Affordability Crisis Is a Transportation Issue

Stuart Gabriel is the Arden Realty Chair, Professor of Finance and Director at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate.

The housing affordability crisis is the hottest topic in commercial real estate. Experts from every niche are presenting solutions to the problem, from advocating for more mixed-income properties to pegging high-density legislation as the best solution. Stuart Gabriel, Arden Realty Chair, professor of finance and director at Richard S. Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA, thinks there is a range of solutions—both public and private—to solve housing affordability. While he agrees that affordability is ultimately a supply issue, he says that the problem is too large for the public sector to handle alone.

“The public sector alone has nothing close to the wherewithal or the capacity to deal with the magnitude of these issues,” Gabriel tells GlobeSt.com. “The creation of affordable housing can only occur in concert with the incentive structures that are available in the private sector and for private development. Without that, we are going to be talking about a cup of water in the Santa Monica Bay. In other words, we are going to be talking about solutions that may be symbolic but that are materially not adequate enough to deal with the magnitude of the problem.”