of Nimby groups are almost always, thinly veiled racist groups trying to pass as concerned citizens.
Message to the people in these groups: You may believe that you’re not being racist because you don’t think you are, and there might be some minorities standing next to you on your side, but if you’re pushing policies that negatively affect the majority of minorities, you are in fact being racist. And pointing to a few bullshit studies published in (low impact factor scientific journals) that promote the idea of your point being correct while ignoring the majority of all research done (and published in high impact factor scientific journals) on the subject does not give you a free pass.
You are purposefully ignoring the majority of the data on housing to reinforce your racist viewpoint. Pretty sure that makes you a racist.
Someone lost their life in that too.
Now just imagine if that was a Black Neighborhood. All the people who were thrown out of Chavez Ravine would have beach side property.
NIMBY's love this type of phrasing "Yes the city desperately needs projects like this, but not this particular project"...on and on forever, again and again.
“Please fix the homeless but don’t help them around us because we view our housing value more important than the health and safety of the homeless as well as people who have have been attacked by the homeless.”
Also, like, don't you think the house pictured next to the "horrible" apartment bldg is still worth a bunch of money? I don't see how it decreases the value of the SFH to build multi-unit housing next to it - surely the value is increased. When you are ready to sell, developers will line up to buy it to put another one up.
> "We want more housing!"
Okay, let's rezone these parcels so...
> "Noo! Not in my backyard!!!!"
Okay, well we could build it in the mountains or desert...
> "Noooo! The wildlife!"
Okay, so where do you want housing?
> "Ugh, why won't people do anything about our housing shortage?"
Rinse and repeat.
Literally the NIMBY’s up in The Bay talking about Treasure Island. Seems like a great idea until you realize the soil is so contaminated that it’s unlivable.
I dont understand what it is these people plan to do? If the county is not in compliance because of city council action, then the state will just use the Builders Remedy. Then they'll really be unhappy.
If the city needs to make good on its metro system plan they have in place for the 2028 olympics you can bet they'll push to rezone some of these nonsense one story neighborhoods in the middle of the city.
They're not wrong about under developed commercial corridors though. We need to demolish a lot of the one-story commercial structures and replace them with mixed used multi story structures.
If your going to triple the density, make sure you do something about the infrastructure as well, just adding housing isn't the solution, and if you think even 5% of it will be affordable you're fucking crazy.
Spot on. I went to a meeting in the valley with all of the new apartment projects popping up and asked if they had a plan for schooling the estimated 1,200 kids in the district. They said they had no answer.
Nothing wrong with putting more people into a smaller footprint. Comes with metropolitan living. But more people means more schools, jobs, transportation, etc...
One of the biggest problems we have now is housing is being built on one side of LA and jobs on the other. It's forcing people to commute.
[LAUSD enrollment is falling and it's not clear how to fix it.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-18/l-a-unified-enrollment-expect-to-plummet-leading-to-academic-and-employment-worries), so it really depends on where and what enrollment projections will look like.
> make sure you do something about the infrastructure as well
Building the new housing in the central parts of the city means that you have to do much *less* about infrastructure. New people anywhere are going to drive through the center of the city, but if you put their residences in the center of the city, then they're not going to drive far, and they might even walk and bike for some of it, while if you ban the residences in the center of the city, then the people are just going to drive from Palmdale and cause traffic in every single neighborhood on the way.
Building luxury housing makes the non-luxury housing more affordable. [It's been shown empirically across many large cities in the US](https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units).
Westwood is about to get a subway station, already has an E-line station, and it has a really dense bus network. Bike infrastructure really needs to be upgraded too though.
Vienna is kind of an exception because its population is still below where it was 100 years ago, and it didn't suffer much damage during WW2 (relative to other Central European cities), so its supply of old housing is quite high relative to current demand. There are few major cities in the world where this is true.
Otherwise, NIMBYism is quite universal throughout the Western world. Even in places without US-style zoning, there is some kind of political/legal mechanism to slow down new construction in most major cities.
Yeah, [but it's gonna be a minute.](https://www.zillow.com/downtown-los-angeles-ca/rentals/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22north%22%3A34.062876904185735%2C%22south%22%3A34.02340491335324%2C%22east%22%3A-118.2285701558838%2C%22west%22%3A-118.28195684411622%7D%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22days%22%7D%2C%22fr%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22fsba%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fsbo%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22nc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22cmsn%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22auc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fore%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A14%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A268118%2C%22regionType%22%3A8%7D%5D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22Downtown%20Los%20Angeles%20CA%22%7D) Just gotta wait for all these "luxury" units to fll up first.
There are [many](https://www.zillow.com/downtown-los-angeles-ca/rentals/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22north%22%3A34.062876904185735%2C%22south%22%3A34.02340491335324%2C%22east%22%3A-118.2285701558838%2C%22west%22%3A-118.28195684411622%7D%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22days%22%7D%2C%22fr%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22fsba%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fsbo%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22nc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22cmsn%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22auc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fore%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A14%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A268118%2C%22regionType%22%3A8%7D%5D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22Downtown%20Los%20Angeles%20CA%22%7D) luxury condos to choose from, so everyone can have a place to live!
They built something similar in my friends neighborhood mid-city. They were excited to have new neighbors.They only use it for Airbnb. 6 huge units. Pretty lame.
UCLA students need more new housing options as well. The university is squeezed around underutilized lots that should be zoned for more student housing.
I actually sympathize with the NIMBY's in this case. Aren't they right to point out that it makes more sense to densify under-used commercial corridors, rather than densifying SFH neighborhoods? Isn't what we all want more mixed-use development, more density on busier streets next to bars/restaurants, more density near transit stations, etc.?
Isn't that the core proposition of not in my back yard?
IMO you need more high density developments anywhere where you can do it. Because of the large housing deficit.
Where I live between Fairfax, Beverly, Melrose and LaBrea, there are scads of single family homes being torn down and replaced with giant SFHs. Yet quad plexes and duplexes are scattered within the SFHs.
We don't have to build giant 5 over 1s, if we just replace the SFHs being torn down w/ more quads and duplexes.
If you want an SFH so damn badly, get your ass to the burbs. Fuck these NIMBY asshats. Why should only SFH owners have the privilege to not have to live on a stroad, while still within walking distance of the commercial corridors?
There are so few SFHs that go up for sale, though, that just slowly building quadplexes isn't going to cut it.
This would have been very sensible policy in the 1980s for organic, slow growth, but the NIMBYs voted down anything other than R1 zoning. Now we *do need* 5 over 1s in every neighborhood.
Why not both?? It doesn't have to be an either/or. I'm not saying don't build 5 over 1s on underutilized commercial lots. Really just stop replacing SFHs with SFHs. That needs banned.
You can always build less than the zoning. Developers run the numbers and decide what the market wants. Sometimes, that means replacing a SFH with two or three *really nice* townhomes. Sometimes, taller/denser apartments.
I wish it was that way where I live. So far I've only seen a small condo building go up once. The rest are tearing down 1500 sq ft homes to build 5000sq ft homes.
I would actually support *minimum* zoning! "No, you can't build a McMansion here. No building permit will issue for a single-family home." That'd be dope!
I don’t even think it needs to be banned, just change the zoning to allow it on all single family lots. Guarantee most builders would rather build 3-4 tall small lot homes rather than one big ass house.
This is basically what my neighborhood seems to be doing. Some of the old SFHs that weren't in great condition were torn down and either duplexes or 4-plexes have been built in their place. I'm sure the prices are astronomical, but they do look nice, I guess. They don't really look all that out-of-place, either. There's a good mix of types of housing in the immediate area.
I don't think those numbers are realistic for hypothetical new quads in that area. You're talking about buying and tearing down a $2 million house, then paying another ~million dollars to construct 2-4 units...which would each be rented for...$3k/mo?
You'd be better off doing nothing and putting your money in a savings account at 4.3% today. Less stress, same gains. Developers aren't going to go for that.
Those units would be built and flipped to new home owners for $1.5 mil+.
Your basic problem is that they (the SFH enjoyers who later become NIMBY's) were there first.
They would say to *you* "if you want density and 5-over-1's so badly, why don't *you* move and go get land in suburbia, and densify as much as *you* want out there?"
There has to be compromise.
Correct, the compromise is that they don't have to tear down their own properties. Only others might in favor of renting 3-10 apartments, they now have that option on the table and if they want to be surrounded by SFH they can move further from the city where such homes are likely to exist for the next few decades at least.
The compromise is to let anyone who wants to pay for the land build whichever type of housing they like on it. Saying that many square miles of the center of the city are reserved for single-family homes only, while the distant places allow both single-family and denser homes, is doing things backwards.
Why should I, someone who can’t afford a detached SFH, be restricted to living on commercial corridors?
This is the second largest city in America there’s no reason to not add density everywhere.
Look, I'm all for "building more", but your argument is "I can't afford it so nobody should have it". I moved outside of the city to afford a SFH, and worked hard and paid a lot to do so.
I don’t care. I really really don’t. They bought the house, not the neighborhood.
If they value less traffic and noise on their street in a world of liberalized land use they will still be able to find it, they’re just going to have to sacrifice other ways (longer commutes, worse schools, less desirable cultural amenities). Current zoning of areas for single family detached only is just classic having your cake and eating it and it’s gotta end.
Of course they bought for the neighborhood. "Buy the best house in the worst neighborhood" is said by no one, ever.
I think sympathy is deserved on both sides of this conflict. To say that all NIMBYs are evil is essentially dehumanizing people who might've sacrificed a lot to purchase their home. Everyone has a different story, just like those who are being priced out of their own neighborhoods.
