Westside LA deserves more homes

LA's housing element is better than most. But it doesn't bring enough new homes to expensive, job-rich Westside. Good news: earlier this month, the City Planning Commission approved Los Angeles’ housing element update with recommendations surrounding strengthening tenant rights and environmental justice. This is a key step towards adoption of a plan that will encourage the production of over 450,000 new homes by 2029. Importantly, the housing element proposes to accommodate 250,000 of these homes through a bold, citywide rezoning strategy, and 45% of this new rezoned capacity would be created in higher-resource neighborhoods. This is critical: as we all know, little new housing has been built in high-income areas in recent years, due to restrictive zoning and NIMBY pressure. However, it’s important to note that the rezoning plan does little to encourage housing growth in many of the Westside’s most affluent and supply-constrained neighborhoods, like Sherman Oaks, Brentwood, Westwood, Venice, and Westchester. Under the current plan, these neighborhoods would only accommodate 7% of the citywide rezoning plan. This is unfair and illogical, especially given that these areas have extremely high housing costs, widespread single-family zoning, and near-zero housing growth.  Every neighborhood needs to do its fair share to fix Los Angeles’ housing crisis, and that includes affluent Westside neighborhoods too. Will you take one minute to send LA city council a message about this, and help make Westside more affordable and inclusive?  Email LA City Council Tell LA City Council: put solving our housing crisis above caving to a small fringe of Westside NIMBYs! LA's housing element will be voted on at the Housing Committee meeting this Wednesday. The Committee’s members as well as other council members should insist on amending the rezoning plan to rezone more parcels in high-income Westside neighborhoods. This can include legalizing 8 homes on more R1-zoned parcels in these neighborhoods, outside of environmentally sensitive or very high fire risk areas. This will also help to achieve the creation of 300,000 new homes through rezoning, a target set by Council President Nury Martinez and six other councilmembers. If you live or work in LA, use the tool below to send a 1-click email to LA City Council, and help bring more homes to the Westside! Email LA City Council Pasadena Housing Advocates Wed 10/27 | 6pm Westside for Everyone Thurs 10/28 | 7pm San Fernando Valley Thurs 10/28 | 6pm Friends of the Purple Line Friday 10/29 | 5pm Please email jaime@abundanthousingla.org" style="text-decoration: underline; color: #228ae6;" rel="noopener">Jaime Del Rio to attend local meetings.     Abundant Housing LA is presenting a 2-part workshop on LA County's housing and homelessness crisis in partnership with North Hollywood Neighborhood Council! What would a better housing future look like for LA, and how do we get there while making sure we equitably center communities, prevent displacement, and adapt to the climate crisis? Join us to learn about housing history and what YOU can do to advocate for housing in your community. We will cover: Overview of the racist history of exclusion in zoning and land use, with a focus on LA The relationship between housing scarcity, high housing costs, and homelessness The environmental impacts of scarcity, and why we need housing density to reach climate goals Planning for housing abundance while centering equity, community, and environmentalism - What opportunities exist for advocacy? What policies should we advance? RSVP here     Pro-housing rapid response team for LA City! What does it take to make it onto the pro-housing rapid response team? A few qualities we are looking for: Flexible schedule. Available to dial into important meetings and hearings during regular business hours. Passion for housing. Willing to learn about the significance of each action, and be the leading voice in support for housing even when nobody else is speaking up. Ears on the ground. Bring us intel about projects, policies, and action opportunities! Sign up here. These homeowners volunteer their backyards for tiny housing for homeless neighbors Fast Company Four years ago, the owners of a small single-family house in Seattle decided to volunteer the use of their backyard for something new: They let a nonprofit build a tiny sustainable home in the yard and helped a man who had been homeless for a decade move in, rent-free. He still lives there, having built a close relationship with the homeowners. And 11 other homeowners have followed, in a small but growing program called the Block Project. Continue reading Bogus "Historic" Districts: The New Exclusionary Zoning? Sightline Institute Under Oregon law, any building identified as “contributing” to a National Register district—whether or not its owner agrees that their structure “contributes”—can never be replaced without the express permission of the city. (Portland’s current code goes further: demolition actually requires a direct vote of city council.) The real-world effect of this, though, isn’t actually to give more authority to city council. It’s to create a process so unpredictable that almost no one will ever risk pursuing a project that requires something as discretionary as demolition review. Continue reading This week in... viewpoints Let's Pay Californians to Move/ Joe Mathews renters' rights Would a ‘Right to Counsel’ Law in Los Angeles Help Stave Off Evictions? / Jessica Goodheart global models  Lessons from Berlin / by rKaufman housing politics  Funding Fight Threatens Plan to Pump Billions Into Affordable Housing / by Glenn Thrush   Show your support for ending exclusionary zoning with a yard sign! And check out our brand new CafePress store with merch for everyone.  Abundant Housing LA 515 S Flower St. Floor 18 Los Angeles, CA, 90071 Too many emails? Update your email preferences here.  If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe.