Mayors Unite to Seek Cure for Housing Ills : Government: The 6 city leaders agree affordability and slow-growth push are key problems. A study is planned.
The search for solutions to the Westside’s critical shortage of affordable housing drew all six of the region’s mayors together Wednesday for a rare joint gathering.
The Westside Urban Forum, an association of developers, public officials and community activists, sponsored the breakfast meeting, attended by mayors Tom Bradley of Los Angeles, Judy Abdo of Santa Monica, Paul A. Jacobs of Culver City, Paul Koretz of West Hollywood, Vicki Reynolds of Beverly Hills and Larry Wan of Malibu.
Key elements of the problems, the mayors generally agreed, are the high cost of Westside real estate and the lingering sentiments in favor of slow growth.
Bradley said the lack of affordable housing has forced people of moderate income to endure long commutes to their jobs in Los Angeles. Other families, he noted, are living illegally in garages or crowding into apartments with other families.
“If we are going to preserve the diversity of our cities, it means we have to preserve the diversities of housing and make affordable housing a reality,” Bradley said.
He noted that the Los Angeles City Council this week approved the first citywide strategy aimed at solving the crisis in affordable housing touched off by immigration and skyrocketing housing costs over the past decade.
Koretz of West Hollywood and Abdo of Santa Monica talked about their city’s strong rent control laws and their insistence that builders provide low- and moderate-income units as part of their developments.
“A significant portion of the population could not afford to live in Santa Monica if not for rent control,” Abdo said.
In Culver City, where the population has been relatively stable over the years, Jacobs said his city is seeking to refurbish existing housing stock rather than building new low- and moderate-income buildings.
In Malibu, the city has imposed a moratorium on building until a general plan is written that will set a moderate plan for growth, Wan said. He said his city is concerned about what is going to happen with nearly 1,500 legal undeveloped lots in Malibu, the development of which could overwhelm the young city.
At one time, Wan said, mobile homes were considered affordable in Malibu. But now even mobile homes are selling for as much as $450,000 at some ocean-view locations. “People are buying them and using them as second homes,” he said.
Reynolds said that despite Beverly Hills’ reputation for affluence, it has many low-income senior citizens and families living in apartments. She said her city would like to seek a “more regional approach” to solving the problem.
A more regional approach to the problem is something that the Westside Urban Forum hopes to come up with in the near future.
“We are convinced that the solution of the affordable housing crisis is vital to the economic and social health of the Los Angeles region,” said James Watt McCormick, president of the forum, which was founded in 1985.
McCormick said the Urban Forum has been awarded a $75,000 grant to analyze rental housing programs and come up with a model city program to increase production of new affordable multifamily-rental housing. The cost of the grant was underwritten in part by the cities of Beverly Hills, Culver City, Santa Monica, Los Angeles and West Hollywood.