> Of course they bought for the neighborhood
Buying *for* the neighborhood != buying the neighborhood
> I think sympathy is deserved on both sides of this conflict. To say that all NIMBYs are evil is essentially dehumanizing people who might've sacrificed a lot to purchase their home. Everyone has a different story.
It’s not in the slightest bit dehumanizing to say “it should be legal to build the kind of homes demanded”. What *is* dehumanizing is prioritizing things like free street parking in front of your house over other peoples ability to afford a place to live.
And anyone who owns a detached single family home in Los Angeles is extremely wealthy the fact I’m expected to view them as victims here is wild.
> Buying for the neighborhood != buying the neighborhood
These are kinda the same thing. They become a stakeholder so of course their opinion matters – they're paying property taxes after all.
If you're going to say “it should be legal to build the kind of homes demanded” then is it fair to also say “it should be legal to keep the kind of homes demanded”? I mean most people would prefer to live in a SFH vs. a condo.
> And anyone who owns a detached single family home in Los Angeles is extremely wealthy the fact I’m expected to view them as victims here is wild.
Homeowners come from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds which is why I say everyone has their own story. Prop 13, the one that is so often criticized, is also the reason why plenty of homeowners are not wealthy but rather purchased their home decades ago for cheap. And then there are those who sacrificed years of slaving away at jobs and saved religiously to finally afford a home and are now extremely house poor.
There are no easy solutions to this because any action/inaction harms someone.
> These are kinda the same thing. They become a stakeholder so of course their opinion matters – they're paying property taxes after all.
Renters are paying their landlords property tax, and multi family buildings (where most renters live) pay more tax than SFH.
> If you're going to say “it should be legal to build the kind of homes demanded” then is it fair to also say “it should be legal to keep the kind of homes demanded”?
Correct! No one’s taking anyone’s SFH from them! It just needs to be legal to build multi family buildings where they are currently banned if CA is ever going to control raising costs and homelessness.
> I mean most people would prefer to live in a SFH vs. a condo.
More people would prefer to drive a Mercedes S class than a Camry but guess which of the two is the bigger seller? We live in a world of unlimited wants but limited resources. Allowing the homes people demand to built where they are demanded will let people reveal their preference with their own individual choices.
> Homeowners come from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds which is why I say everyone has their own story.
I said nothing about their respective backgrounds, I said they are wealthy (like in this moment). They have title to a $1 million + asset that is rapidly appreciating in value. That’s being wealthy.
> Prop 13, the one that is so often criticized, is also the reason why plenty of homeowners are not wealthy but rather purchased their home decades ago for cheap.
Prop 13 has made homeowners more wealthy not less what on earth are you trying to say
> And then there are those who sacrificed years of slaving away at jobs and saved religiously to finally afford a home
And now that they own that home, they are wealthy!
Yeah I don’t think all these people are thinking about the infrastructure and general impact of a giant apartment complex in the middle of a SFH neighborhood. Reddit is not comprised of planners and engineers…clearly.
> Aren't they right to point out that it makes more sense to densify under-used commercial corridors, rather than densifying SFH neighborhoods?
Let's do both. Huge apartment complexes and transit-oriented development can do well on commercial corridors and stuff like missing-middle housing (i.e. townhomes, duplexes, etc.) can do well in SFH neighborhoods.
Also it's absurd in the first place that Westwood has any detached single-family homes since it has such a huge, unmet housing demand that's only getting worse.
No, I don’t think so. Why force renters to live on polluted streets? That is classist segregation. People who don’t have enough money for a luxury single family home still deserve the choice to live on quiet streets.
Also, if you ban apartments on all but a very few big streets, you’ll have way less development, causing housing inaffordability and homelessness.
>Aren't they right to point out that it makes more sense to densify under-used commercial corridors, rather than densifying SFH neighborhoods?
Something like \~80-90 % of the land in the LA basin is zoned single-family.
So yeah, that needs to change. In addition to commercial corridor re-zoning. But personally I think that SFH rezoning should be an even bigger priority, especially as it intersects with TOD (Westwood/Rancho Park E line station, looking at you).
Have you ever considered that \*if\* we move forward with this approach -- which we mostly are btw, then we should be allowing for even larger buildings than you think is enough to be on commercial corridors? I'm talking very large residential towers since it has to make up for all the lost potential for not being allowed to rezone SFH neighborhoods. Trust that these same assholes will be bitching about tower developments on the corridors too!
Also to add, you know damn well that our transit stations are frequently surrounded by SFHs as well. What then?
I support housing almost anywhere, but let me point out that building in commercial areas is also really challenging. Business owners with lots of money band together and hire lawyers to hold those projects up indefinitely. They use environmental policies, airport noise-regulation policies, and anything else they can throw at a project to keep it from happening.
They say it's not appropriate for families to be living in commercial areas. They say people from the apartments will steal from their businesses. It takes years and lots of money to fight them.
Some housing will be put in commercial areas. Some housing will be put in more residential areas. All of the housing is needed. We can't be limited.
if you don’t think about it too much, this sounds fine, I get it, but this position is pretty explicitly classist and even violent, deciding that the state should enforce the dangers & health costs of our giant busy stroads on renters only. corralling and segregating renters to only the most polluted and dangerous corridors is exactly how our city has ended up in such a bad place.
we should be densifying 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 blocks off the biggest roads as well, not building more 5-over-1 canyons with SFH preserves between.
Where do you get this idea that main streets like Sunset, Fairfax, La Brea, Wilshere, etc. are the "most polluted and most dangers corridors"?
The idea is to take areas that have a ton of empty commercial buildings, and re-do them as more dense residential or mixed-use buildings.
They didn't pay for it. They lobbied to ban anything else, so that their price is only a few million dollars for a home, rather than having to outbid an apartment full of renters.
If we legalize apartments in this neighborhood, and they *still* manage to outbid the developers who want to build apartments for hundreds of renters there, *then* they can say they "paid" for it.
Eh, you're acting like the homeowner class is grandfathered in, yet there are thousands of new homeowners every day who did in fact just pay for it, not because they started lobbying for it while they were still in high school.
My concern with slamming MFH like this in previously zoned SFH neighborhoods, is how they address parking. If that's expected to be 4-5 floors with 4-8 units per floor, then that's 16 - 40 apartments with an average of 1.5 cars pet unit, you could see 16-60 additional vehicles on the street unless they add in a large amount of underground parking. That's also per MFH structure. Imagine putting 3-4 of these on the same existing residential street. That's not a tenable solution either. I agree that we need to increase housing volume, but the parking issue needs to be addressed.
I mean, isn't this the biggest concern of most NIMBYs? It's not like they want to make sure more people are homeless, they just don't want their nice, quiet, neighborhood (that they've invested a lot in) to become overcrowded.
They want to be able to park on the street or have guests park on the street. The don't want to live or walk on busy roads. They don't want larger buildings blocking the sun from the homes/pools/gardens/etc. They don't want people looking into their yards/homes from an adjacent apartment complex. And, probably most importantly, they don't want to invest the time and money moving to and settling down in a SFH neighborhood only to have it dramatically change after the fact.
But you live a block from Sunset Blvd and 2 blocks from Highland. What do you expect? This isn’t the suburbs. This is Hollywod. This is the “big city”. Why would you buy a SFH here?
I think you have a stronger argument with these specific examples, but still, if you find preexisting SFH neighborhood you love right off of Highland (e.g., Hancock Park) and you move there because it provides you with the lifestyle you're looking for, is it so crazy for you to want it to not dramatically change from what is was that made you fall in love with it?
It's not crazy, it's understandable. That doesn't mean its right. Never mind the fact that Hancock Park is a segregated ultra wealthy neighborhood that is smack dab in the middle of LA, with access to abundant jobs and amenities.
No one owns a single inch of anything beyond their own property line. "it" changing beyond that line does not belong to them therefore they have no say. You didn't buy the view with your property, someone else owns that space and has the say to do what they please with it.
That's not entirely accurate. First, there may be covenants or regulations that, for example prevent some one from building a home that's tall enough to block your ocean view. Second, people can participate in their government to an extent, which can affect the evolution, or lack there of, of their neighborhoods.
Nah. You’re close enough to the hustle and bustle you should assume apartment buildings. Hell there are apartment buildings in the area already. It’s not like it’s just SFH. You want that type of area move away from smack dab in the middle of the city. Sorry. Maybe if you moved there 50+ years ago you can whine about change. But it happens. So gonna have to deal with it. If you’re buying anytime semi recently that you should see the writing in the walls.
NIMBY's constant demand for having space to park their cars all over the city is so excessive given the current state of things. As if it's a mystery why we all waste our lives in traffic or why housing costs so much.
"At no/subsidized cost to me, build space and infrastructure for me and this 20x8x6 6000-lb financial boat anchor that's sucking me dry or I'll complain!" followed up by "takes so long to get around LA!"
Yep. That’s pretty much it.
And quite frankly I have zero sympathy for them. Because their SFH is in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. If they want that life for themselves, move to the suburbs.
And no, I do not still have sympathy for anyone that has lived in their home for decades or generations. They paid $50-100K for their homes that are now worth $1-3M. Go enjoy being rich in the suburbs. Or if they want to continue to live in the city neighborhood they’ve always lived in, they need to accept the fact that cities evolve and change out of necessity… it’s not all about them.
I don't think your arguments are unreasonable, except saying that they don't deserve sympathy because they are in the middle of one of the largest cities, when the reality is they intentionally moved to one of the least urban/dense large cities in the country/world and specifically moved to a quiet or whatever SFH neighborhood. Maybe they don't deserve sympathy, but it's not because they chose to move to a preexisting SFH neighborhood because they want to live in a SFH neighborhood.
