Opinion: President Obama cares about L.A.’s housing crisis too

The slow-growth, anti-development sentiment sweeping Los Angeles isn’t just a problem for struggling renters and wannabe homeowners. It’s a threat to the national economy.

So says the Obama administration, which released a paper Monday calling on cities to loosen restrictions on new development. The problem is that certain cities and counties have increasingly put up barriers to new housing construction, through more restrictive zoning, height limits, parking requirements and excessively long approval processes. The result is that fewer homes are being built, often in areas with strong job growth. Little supply and lots of demand pushes up the cost of housing.

When families can’t find affordable housing in a city with good jobs, that slows labor mobility, exacerbates income inequality and stifles economic growth, the White House report said. High housing costs can push workers out of a job market or deter them from relocating for a job. Sharp increases in rent can price out longtime residents, causing them to uproot their families and move to cheaper regions. A tight housing market can force workers to commute long distances for their jobs, which isn’t good for air quality if they’re driving, not to mention the toll lengthy commutes can have on workers’ well-being and productivity.

That sure sounds like Los Angeles, which is among the least-affordable cities in the nation. Despite the housing crisis, voters in Santa Monica and Los Angeles will soon consider ballot measures that could dramatically cut the amount of housing development in the region. But the Obama administration warning also applies to San Francisco, Washington and New York, among other pricey cities and regions. These are “progressive, innovative places,” Cecilia Muñoz, assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council, wrote in an op-ed on the website Medium. They’ve adopted higher minimum wages and other policies designed to reduce income inequality. But residents and local leaders have also enacted restrictive land-use policies that make it harder for the next generation to afford a home and climb the ladder of opportunity.

To help prod cities into allowing more housing construction, the White House has offered a development tool kit for cities. Some of the suggestions have been floated this year in California with mixed success. Those include establishing by-right development, or making it harder for cities to deny or delay housing projects if they comply with local land-use law. Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a by-right development bill this year but was blocked by environmental groups, labor unions and local officials — none of which wanted to give up the power to kill projects or force concessions from developers. Others tools include eliminating off-street parking requirements, allowing accessory dwelling units (also known as “granny flats) and enacting inclusionary zoning that requires affordable housing units in market-rate development.

Land use is a local responsibility, and the federal government has limited power to make cities to build more housing. Still, the Obama administration is increasingly using the bully pulpit to tell urban progressives that if they care about income inequality, they ought to care about building more housing.

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