LOS ANGELES (CNS) — The Los Angeles City Council Tuesday agreed to codify key provisions of Mayor Karen Bass' executive directive to streamline the process for developing affordable and supportive housing.
The council voted 12-0 to approve the motion, with members Curren Price and Monica Rodriguez absent from Tuesday's meeting.
Council members Katy Yaroslavsky, Nithya Raman and Council President Paul Krekorian introduced the motion, which permanently exempts 100% affordable housing proposals from the city's lengthy discretionary review process. Since the mayor signed the directive, it has "dramatically cut" approval time for those projects from an average of six months to just 37 days, officials said.
The council members introduced the motion to maintain provisions of the directive, which would have expired without council action.
The motion instructs the director of the Planning Department, with assistance from the city attorney's office, to prepare a draft ordinance within the next 90 days codifying the provisions of the executive directive to the "fullest legal extent permissible." The council will then take an additional procedural vote on the ordinance.
Yaroslavsky urged her colleagues to support her motion, saying that the city has approved less than 3% of the more than 184,000 very low and low-income units they committed to build by 2029. But with key provisions codified into city law, the city could approve affordable housing development six times faster, she said.
The councilwoman called the mayor's executive directive a "game changer" for the city, adding that the Planning Department approved 20 different 100% affordable and supportive housing projects in an average of 37 days compared to the normal six-months-plus wait time.
An additional 28 projects are in the pipeline, representing 2,600 new affordable housing units, officials said.
"The motion before you today is also a clear example of what happens when we cut red tape and accomplish critical work to make LA more affordable," Yaroslavsky said. "With this vote, we're taking a critical step forward making L.A. more affordable and a livable city."
In an earlier statement before Tuesday's vote, Yaroslavsky said the city's housing affordability crisis is partially "one of its own making."
"ED1 (Executive Directive 1) changed that by dramatically shortening the time it takes to get shovels in the ground, and new affordable housing built. We can't go back to the way it was before — we must take swift action and enshrine ED1 into law," she added.
The motion was approved by the Housing and Homeless Committee last week.
Yaroslavsky and Raman also introduced a related motion, which delegates authority to the Los Angeles Housing Department to approve funding for affordable housing projects requesting less than $25 million in city contributions — as long as they meet specific criteria.
The motion is intended to further reduce delays for development of affordable housing projects. According to Yaroslavsky's office, the two motions represent one of the "most ambitious affordable housing streamlining packages in recent city history."