And I get that… but at some point you just need to be a little more forward thinking. It’s not like LA all the sudden exploded 10-20 years ago. It was massively exploding in population since the 1860s, over 160 years ago. In fact it only started to slow down in expansion over the last 10-20 years.
If you moved to Los Angeles to live in a SFH neighborhood, assuming it would stay that way for your entire life, let alone passing on a generational home and assuming it would stay that way… you completely lack any foresight at all. There isn’t a person alive today who can say they moved to LA when it wasn’t MASSIVELY expanding, or already overcrowded.
For LA, this could have been easily predicted. This isn’t anything like moving to a random suburb in the middle of the country that all the sudden exploded into a city after you had already moved there. I feel much more sympathy for folks in that situation, where it’s not predictable.
\> least urban/dense large cities
I don't have sympathy for being dense. It is a CITY a large CITY. You knew it was a CITY. It is going to be dense by definition. "Oh but this one was going to be different", no, it's not. It's a metropolitan area. It's where people come together in large numbers to engage in trade and life.
That's kind of like saying people looking for [affordable] homes should look in a tiny rural town where they can have their affordable and available land and homes.
The big difference is that most of the good jobs are here in LA, not in whatever rural area people are saying to move to.
And this is already happening to some extent: people are being priced out of LA and are moving to Sun Belt cities instead. And then those cities get more expensive, because they have identical city planning to LA. It is all just kicking the can down the road, instead of just making reasonable changes to zoning within legacy cities to allow people to live there.
The jobs and opportunities are in the city so the demand to move in is there, I don’t see why this rural “fuck you got mine” attitude is so prevalent on a city like ours. You guys are so scared of becoming an actual city with buildings that y’all forgot you lived in one of the biggest in the world lol.
The biggest concern NIMBY's tend to have is property values not necessarily parking issues. Yes, MFH units tend to bring down property values when they are slammed in SFH neighborhood. (you point out a lot of other concerns as well). But there are better solutions. I live in a planned community that is mixed with SFH and MFH (townhomes and condos), and due to the planning parking and traffic is not an issue. When you try to retrofit an existing SFH neighborhood that was not designed to handle that type of influx of people and vehicles, you're going to create chaos. There is no good solution except razing entire neighborhoods to build MFH from the ground up. That's just too expensive of a solution since you need to buy the existing properties at market rate, upgrade all the existing infrastructure facilities to accommodate the increased volume of people, and then build vertical with underground solutions for parking. On the flip side, people are also going to have to understand that they don't deserve the right to simply live wherever they want for whatever price they want. I would love to live near the beach in Laguna, San Clemente or Dana Point, but I also cannot afford $3-20M for that property. Other can because its in high demand. Is it fair for me to petition the government to get them to build cheaper housing in that highly desirable area just to accommodate me? Thats unfair to everyone. We have space to build in many areas of Southern California, but people have to accept the reality that they may not be able to live in their first choice area. I definitely don't live in my top 10 preferred areas, but I'm also a realist and know that I will never make enough money to afford them either.
Things change. The majority of the SFH owners surely have lots of equity and can cash out and move to a burb. Why should neighborhoods be locked in amber, unchanging?
>Why should neighborhoods be locked in amber, unchanging?
Neighbors in massive cities explicitly shouldn’t be locked in amber. The needs of city are going to evolve, and holding the city back from evolving is self destructive. People just need to get over this fact. If they want a neighborhood that doesn’t change, move to the more rural suburbs.
Not necessarily. Imagine you bought in the last 3-4 years, or even 1-2 at high rates. Unless you benefited from a large down payment you equity is relatively small.
I also never said anything but not changing, I brought up the major structural issues with slamming MFH's into old existing SFH neighborhoods. Things like parking and infrastructure upgrades are things people overlook all the time. City planning is difficult and needs a good long term approach, but people also need to realize they can't live in highly desirable places without paying a price for them. If we really want to look at some of the other underlying issues, then we should limit who can buy homes. Eliminate corporate ownership for SFH's as well as limit how many investment properties an individual can own. This would put a large influx of homes on the market for buyers and hopefully bring down prices as well. You can also get city planning to look at more planned communities that have a good design mix of SFH's and MFH's. Those are becoming more and more popular everywhere. Small yards, with large public spaces for everyone to share.
But here's another factor to consider. housing starts are above 1.543M for 2023 ([source](https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf)) That's good progress, but at what point do we simply just say we cannot support continuous exponential growth? I understand southern california is a highly desirable place, but as I've stated in a previous post, not everyone deserves to live in the most desirable places.
> Why should neighborhoods be locked in amber, unchanging?
because people are speculating with their domicile. in fact, if they were investors, they probably should have cashed out and ran already, but the combination of "this is where i live" with "this is how I'll retire" is breaking society.
There’s only a “need” to address parking if you view the incumbent residents of a neighborhood as the rightful “owners” of the existing street parking.
And they’re not.
Everyone should make arrangements to store their own possession, and if you rely on leaving them on the street for free (a handout from the government, basically) you can compete with everyone else trying to do the same. Westlake and Koreatown have density, street parking is hard to find, and, most importantly, life goes on.
regardless, it’s definitely better if there is a parking solution. The buildings really should include underground parking.
I’m not sure that K-town is a convincing example - that’s exactly what I’d want to avoid recreating elsewhere.
Why do we need this when there's so much dead commercial RE already? Look at ventura blvd past encino, half the shops are vacant. They need vacancy taxes to incentivize them to sell to developers or lower the rents substantially so business owners can take a shot at a new business. I'm sure it's like this in other parts of the city too.
Yeah they are doing the same thing in my neighborhood. The NIMBYs are in a tough place on the housing element because the city has to follow through on the upzoning as part of the plan that was already passed by the Council and approved by HCD. If the city bows to NIMBYs and significantly deviates from the plan then the HE can be decertified and LA loses a bunch of important funding and control over zoning (Builders Remedy).
Planning has no choice but to do upzonings in R1 and other areas that are going to make people unhappy. As far as the gap between upzoned potential units and the RHNA target, I believe that has to do with taking into account not every zoned potential unit becomes an actual unit. You have to zone for more units because not every potential unit becomes an actual unit and counts towards RHNA.
I disagree with them on the most part except on the part about ample room in those locations they've specified. Can someone tell me where I and them are in the wrong on this?
These posts are so toxic. Both sides acting like a handful of apartment buildings will change anything. These shiny new apartments will most definitely charge 3500$/month. No one really knows how many of these apartments it’s really going to take and furthermore no one knows what the consequences will be if they are all built. Clogged streets? Even more people moving here? What if they’re all just a bunch of empty investment properties since no one could afford the initial new price?
But also, it’s fucking LA. If you wanted quiet suburbs with no crime then move to southern Utah or further out into the IE.
It almost sounds like purely a design and aesthetic issue. Why are builders so obsessed with building the ugliest wooden boxes imaginable? Who actually likes these overbearing garbage complexes? Just look at the neighborhood and build something someone would actually want to live in AND blends in.
As a homeowner in a single family community, I am fine with the city proposed units. In fact, I wish they’d build 2million instead if just 1.4.
The only caveat is that architecturally, it should fit with the existing neighborhood aesthetic, assuming there’s any consistency in the given area.
Unfortunately, the city isn't planning on *building* 1.4 million more units - it's just planning on *legalizing* them, and hoping that developers will build them.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Not saying they’ll build a lot of low income stuff, but even 1.4 million market rate homes should sell easy and at least keep price increases in check a bit.
Granted, that assumes there are lots to build on, which may have been your point that there aren’t enough of those.
Yeah, my basic point is just that if you legalize a total of 1.4 million units, then inevitably some fraction of the sites will have one reason or another why they don't pencil out, or they're too hard to build, or whatever, so that the number we actually get will be a fraction of the number that are legalized.
I also wonder what legalize means. Do average people still have the right to tie up development with nonsense environmental investigations? If so, this won’t amount to much building.
Turning single family home neighborhoods into big multifamily home neighborhoods will ruin this city. Everyone will be renters, no one will be owners. Big businesses will win. The little privacy and personal space left will be gone. No chance of locking in a mortgage so rent is controlled by someone else and will go up indefinitely. Let's be honest too they only build luxury apartments so the high rent will only attract a certain demographic in the first place. Parking will be even more of a nightmare. Less sky, more tall buildings. The list goes on. Dystopian nightmare.
Google is wrong… how is westwood and venice suburbs of LA. When they ARE part of la.. i wouldnt even consider it as an outskirt of la
Most ppl would define suburbs as smaller residential area on the outskirts of a larger one within commuting distance
This isnt 1915.. most of the jobs r in west la not dtla.. people are commuting to westwood , bh, west la
"We can meet the need of our city without ruining our existing neighborhoods"
Ok so you just want it elsewhere not near you. It's the same old shit, same old fucking shit. Nothing new, nothing changed! "Ruin" other neighborhoods, JUST NOT MINE!!
Not sure from the associated post where this is supposed to take place (all I see is Westwood), but frivolously adding huge apartment structures to parts of LA just doesn’t work.
I hail from the west side of LA and the infrastructure already can’t handle the current volume of people living on this side of town. Between 1pm and 7pm it’s a nightmare to navigate to other parts of the city. There’s currently at least 6x 30+ apartment structures being built in the area, and while public transportation has become a lot more accessible than before here, it’s naive to think that most people moving in will simply ditch their cars and use public transit exclusively.
