Simple Solutions to Mitigate L.A.’s Housing Affordability Crisis

LA is clearly a horizontally-developed city that provides residents with minimal options to get across town in a convenient, efficient manner. So says Viktor Simco, an associate director of Venice, CA-based Paloma Realty Partners Inc. Simco tells GlobeSt.com that in the private sector, Elon Musk is paving the way by building underground transportation tunnels and from the public sector, LA residents have been voting in favor of metro expansion (i.e. Crenshaw/LAX line, Purple Line extension, Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor, and the Gold Line).

According to Simco, with the housing affordability crisis only becoming more exacerbated, “we need to find synergistic solutions to mitigate traffic congestion and our housing shortage.”

What is the Risk?

If we don’t utilize these billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars with a scalable, long-lasting solution by building more affordable housing near our train stations over this next decade, we could be facing an embarrassing LA Olympics of 2028, says Simco. “Let us demystify density by explaining the determinants of transit ridership and shed some light on how zoning and land use regulation influence both ridership and housing prices.”

Backed by the Senate Bill 50 and UC Berkeley’s density/income interactive map recently released, he notes that policymakers across LA are advancing a vision for a city less reliant on private automobiles and in which more people move about by public transit, walking, shared transportation, and cycling. “This transformation requires land use changes to go along with transportation investment that can allow more residents to live near stations and foster amenity-rich, flourishing neighborhoods. Since LA is suffering from an acute shortage of housing, manifested in the form of crippling rent burdens for all renters and extreme hardships among the people with the least means, this strategy would pay a double-dividend by not only giving a boost to our transit system, but also help alleviate the region’s housing crisis.”

According to Simco, a well-designed transit-oriented density bonus like the TOC program has shown significant increases in much-needed affordable housing production. “Given increasing housing demand and a population influx throughout the State, California’s housing supply is short approximately 3,500,000+ units. With rents at astronomical rates in comparison to median income, single family homes and under-utilized land within a ½ of metro rail stations have become nonsensical. For those scared of “Manhattan-style” skyscrapers near train stations, fear not. While we do find the biggest gains in housing production would come in larger scale apartment buildings (20+ units), a great deal of additional housing can come in smaller building types (5-20 units).”

According to Simco, it comes to no surprise that residents living closer to transit are 30% more likely to ride transit. “From a public health perspective, we need to get people walking and cycling more. People living near suburban commercial centers make 2.7x more walking trips per day than residents near less retail-dense suburban commercial strips. Sustainably speaking, living in a denser, transit- and jobs-rich neighborhood can cut vehicle miles traveled by up to 49%. Transit combined with a walk or bike ride compared to driving alone reduces GHG emissions per trip by up to 95%.”

From an environmental perspective, he says, residents in multi-family housing use 56% less energy and 2.5x less water than those living in single-family homes.

A Few Solutions?

Many of LA’s transit lines follow former freight rail corridors and include industrially-zoned land near our train stations; this zoning can be converted to mixed-use, which would prioritize light-industrial and other production uses while allowing some live/work housing, explained Simco.

“To encourage ridership, zoning close to transit stations should allow at least medium-density residential zoning, aiming for an average of 75 units/acre within a ¼ mile of stations and 25-50 units/acre between ¼ and ½ mile. An important caveat to this recommendation is that local governments should preserve existing rent-stabilized apartments,” he says. “Tenant protection near stations areas should be strengthened by just cause eviction protections, right to return policies for new developments that replace existing homes and tenants, and deed-restricted affordable housing in new development.”

Simco continues that we also need to reduce minimum lot area requirements near transit so that small/medium-scale developers can participate in building near transit stops. “Dramatically reducing parking requirements for developments near transit (especially for affordable and senior residences) can have the effect of discouraging automobiles by unbundling parking prices from rents, and encouraging transit ridership.”

Further, he tells GlobeSt.com, developers should be allowed to provide required parking off-site if it is within 1,000 feet of the development. City-owned property near transit should be turned into affordable housing, Simco says.

“LA’s TOC program is a great start, but we need more P3s (public-private-partnerships) in which the City provides more attractive incentives for developers to maximize the potential (while providing tenant protections) of all properties within a ½ mile of transit stations. These minor solutions can be the building blocks of an effective approach and brighter future for not only the city of LA, but other metropolitan areas experiencing the deadly duo of traffic congestion and a housing affordability crisis.”