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L.A. Inclusionary Zoning Coalition
Tenants, unions, non-profit housing developers, religious and community
groups have come together to form the Los Angeles Inclusionary Zoning
Coalition to promote inclusionary zoning in the City of Los Angeles.
The
LA IZ Coalition supports inclusionary zoning as an effective strategy
for addressing the housing crisis. Many local governments use inclusionary
zoning to require developers to include a number of affordable units
whenever
they build apartments or homes.
Inclusionary zoning:
- Creates more affordable housing units. The goal
of the inclusionary zoning is to create more affordable housing opportunities
when new housing is constructed. The City’s Housing Element calls
for construction of 8,000 units/year, about half of them affordable
to families earning about $27,000/year. The City is falling far short
of this goal each year.
- Creates and preserves mixed-income neighborhoods.
The goal is to create more affordable housing in all neighborhoods where
new development is taking place. It is a critical strategy for higher
income neighborhoods where few affordable developments exists, as well
as lower income areas where new apartments are far too expensive for
current residents. In both cases, inclusionary zoning will ensure that
new development does not entirely exclude low income and working people.
- Serves low-income and working people. Affordable
housing created through inclusionary zoning should serve the people
who are hardest hit by rising rents: individuals and families with incomes
below 50% of median income. People working in the following occupations
generally earn less than that: fast food workers, garment workers, cashiers,
nurse’s aides, security officers, janitors, telemarketers, dental
assistants, truck drivers, receptionists, data entry clerks, and sales
agents. That would be a single person earning about $9/hour; a couple
earning $1,840/month; a family with three people an income of about
$24,800/year and a four-person family with about $27,000/year.
The LA IZ Coalition supports the following principles for an inclusionary
zoning policy for the City of Los Angeles:
- Citywide applicability. The City currently has inclusionary
zoning policies for Community Redevelopment Agency Project Areas and
in the Central City West planning area. A citywide inclusionary zoning
policy would ensure that new housing that is built is affordable to
people across a range of incomes throughout the city, rather than further
segregating our city along economic lines. It would offer some protection
from gentrification to low-income areas.
- Mandatory requirement. Voluntary inclusionary zoning
ordinances have not proven effective in Los Angeles or other places.
The City has an affordable housing incentives package that includes
density bonuses and parking reductions for private developers who agree
to build some affordable units in their projects. Although affordable
housing developers use these incentives regularly, developers building
market rate housing rarely do.
- Benefits to developers to offset costs of affordable units.
Inclusionary zoning needs to contain benefits to developers
to offset the added costs of building the affordable units. Such bonuses
could include: density bonuses, reduced parking, relaxed height and
yard requirements, expedited processing and waiver or delayed payment
of City-imposed fees.
- In-lieu fees that accurately reflect the cost of construction.
A frequent problem that hinders the effectiveness of many
inclusionary zoning ordinances is the setting of an in-lieu fee at
a level that
does not reflect the cost of constructing an equivalent number of
units. In these cases, the vast majority of developers satisfy the
requirement by paying the fee rather than constructing on-site. This
results in many fewer units of affordable housing being produced
than the number produced by an ordinance with a more realistic in-lieu
fee.
Members of the coalition include:
Join the Los Angeles Inclusionary
Zoning Coalition! Simply send a signed copy of the endorsement form to
the Coalition.
Download the endorsement form (Adobe
PDF 114 Kb)
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