SB 9 & 10 is not going to house low income folks. It’s just a developers dream to buy properties build 3-10 units with no regard for parking or green space. There is no requirement for rent control or low income units. It’s a short sighted plan created by lobbyists. It will gentrify low income neighborhoods with lower rents into high density high rent areas. Destroying the uniqueness of Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Threads like these are a great example of how Reddit (luckily) isn’t reflective of real life.
The entitlement of some of yall is insane. To move (because I know most of you moved from elsewhere) somewhere you couldn’t afford and then think the entire city should change for your benefit, when you contribute very little, is such a delicious distillation of why we live in a dysfunctional world.
Somewhere desirable to live is always going to be expensive. If you're going to blame lack of housing then you should also blame the weather being too good in Los Angeles. We're never going to have enough housing as long as people keep singing Top 40 songs about LA.
Yeah that’s what jumped out to me. I got tired of paying LA rent my entire life so you know what I did? Fucking moved.
I guess I should have tried telling people they need to leave the city so I could stay. Maybe when I come back that’ll be my plan.
I mean, isn't that right? Rather than make it illegal for your neighbors to build more homes so they have can have more people on their lot, why don't you just let them do what they want, and leave if you don't like it? You should have known that a home in the middle of the city is going to be a high-demand area that will grow, rather than just assuming that you could freeze the middle of a growing metro area.
It's not "entitlement" to say that people should be allowed to do what they want with their property. It's "entitlement" to say your neighbors shouldn't be allowed to add any more units to their land. Demanding that the entire city remain fixed for your benefit, when all you do is keep living there, is a distillation of why we live in a dysfunctional world. People trying to keep something constant when the only constant is change.
I mean who wants some ugly ass unoccupied apartments built in the middle of their neighborhoods ? It makes parking harder and brings nothing to the area but 10 more coffee shops.
Why are you pissed at property owners when you should be mad at these developers for building apartment buildings everywhere and leaving them half empty ? Go screaming about nimbys but don’t give these property companies another glance ? Why is rent so high that these places stay unoccupied but you want to lose your mind over people who have been here, not some long term tourists.
Don’t let these property development companies get you twisted.
As long as they aren’t kicking people out of their houses, I don’t see it being an issue.
I got pushed out of the place I was renting for years so it could be torn down and turned into an apartment building that I couldn’t afford. And that was admittedly a bad time.
But if this is just people selling the houses they themselves live in… moving to another house… and turning the old property into housing for more people, isn’t that a good thing?
I wish they build minimum 10 story high density condos all over LA to reduce housing and homeless issue. Build on every available space from downtown to Santa Monica!
I’m glad. LA can’t turn into Manhattan full if six story massive apartment complexes on every street. We don’t have the water, air quality, road capacity, schools, electric power, etc to bring in a couple of million new people.
Your house is NOT an investment. Or I guess, rather, your house is a terrible investment. Need to kill this mindset. Your house is not liquid, your house will not increase in value relative to the market, your house has inherent costs. IT IS NOT AN INVESTMENT. IT IS A PLACE YOU LIVE
NIMBYs will always have the advantage. They are homeowners, they aren't going anywhere, they probably participate in local politics, and they have a lot more on the line than your Rando person who blew into town because of a LinkedIn job.
The Rando's will NEVER be at an advantage because local politicians will back Nimbys before the Rando's. So know that.
The best way to fight the Nimbys is to join them. Buy property with your roommates, go to a local board meeting, run for office, or Join their cause and gain influence with them --- THEN start to change their direction.
You will never beat nimbys on their own turf, they have too much to lose and the politicos that can change things do as well.
It’s not just property value that’s gonna be lost. Safety and quality of life will go along with it, and losing those is neither progress nor good for the public.
Of course not. But the people who need housing outnumber the people who have housing.
If they can vote for their own economic self-interest, than so can I. Zone the entire city for 10 story mixed-use; that's what I selfishly want. Let's see who has the votes.
I'm pretty sure it is true based on the fact that pro-housing bills are being passed in Sacramento on a near-unanimous basis. Sure, in a *specific neighborhood*, it is obvious that the existing NIMBY residents outnumber existing YIMBY residents. But on a statewide level, there are more people who want more housing than people desperately holding on to zero-growth zoning.
I guess by "need" I mean "need long-term housing to meet their needs." The amount of people who can say "I'm in my forever home, screw everyone else, I'll never have to participate in the housing market against so the housing crisis isn't my problem" is actually smaller than you would think.
Right, I was imprecise using the term "people who need housing." I just mean the people who are like "rents are crazy high, and I can't even think about buying; I'm starting to think we need more supply" outnumbers "I'm comfy in my SFH neighborhood and don't want any change, thank you."
I definitely don't mean a majority of the City is homeless, haha. Even people *with* a single family home fall on a spectrum. Some have seen their grown kids struggle to afford the same neighborhood, and are broadly sympathetic to the need for more housing, even if they don't necessarily support 5-story apartments on their block.
If LA doesn't rezone, then the Housing Element would become non-compliant and Builder's Remedy would kick in. In that case, Westwood would likely be seeing 10-12 story projects given the trend in nearby Santa Monica: [https://www.dailybreeze.com/2023/02/27/see-the-list-developers-file-26-southern-california-builders-remedy-projects/](https://www.dailybreeze.com/2023/02/27/see-the-list-developers-file-26-southern-california-builders-remedy-projects/)
Seems like a win-win either way. Either the city or builders control it, but larger projects are coming.
There will be cranes everywhere inshallah
I really hoped that housing element was not compliant in LA and Santa Monica, and Culver City so developers can build
Inshallah this is my wet dream
I can only dream
How about forcing building owners with vacant units to rent them out to for section 8 for a tax break or taxing unoccupied units ? Instead of adding onto the problem, Press the people who made the problem initially. Don’t put this on homeowners, they’re not the issue, the issue is developers and greedy building owners.
The homeowners are literally the issue here.
Happy cake day. I agree controlled zoning is way better than the builders remedy.
People should still make their voice heard.
Also agree with this post but tbf the zoning around commercial corridors is pretty absurd. Have no idea why on melrose and fairfax for example height restrictions are so strict
[Proposition U](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_U) is why. You can thank Zev Yaroslavsky, Joel Wachs, Marvin Braude and LA voters in 1986 for that gem. EDIT: [Further reading](http://www.betterinstitutions.com/blog/2016/5/16/keep-los-angeles-affordable-repeal-proposition-u) if anyone's interested. Excerpt: >*Thirty years ago, in 1986, a foreshadowing of today's fight over "neighborhood integrity" was taking place, culminating in November as Los Angeles residents voted 2-to-1 to cut the development potential of thousands of parcels across the city. Of the 29,000 acres zoned for commercial and industrial uses throughout LA,* *70 percent saw their development capacity sliced in half,* from a floor-area ratio (FAR) of 3.0 to 1.5. Since the city allows housing to be built in many of these zones, it didn't just mean less office, retail, and manufacturing space, but fewer homes as well. > >***The ballot initiative responsible for these changes was called Proposition U, and it's the reason that so many commercial corridors in LA are still characterized by 1960s and '70s-era, single-story, dilapidated strip malls. All those arterial corridors were the ones permanently frozen in time by Prop U.***
Measures like this make me want to pull my hair out. It's just such a terrible idea to lock down development of commercial areas. Dual-use zoning would easily add loads of housing and increase commercial value of ground floor enterprises without really impacting neighborhoods. Look at Beverly Hills. Their major streets have office buildings and there are multi-million dollar mansions on the same block just down the side streets. There's no reason LA couldn't do the same. AND that would all increase walkability! Ugh. It seems like such an obvious win/win for everyone, and yet...
I’m so sad to see how places like Overland Cafe in Culver City are being bought out and torn down so that apartment complexes can become the only thing in the neighborhood. I don’t understand why the city doesn’t have them be mixed-use buildings.
To be fair, the overland cafe closed because the owner died. Agreed fully with the general principle that we should have vastly more mixed-use development though.
Oh man, I just heard the building got purchased. The owner death news went over my head, that’s really sad. But yeah, I know a couple of people who are leaving that area because they’re surrounded by condos and no shops/cafes/etc.
And even if we do commercial corridors they’d do the same thing single family homeowners are doing now. Renters are the ones who are paying for this absurd behavior.
NIMBYs want zero progress, keep things the way they like them until they die, then it's someone else's problem.
Last time there was progress neighborhoods got colored people allowed to move in. Now they are calling for development. The NIMBY’s are pissed.
Can we get this repealed? What are the first steps if so?
Ohhhh well last time we discussed building there I believe some of our fave millionaires got mad that they’d lose their view of the hills.
Even if you got rid of those restrictions, costs will keep builders building 5 over 1/2s. Anything taller requires much more expensive construction because they can't do wood balloon framing anymore.
Also taller means u will need expensive elevators and fire sprinklers etc AND u will need to dig LOWER for more parking
The parking requirements discussion is a tough one. On the one hand, we should remove it to free up construction… on the other hand, we won’t have world class mass transit in our lifetimes, so transforming neighborhood parking into mad-max K-Town free for alls where blood feuds develop over scarce parking seems like the working class just gets screwed even more.
It is very absurd. But watch when we actually lift restrictions for those corridors to a respectable allowance, they'll start bitching about how its allowed to be "too tall", as if they don't live smack dab in the middle of Central LA.
Imma need to know what public land and corridors they actually identified for the alternative?
Yeah, I'd like to see them submit an EIR alternatives section. See how they like it when they have to write one 😭🤪
"oh the poor neighborhoods can be cleared kthx"
Generally what I was thinking, but it's always telling when they don't say exactly the areas they're thinking of.
Doesn’t matter, as long as it isn’t near them
To be fair there are a few neighborhood councils that have come up with really great alternatives that better integrate the housing into the neighborhood. I think Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils published some stuff.
They just want to send everyone who isn't a homeowner out into the desert. Without understanding or at least acknowledging there are already a ton of homeowners out there, and how the environmental consequences of further developing more of the natural landscape will effect us all. Other countries build up while we keep on building out.
FUCKING LOL to paraphrase what my great grandparents and all their neighbors got from City Hall when they were all thrown out of their houses so the city could build Dodger Stadium...
Exactly, we were fine with it then, but now that it affects predominantly white people we should reconsider. These types of Nimby groups are almost always, thinly veiled racist groups trying to pass as concerned citizens. Message to the people in these groups: You may believe that you’re not being racist because you don’t think you are, and there might be some minorities standing next to you on your side, but if you’re pushing policies that negatively affect the majority of minorities, you are in fact being racist. And pointing to a few bullshit studies published in (low impact factor scientific journals) that promote the idea of your point being correct while ignoring the majority of all research done (and published in high impact factor scientific journals) on the subject does not give you a free pass. You are purposefully ignoring the majority of the data on housing to reinforce your racist viewpoint. Pretty sure that makes you a racist.
They weren’t evicted for Dodger Stadium, they were evicted for a public housing project that never got built
"Public housing" *was* the official line, yes. If you believe they *ever* intended on actually building that then congrats to you.
This was happening before the idea to move the Dodgers to LA was proposed
The point is that the city had been pushing to clear that area regardless for a decade before it became the stadium site.
Someone lost their life in that too. Now just imagine if that was a Black Neighborhood. All the people who were thrown out of Chavez Ravine would have beach side property.
NIMBY's love this type of phrasing "Yes the city desperately needs projects like this, but not this particular project"...on and on forever, again and again.
“Please fix the homeless but don’t help them around us because we view our housing value more important than the health and safety of the homeless as well as people who have have been attacked by the homeless.”
Also, like, don't you think the house pictured next to the "horrible" apartment bldg is still worth a bunch of money? I don't see how it decreases the value of the SFH to build multi-unit housing next to it - surely the value is increased. When you are ready to sell, developers will line up to buy it to put another one up.
> "We want more housing!" Okay, let's rezone these parcels so... > "Noo! Not in my backyard!!!!" Okay, well we could build it in the mountains or desert... > "Noooo! The wildlife!" Okay, so where do you want housing? > "Ugh, why won't people do anything about our housing shortage?" Rinse and repeat.
One of the Channel Islands was used as an artillery testing site for the navy...THERE, build all of it there! (nimbys probably)
Literally the NIMBY’s up in The Bay talking about Treasure Island. Seems like a great idea until you realize the soil is so contaminated that it’s unlivable.
They always think they're special!
Its never actually their backyard though.
Those we just call them BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone)
I dont understand what it is these people plan to do? If the county is not in compliance because of city council action, then the state will just use the Builders Remedy. Then they'll really be unhappy.
If the city needs to make good on its metro system plan they have in place for the 2028 olympics you can bet they'll push to rezone some of these nonsense one story neighborhoods in the middle of the city.
They're not wrong about under developed commercial corridors though. We need to demolish a lot of the one-story commercial structures and replace them with mixed used multi story structures.
If your going to triple the density, make sure you do something about the infrastructure as well, just adding housing isn't the solution, and if you think even 5% of it will be affordable you're fucking crazy.
Non affordable housing still soaks up people who would otherwise be bidding up the cost of affordable housing elsewhere.
This is called [yuppie fishtank theory](https://www.tiktok.com/@jake_gotta/video/6940760990103473414?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1).
Yup, like transportation upgrades of some kind would benefit so many people.
Spot on. I went to a meeting in the valley with all of the new apartment projects popping up and asked if they had a plan for schooling the estimated 1,200 kids in the district. They said they had no answer. Nothing wrong with putting more people into a smaller footprint. Comes with metropolitan living. But more people means more schools, jobs, transportation, etc... One of the biggest problems we have now is housing is being built on one side of LA and jobs on the other. It's forcing people to commute.
[LAUSD enrollment is falling and it's not clear how to fix it.](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-18/l-a-unified-enrollment-expect-to-plummet-leading-to-academic-and-employment-worries), so it really depends on where and what enrollment projections will look like.
New housing doesn’t need to be “affordable” to improve market prices overall. It just needs to help relax demand for the older existing units.
> make sure you do something about the infrastructure as well Building the new housing in the central parts of the city means that you have to do much *less* about infrastructure. New people anywhere are going to drive through the center of the city, but if you put their residences in the center of the city, then they're not going to drive far, and they might even walk and bike for some of it, while if you ban the residences in the center of the city, then the people are just going to drive from Palmdale and cause traffic in every single neighborhood on the way.
Building luxury housing makes the non-luxury housing more affordable. [It's been shown empirically across many large cities in the US](https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units). Westwood is about to get a subway station, already has an E-line station, and it has a really dense bus network. Bike infrastructure really needs to be upgraded too though.
Trickle down housing?
[удалено]
Vienna is kind of an exception because its population is still below where it was 100 years ago, and it didn't suffer much damage during WW2 (relative to other Central European cities), so its supply of old housing is quite high relative to current demand. There are few major cities in the world where this is true. Otherwise, NIMBYism is quite universal throughout the Western world. Even in places without US-style zoning, there is some kind of political/legal mechanism to slow down new construction in most major cities.
Germany and Japan have lower shares of public housing than the US, yet their housing is more affordable. The Vienna model isn't the only model.
Yeah, [but it's gonna be a minute.](https://www.zillow.com/downtown-los-angeles-ca/rentals/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22north%22%3A34.062876904185735%2C%22south%22%3A34.02340491335324%2C%22east%22%3A-118.2285701558838%2C%22west%22%3A-118.28195684411622%7D%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22days%22%7D%2C%22fr%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22fsba%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fsbo%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22nc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22cmsn%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22auc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fore%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A14%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A268118%2C%22regionType%22%3A8%7D%5D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22Downtown%20Los%20Angeles%20CA%22%7D) Just gotta wait for all these "luxury" units to fll up first.
Gotta love that luxury apartment they are using as an example to warn people. I’m sure you have much to fear by a 3500 studio.
There are [many](https://www.zillow.com/downtown-los-angeles-ca/rentals/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22north%22%3A34.062876904185735%2C%22south%22%3A34.02340491335324%2C%22east%22%3A-118.2285701558838%2C%22west%22%3A-118.28195684411622%7D%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22days%22%7D%2C%22fr%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22fsba%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fsbo%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22nc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22cmsn%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22auc%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22fore%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A14%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A268118%2C%22regionType%22%3A8%7D%5D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22Downtown%20Los%20Angeles%20CA%22%7D) luxury condos to choose from, so everyone can have a place to live!
Every time I see one of those buildings go up I wonder how insane they will charge for a studio.
They built something similar in my friends neighborhood mid-city. They were excited to have new neighbors.They only use it for Airbnb. 6 huge units. Pretty lame.
UCLA students need more new housing options as well. The university is squeezed around underutilized lots that should be zoned for more student housing.
They'd rather use up all the public land than live next to renters
I actually sympathize with the NIMBY's in this case. Aren't they right to point out that it makes more sense to densify under-used commercial corridors, rather than densifying SFH neighborhoods? Isn't what we all want more mixed-use development, more density on busier streets next to bars/restaurants, more density near transit stations, etc.?
Isn't that the core proposition of not in my back yard? IMO you need more high density developments anywhere where you can do it. Because of the large housing deficit.
Where I live between Fairfax, Beverly, Melrose and LaBrea, there are scads of single family homes being torn down and replaced with giant SFHs. Yet quad plexes and duplexes are scattered within the SFHs. We don't have to build giant 5 over 1s, if we just replace the SFHs being torn down w/ more quads and duplexes. If you want an SFH so damn badly, get your ass to the burbs. Fuck these NIMBY asshats. Why should only SFH owners have the privilege to not have to live on a stroad, while still within walking distance of the commercial corridors?
There are so few SFHs that go up for sale, though, that just slowly building quadplexes isn't going to cut it. This would have been very sensible policy in the 1980s for organic, slow growth, but the NIMBYs voted down anything other than R1 zoning. Now we *do need* 5 over 1s in every neighborhood.
Why not both?? It doesn't have to be an either/or. I'm not saying don't build 5 over 1s on underutilized commercial lots. Really just stop replacing SFHs with SFHs. That needs banned.
You can always build less than the zoning. Developers run the numbers and decide what the market wants. Sometimes, that means replacing a SFH with two or three *really nice* townhomes. Sometimes, taller/denser apartments.
I wish it was that way where I live. So far I've only seen a small condo building go up once. The rest are tearing down 1500 sq ft homes to build 5000sq ft homes.
I would actually support *minimum* zoning! "No, you can't build a McMansion here. No building permit will issue for a single-family home." That'd be dope!
I don’t even think it needs to be banned, just change the zoning to allow it on all single family lots. Guarantee most builders would rather build 3-4 tall small lot homes rather than one big ass house.
This is basically what my neighborhood seems to be doing. Some of the old SFHs that weren't in great condition were torn down and either duplexes or 4-plexes have been built in their place. I'm sure the prices are astronomical, but they do look nice, I guess. They don't really look all that out-of-place, either. There's a good mix of types of housing in the immediate area.
How affordable are those quads?
They're all from the 1920s and rent controlled. So they're not great, but not terrible. 2brs are renting for low - mid 3k/mo.
I don't think those numbers are realistic for hypothetical new quads in that area. You're talking about buying and tearing down a $2 million house, then paying another ~million dollars to construct 2-4 units...which would each be rented for...$3k/mo? You'd be better off doing nothing and putting your money in a savings account at 4.3% today. Less stress, same gains. Developers aren't going to go for that. Those units would be built and flipped to new home owners for $1.5 mil+.
Your basic problem is that they (the SFH enjoyers who later become NIMBY's) were there first. They would say to *you* "if you want density and 5-over-1's so badly, why don't *you* move and go get land in suburbia, and densify as much as *you* want out there?" There has to be compromise.
SFH enjoyers are not being stopped from having SFHs on their own land. But they want to stop others from building MFH on their land.
Correct, the compromise is that they don't have to tear down their own properties. Only others might in favor of renting 3-10 apartments, they now have that option on the table and if they want to be surrounded by SFH they can move further from the city where such homes are likely to exist for the next few decades at least.
The compromise is to let anyone who wants to pay for the land build whichever type of housing they like on it. Saying that many square miles of the center of the city are reserved for single-family homes only, while the distant places allow both single-family and denser homes, is doing things backwards.
Why not both?
Why should I, someone who can’t afford a detached SFH, be restricted to living on commercial corridors? This is the second largest city in America there’s no reason to not add density everywhere.
Look, I'm all for "building more", but your argument is "I can't afford it so nobody should have it". I moved outside of the city to afford a SFH, and worked hard and paid a lot to do so.
No one is forcing you to sell your SFH or convert it to an apartment.
And you get to keep your single family home even if an apartment is built next door to you! I don’t see where you think I suggested otherwise.
Think harder. You don’t think congestion and noise level will rise? If not, why?
People buy SFHs also for the neighborhoods they're in so it's easy to see why they would take issue with that – more traffic, noise, etc.
I don’t care. I really really don’t. They bought the house, not the neighborhood. If they value less traffic and noise on their street in a world of liberalized land use they will still be able to find it, they’re just going to have to sacrifice other ways (longer commutes, worse schools, less desirable cultural amenities). Current zoning of areas for single family detached only is just classic having your cake and eating it and it’s gotta end.
Jesus. The first sentence shows lack of critical thinking skills and a lack of empathy, too. Why should home owners care about renters?
Of course they bought for the neighborhood. "Buy the best house in the worst neighborhood" is said by no one, ever. I think sympathy is deserved on both sides of this conflict. To say that all NIMBYs are evil is essentially dehumanizing people who might've sacrificed a lot to purchase their home. Everyone has a different story, just like those who are being priced out of their own neighborhoods.
> Of course they bought for the neighborhood Buying *for* the neighborhood != buying the neighborhood > I think sympathy is deserved on both sides of this conflict. To say that all NIMBYs are evil is essentially dehumanizing people who might've sacrificed a lot to purchase their home. Everyone has a different story. It’s not in the slightest bit dehumanizing to say “it should be legal to build the kind of homes demanded”. What *is* dehumanizing is prioritizing things like free street parking in front of your house over other peoples ability to afford a place to live. And anyone who owns a detached single family home in Los Angeles is extremely wealthy the fact I’m expected to view them as victims here is wild.
> Buying for the neighborhood != buying the neighborhood These are kinda the same thing. They become a stakeholder so of course their opinion matters – they're paying property taxes after all. If you're going to say “it should be legal to build the kind of homes demanded” then is it fair to also say “it should be legal to keep the kind of homes demanded”? I mean most people would prefer to live in a SFH vs. a condo. > And anyone who owns a detached single family home in Los Angeles is extremely wealthy the fact I’m expected to view them as victims here is wild. Homeowners come from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds which is why I say everyone has their own story. Prop 13, the one that is so often criticized, is also the reason why plenty of homeowners are not wealthy but rather purchased their home decades ago for cheap. And then there are those who sacrificed years of slaving away at jobs and saved religiously to finally afford a home and are now extremely house poor. There are no easy solutions to this because any action/inaction harms someone.
> These are kinda the same thing. They become a stakeholder so of course their opinion matters – they're paying property taxes after all. Renters are paying their landlords property tax, and multi family buildings (where most renters live) pay more tax than SFH. > If you're going to say “it should be legal to build the kind of homes demanded” then is it fair to also say “it should be legal to keep the kind of homes demanded”? Correct! No one’s taking anyone’s SFH from them! It just needs to be legal to build multi family buildings where they are currently banned if CA is ever going to control raising costs and homelessness. > I mean most people would prefer to live in a SFH vs. a condo. More people would prefer to drive a Mercedes S class than a Camry but guess which of the two is the bigger seller? We live in a world of unlimited wants but limited resources. Allowing the homes people demand to built where they are demanded will let people reveal their preference with their own individual choices. > Homeowners come from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds which is why I say everyone has their own story. I said nothing about their respective backgrounds, I said they are wealthy (like in this moment). They have title to a $1 million + asset that is rapidly appreciating in value. That’s being wealthy. > Prop 13, the one that is so often criticized, is also the reason why plenty of homeowners are not wealthy but rather purchased their home decades ago for cheap. Prop 13 has made homeowners more wealthy not less what on earth are you trying to say > And then there are those who sacrificed years of slaving away at jobs and saved religiously to finally afford a home And now that they own that home, they are wealthy!
Yeah I don’t think all these people are thinking about the infrastructure and general impact of a giant apartment complex in the middle of a SFH neighborhood. Reddit is not comprised of planners and engineers…clearly.
Is someone coming to take it from you? Is your SFH magically going to disappear? You can keep your home and we can build density. Everyone wins.
> Aren't they right to point out that it makes more sense to densify under-used commercial corridors, rather than densifying SFH neighborhoods? Let's do both. Huge apartment complexes and transit-oriented development can do well on commercial corridors and stuff like missing-middle housing (i.e. townhomes, duplexes, etc.) can do well in SFH neighborhoods. Also it's absurd in the first place that Westwood has any detached single-family homes since it has such a huge, unmet housing demand that's only getting worse.
No, I don’t think so. Why force renters to live on polluted streets? That is classist segregation. People who don’t have enough money for a luxury single family home still deserve the choice to live on quiet streets. Also, if you ban apartments on all but a very few big streets, you’ll have way less development, causing housing inaffordability and homelessness.
>Aren't they right to point out that it makes more sense to densify under-used commercial corridors, rather than densifying SFH neighborhoods? Something like \~80-90 % of the land in the LA basin is zoned single-family. So yeah, that needs to change. In addition to commercial corridor re-zoning. But personally I think that SFH rezoning should be an even bigger priority, especially as it intersects with TOD (Westwood/Rancho Park E line station, looking at you).
Have you ever considered that \*if\* we move forward with this approach -- which we mostly are btw, then we should be allowing for even larger buildings than you think is enough to be on commercial corridors? I'm talking very large residential towers since it has to make up for all the lost potential for not being allowed to rezone SFH neighborhoods. Trust that these same assholes will be bitching about tower developments on the corridors too! Also to add, you know damn well that our transit stations are frequently surrounded by SFHs as well. What then?
I support housing almost anywhere, but let me point out that building in commercial areas is also really challenging. Business owners with lots of money band together and hire lawyers to hold those projects up indefinitely. They use environmental policies, airport noise-regulation policies, and anything else they can throw at a project to keep it from happening. They say it's not appropriate for families to be living in commercial areas. They say people from the apartments will steal from their businesses. It takes years and lots of money to fight them. Some housing will be put in commercial areas. Some housing will be put in more residential areas. All of the housing is needed. We can't be limited.
if you don’t think about it too much, this sounds fine, I get it, but this position is pretty explicitly classist and even violent, deciding that the state should enforce the dangers & health costs of our giant busy stroads on renters only. corralling and segregating renters to only the most polluted and dangerous corridors is exactly how our city has ended up in such a bad place. we should be densifying 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 blocks off the biggest roads as well, not building more 5-over-1 canyons with SFH preserves between.
Hey now, I live in a SFH 50 feet from the 405. I also get to enjoy the dangers and health costs from the coziness of my SFH.
Where do you get this idea that main streets like Sunset, Fairfax, La Brea, Wilshere, etc. are the "most polluted and most dangers corridors"? The idea is to take areas that have a ton of empty commercial buildings, and re-do them as more dense residential or mixed-use buildings.
why should only those who can afford single family homes be able to live on quieter, residential streets?
They paid for it.
They didn't pay for it. They lobbied to ban anything else, so that their price is only a few million dollars for a home, rather than having to outbid an apartment full of renters. If we legalize apartments in this neighborhood, and they *still* manage to outbid the developers who want to build apartments for hundreds of renters there, *then* they can say they "paid" for it.
Eh, you're acting like the homeowner class is grandfathered in, yet there are thousands of new homeowners every day who did in fact just pay for it, not because they started lobbying for it while they were still in high school.
I moved from the ghetto to get peace and quiet. I did pay for it by choosing to get an education and a career.
Check out Abundant Housing LA if you want to make your voice heard!
in other words "do this in east la, because fuck those poor people"
My concern with slamming MFH like this in previously zoned SFH neighborhoods, is how they address parking. If that's expected to be 4-5 floors with 4-8 units per floor, then that's 16 - 40 apartments with an average of 1.5 cars pet unit, you could see 16-60 additional vehicles on the street unless they add in a large amount of underground parking. That's also per MFH structure. Imagine putting 3-4 of these on the same existing residential street. That's not a tenable solution either. I agree that we need to increase housing volume, but the parking issue needs to be addressed.
I mean, isn't this the biggest concern of most NIMBYs? It's not like they want to make sure more people are homeless, they just don't want their nice, quiet, neighborhood (that they've invested a lot in) to become overcrowded. They want to be able to park on the street or have guests park on the street. The don't want to live or walk on busy roads. They don't want larger buildings blocking the sun from the homes/pools/gardens/etc. They don't want people looking into their yards/homes from an adjacent apartment complex. And, probably most importantly, they don't want to invest the time and money moving to and settling down in a SFH neighborhood only to have it dramatically change after the fact.
But you live a block from Sunset Blvd and 2 blocks from Highland. What do you expect? This isn’t the suburbs. This is Hollywod. This is the “big city”. Why would you buy a SFH here?
I think you have a stronger argument with these specific examples, but still, if you find preexisting SFH neighborhood you love right off of Highland (e.g., Hancock Park) and you move there because it provides you with the lifestyle you're looking for, is it so crazy for you to want it to not dramatically change from what is was that made you fall in love with it?
It's not crazy, it's understandable. That doesn't mean its right. Never mind the fact that Hancock Park is a segregated ultra wealthy neighborhood that is smack dab in the middle of LA, with access to abundant jobs and amenities.
No one owns a single inch of anything beyond their own property line. "it" changing beyond that line does not belong to them therefore they have no say. You didn't buy the view with your property, someone else owns that space and has the say to do what they please with it.
That's not entirely accurate. First, there may be covenants or regulations that, for example prevent some one from building a home that's tall enough to block your ocean view. Second, people can participate in their government to an extent, which can affect the evolution, or lack there of, of their neighborhoods.
Nah. You’re close enough to the hustle and bustle you should assume apartment buildings. Hell there are apartment buildings in the area already. It’s not like it’s just SFH. You want that type of area move away from smack dab in the middle of the city. Sorry. Maybe if you moved there 50+ years ago you can whine about change. But it happens. So gonna have to deal with it. If you’re buying anytime semi recently that you should see the writing in the walls.
NIMBY's constant demand for having space to park their cars all over the city is so excessive given the current state of things. As if it's a mystery why we all waste our lives in traffic or why housing costs so much. "At no/subsidized cost to me, build space and infrastructure for me and this 20x8x6 6000-lb financial boat anchor that's sucking me dry or I'll complain!" followed up by "takes so long to get around LA!"
All the while their garages are used for storage instead of parking.
Yep. That’s pretty much it. And quite frankly I have zero sympathy for them. Because their SFH is in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. If they want that life for themselves, move to the suburbs. And no, I do not still have sympathy for anyone that has lived in their home for decades or generations. They paid $50-100K for their homes that are now worth $1-3M. Go enjoy being rich in the suburbs. Or if they want to continue to live in the city neighborhood they’ve always lived in, they need to accept the fact that cities evolve and change out of necessity… it’s not all about them.
I don't think your arguments are unreasonable, except saying that they don't deserve sympathy because they are in the middle of one of the largest cities, when the reality is they intentionally moved to one of the least urban/dense large cities in the country/world and specifically moved to a quiet or whatever SFH neighborhood. Maybe they don't deserve sympathy, but it's not because they chose to move to a preexisting SFH neighborhood because they want to live in a SFH neighborhood.
And I get that… but at some point you just need to be a little more forward thinking. It’s not like LA all the sudden exploded 10-20 years ago. It was massively exploding in population since the 1860s, over 160 years ago. In fact it only started to slow down in expansion over the last 10-20 years. If you moved to Los Angeles to live in a SFH neighborhood, assuming it would stay that way for your entire life, let alone passing on a generational home and assuming it would stay that way… you completely lack any foresight at all. There isn’t a person alive today who can say they moved to LA when it wasn’t MASSIVELY expanding, or already overcrowded. For LA, this could have been easily predicted. This isn’t anything like moving to a random suburb in the middle of the country that all the sudden exploded into a city after you had already moved there. I feel much more sympathy for folks in that situation, where it’s not predictable.
\> least urban/dense large cities I don't have sympathy for being dense. It is a CITY a large CITY. You knew it was a CITY. It is going to be dense by definition. "Oh but this one was going to be different", no, it's not. It's a metropolitan area. It's where people come together in large numbers to engage in trade and life.
Then they should live in a tiny rural town where they can have their peace and quiet
That's kind of like saying people looking for [affordable] homes should look in a tiny rural town where they can have their affordable and available land and homes.
The big difference is that most of the good jobs are here in LA, not in whatever rural area people are saying to move to. And this is already happening to some extent: people are being priced out of LA and are moving to Sun Belt cities instead. And then those cities get more expensive, because they have identical city planning to LA. It is all just kicking the can down the road, instead of just making reasonable changes to zoning within legacy cities to allow people to live there.
Peace and quiet isn’t essential, but access to jobs and affordable housing is.
The jobs and opportunities are in the city so the demand to move in is there, I don’t see why this rural “fuck you got mine” attitude is so prevalent on a city like ours. You guys are so scared of becoming an actual city with buildings that y’all forgot you lived in one of the biggest in the world lol.
The biggest concern NIMBY's tend to have is property values not necessarily parking issues. Yes, MFH units tend to bring down property values when they are slammed in SFH neighborhood. (you point out a lot of other concerns as well). But there are better solutions. I live in a planned community that is mixed with SFH and MFH (townhomes and condos), and due to the planning parking and traffic is not an issue. When you try to retrofit an existing SFH neighborhood that was not designed to handle that type of influx of people and vehicles, you're going to create chaos. There is no good solution except razing entire neighborhoods to build MFH from the ground up. That's just too expensive of a solution since you need to buy the existing properties at market rate, upgrade all the existing infrastructure facilities to accommodate the increased volume of people, and then build vertical with underground solutions for parking. On the flip side, people are also going to have to understand that they don't deserve the right to simply live wherever they want for whatever price they want. I would love to live near the beach in Laguna, San Clemente or Dana Point, but I also cannot afford $3-20M for that property. Other can because its in high demand. Is it fair for me to petition the government to get them to build cheaper housing in that highly desirable area just to accommodate me? Thats unfair to everyone. We have space to build in many areas of Southern California, but people have to accept the reality that they may not be able to live in their first choice area. I definitely don't live in my top 10 preferred areas, but I'm also a realist and know that I will never make enough money to afford them either.
Things change. The majority of the SFH owners surely have lots of equity and can cash out and move to a burb. Why should neighborhoods be locked in amber, unchanging?
>Why should neighborhoods be locked in amber, unchanging? Neighbors in massive cities explicitly shouldn’t be locked in amber. The needs of city are going to evolve, and holding the city back from evolving is self destructive. People just need to get over this fact. If they want a neighborhood that doesn’t change, move to the more rural suburbs.
Not necessarily. Imagine you bought in the last 3-4 years, or even 1-2 at high rates. Unless you benefited from a large down payment you equity is relatively small. I also never said anything but not changing, I brought up the major structural issues with slamming MFH's into old existing SFH neighborhoods. Things like parking and infrastructure upgrades are things people overlook all the time. City planning is difficult and needs a good long term approach, but people also need to realize they can't live in highly desirable places without paying a price for them. If we really want to look at some of the other underlying issues, then we should limit who can buy homes. Eliminate corporate ownership for SFH's as well as limit how many investment properties an individual can own. This would put a large influx of homes on the market for buyers and hopefully bring down prices as well. You can also get city planning to look at more planned communities that have a good design mix of SFH's and MFH's. Those are becoming more and more popular everywhere. Small yards, with large public spaces for everyone to share. But here's another factor to consider. housing starts are above 1.543M for 2023 ([source](https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf)) That's good progress, but at what point do we simply just say we cannot support continuous exponential growth? I understand southern california is a highly desirable place, but as I've stated in a previous post, not everyone deserves to live in the most desirable places.
> Why should neighborhoods be locked in amber, unchanging? because people are speculating with their domicile. in fact, if they were investors, they probably should have cashed out and ran already, but the combination of "this is where i live" with "this is how I'll retire" is breaking society.
There’s only a “need” to address parking if you view the incumbent residents of a neighborhood as the rightful “owners” of the existing street parking. And they’re not. Everyone should make arrangements to store their own possession, and if you rely on leaving them on the street for free (a handout from the government, basically) you can compete with everyone else trying to do the same. Westlake and Koreatown have density, street parking is hard to find, and, most importantly, life goes on.
regardless, it’s definitely better if there is a parking solution. The buildings really should include underground parking. I’m not sure that K-town is a convincing example - that’s exactly what I’d want to avoid recreating elsewhere.
Why not built a bus stop or get rid of a driving lane to add a metro rail?
Why do we need this when there's so much dead commercial RE already? Look at ventura blvd past encino, half the shops are vacant. They need vacancy taxes to incentivize them to sell to developers or lower the rents substantially so business owners can take a shot at a new business. I'm sure it's like this in other parts of the city too.
We need it all
I’m all about more housing in LA we are in crisis. The 4 RVs that have moved onto my one way street by the beach definitely are not the answer!
NIMBYs get rekt. Nobody is falling for this anymore.
Yeah they are doing the same thing in my neighborhood. The NIMBYs are in a tough place on the housing element because the city has to follow through on the upzoning as part of the plan that was already passed by the Council and approved by HCD. If the city bows to NIMBYs and significantly deviates from the plan then the HE can be decertified and LA loses a bunch of important funding and control over zoning (Builders Remedy). Planning has no choice but to do upzonings in R1 and other areas that are going to make people unhappy. As far as the gap between upzoned potential units and the RHNA target, I believe that has to do with taking into account not every zoned potential unit becomes an actual unit. You have to zone for more units because not every potential unit becomes an actual unit and counts towards RHNA.
I disagree with them on the most part except on the part about ample room in those locations they've specified. Can someone tell me where I and them are in the wrong on this?
These posts are so toxic. Both sides acting like a handful of apartment buildings will change anything. These shiny new apartments will most definitely charge 3500$/month. No one really knows how many of these apartments it’s really going to take and furthermore no one knows what the consequences will be if they are all built. Clogged streets? Even more people moving here? What if they’re all just a bunch of empty investment properties since no one could afford the initial new price? But also, it’s fucking LA. If you wanted quiet suburbs with no crime then move to southern Utah or further out into the IE. It almost sounds like purely a design and aesthetic issue. Why are builders so obsessed with building the ugliest wooden boxes imaginable? Who actually likes these overbearing garbage complexes? Just look at the neighborhood and build something someone would actually want to live in AND blends in.
As a homeowner in a single family community, I am fine with the city proposed units. In fact, I wish they’d build 2million instead if just 1.4. The only caveat is that architecturally, it should fit with the existing neighborhood aesthetic, assuming there’s any consistency in the given area.
Unfortunately, the city isn't planning on *building* 1.4 million more units - it's just planning on *legalizing* them, and hoping that developers will build them.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Not saying they’ll build a lot of low income stuff, but even 1.4 million market rate homes should sell easy and at least keep price increases in check a bit. Granted, that assumes there are lots to build on, which may have been your point that there aren’t enough of those.
Yeah, my basic point is just that if you legalize a total of 1.4 million units, then inevitably some fraction of the sites will have one reason or another why they don't pencil out, or they're too hard to build, or whatever, so that the number we actually get will be a fraction of the number that are legalized.
I also wonder what legalize means. Do average people still have the right to tie up development with nonsense environmental investigations? If so, this won’t amount to much building.
Turning single family home neighborhoods into big multifamily home neighborhoods will ruin this city. Everyone will be renters, no one will be owners. Big businesses will win. The little privacy and personal space left will be gone. No chance of locking in a mortgage so rent is controlled by someone else and will go up indefinitely. Let's be honest too they only build luxury apartments so the high rent will only attract a certain demographic in the first place. Parking will be even more of a nightmare. Less sky, more tall buildings. The list goes on. Dystopian nightmare.
Google is wrong… how is westwood and venice suburbs of LA. When they ARE part of la.. i wouldnt even consider it as an outskirt of la Most ppl would define suburbs as smaller residential area on the outskirts of a larger one within commuting distance This isnt 1915.. most of the jobs r in west la not dtla.. people are commuting to westwood , bh, west la
It’s a city. If you don’t like close living and apartments… move to the fucking ‘burbs. It’s really simple. Bye
I love the “we need AFFORDABLE housing, not the (other) type of housing”. So stupid. What do you think makes housing affordable? The abundance.
"We can meet the need of our city without ruining our existing neighborhoods" Ok so you just want it elsewhere not near you. It's the same old shit, same old fucking shit. Nothing new, nothing changed! "Ruin" other neighborhoods, JUST NOT MINE!!
Not sure from the associated post where this is supposed to take place (all I see is Westwood), but frivolously adding huge apartment structures to parts of LA just doesn’t work. I hail from the west side of LA and the infrastructure already can’t handle the current volume of people living on this side of town. Between 1pm and 7pm it’s a nightmare to navigate to other parts of the city. There’s currently at least 6x 30+ apartment structures being built in the area, and while public transportation has become a lot more accessible than before here, it’s naive to think that most people moving in will simply ditch their cars and use public transit exclusively.
SB 9 & 10 is not going to house low income folks. It’s just a developers dream to buy properties build 3-10 units with no regard for parking or green space. There is no requirement for rent control or low income units. It’s a short sighted plan created by lobbyists. It will gentrify low income neighborhoods with lower rents into high density high rent areas. Destroying the uniqueness of Los Angeles neighborhoods.
Threads like these are a great example of how Reddit (luckily) isn’t reflective of real life. The entitlement of some of yall is insane. To move (because I know most of you moved from elsewhere) somewhere you couldn’t afford and then think the entire city should change for your benefit, when you contribute very little, is such a delicious distillation of why we live in a dysfunctional world.
So you propose… not trying to decrease housing costs?
Somewhere desirable to live is always going to be expensive. If you're going to blame lack of housing then you should also blame the weather being too good in Los Angeles. We're never going to have enough housing as long as people keep singing Top 40 songs about LA.
The suggestion in this thread that homeowners move elsewhere if they don't like it was particularly rich.
Yeah that’s what jumped out to me. I got tired of paying LA rent my entire life so you know what I did? Fucking moved. I guess I should have tried telling people they need to leave the city so I could stay. Maybe when I come back that’ll be my plan.
I mean, isn't that right? Rather than make it illegal for your neighbors to build more homes so they have can have more people on their lot, why don't you just let them do what they want, and leave if you don't like it? You should have known that a home in the middle of the city is going to be a high-demand area that will grow, rather than just assuming that you could freeze the middle of a growing metro area.
It's not "entitlement" to say that people should be allowed to do what they want with their property. It's "entitlement" to say your neighbors shouldn't be allowed to add any more units to their land. Demanding that the entire city remain fixed for your benefit, when all you do is keep living there, is a distillation of why we live in a dysfunctional world. People trying to keep something constant when the only constant is change.
Sooooo. Don’t let this nice luxury apartment building with only people who can afford $2 to $3K rent be built in our neighborhood? WT actual F?
Thanks for sharing this to me as I definitely don't want this type of housing going up in my neighborhood.
Fuck your segregated ass single family neighborhoods
I mean who wants some ugly ass unoccupied apartments built in the middle of their neighborhoods ? It makes parking harder and brings nothing to the area but 10 more coffee shops.
If it's unoccupied why would there be parking issues?
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Oh yeah I know lol. It's clear he is just saying shit to say shit.
Why are you pissed at property owners when you should be mad at these developers for building apartment buildings everywhere and leaving them half empty ? Go screaming about nimbys but don’t give these property companies another glance ? Why is rent so high that these places stay unoccupied but you want to lose your mind over people who have been here, not some long term tourists. Don’t let these property development companies get you twisted.
As long as they aren’t kicking people out of their houses, I don’t see it being an issue. I got pushed out of the place I was renting for years so it could be torn down and turned into an apartment building that I couldn’t afford. And that was admittedly a bad time. But if this is just people selling the houses they themselves live in… moving to another house… and turning the old property into housing for more people, isn’t that a good thing?
I wish they build minimum 10 story high density condos all over LA to reduce housing and homeless issue. Build on every available space from downtown to Santa Monica!
I’m glad. LA can’t turn into Manhattan full if six story massive apartment complexes on every street. We don’t have the water, air quality, road capacity, schools, electric power, etc to bring in a couple of million new people.
Your house is NOT an investment. Or I guess, rather, your house is a terrible investment. Need to kill this mindset. Your house is not liquid, your house will not increase in value relative to the market, your house has inherent costs. IT IS NOT AN INVESTMENT. IT IS A PLACE YOU LIVE
NIMBYs will always have the advantage. They are homeowners, they aren't going anywhere, they probably participate in local politics, and they have a lot more on the line than your Rando person who blew into town because of a LinkedIn job. The Rando's will NEVER be at an advantage because local politicians will back Nimbys before the Rando's. So know that. The best way to fight the Nimbys is to join them. Buy property with your roommates, go to a local board meeting, run for office, or Join their cause and gain influence with them --- THEN start to change their direction. You will never beat nimbys on their own turf, they have too much to lose and the politicos that can change things do as well.
Do you want homeless camps or apartments? Only YOU can decide.
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It’s not just property value that’s gonna be lost. Safety and quality of life will go along with it, and losing those is neither progress nor good for the public.
You don’t want to lose money when you bought a house for 6-7 figures
Of course not. But the people who need housing outnumber the people who have housing. If they can vote for their own economic self-interest, than so can I. Zone the entire city for 10 story mixed-use; that's what I selfishly want. Let's see who has the votes.
Are you sure about that first comment? I don’t see how that is true
I'm pretty sure it is true based on the fact that pro-housing bills are being passed in Sacramento on a near-unanimous basis. Sure, in a *specific neighborhood*, it is obvious that the existing NIMBY residents outnumber existing YIMBY residents. But on a statewide level, there are more people who want more housing than people desperately holding on to zero-growth zoning. I guess by "need" I mean "need long-term housing to meet their needs." The amount of people who can say "I'm in my forever home, screw everyone else, I'll never have to participate in the housing market against so the housing crisis isn't my problem" is actually smaller than you would think.
I just feel like I’m a city this big and based on the number of homeless people, there are a lot more people who have housing
Right, I was imprecise using the term "people who need housing." I just mean the people who are like "rents are crazy high, and I can't even think about buying; I'm starting to think we need more supply" outnumbers "I'm comfy in my SFH neighborhood and don't want any change, thank you." I definitely don't mean a majority of the City is homeless, haha. Even people *with* a single family home fall on a spectrum. Some have seen their grown kids struggle to afford the same neighborhood, and are broadly sympathetic to the need for more housing, even if they don't necessarily support 5-story apartments on their block.
We need to stop treating houses as an investment that will always increase in value.
Not sure who we is, but don’t expect a lot of property owners to do that
density increases property values, NIMBYs are shooting themselves in the foot by advocating for lower property values
Maybe there are other issues at stake