Opinion: A ‘linkage fee’ for developers isn’t as radical as detractors make it out to be

To the editor: Michael Manville, Paavo Monkkonen and Michael Lens write that Los Angeles’ proposed “linkage fee” on new developments would generate 225 units a year. They assume the city would pay for 100% of the proposed building. (“A better way to solve the housing crisis — tax land, not development,” Opinion, July 19)

This is not how affordable housing development works. When we put together the financing for a new project we leverage many sources together, which makes a project more competitive for public funds. In no instance does any one source of funds pay for the whole building.

This is why experts expect the linkage fee to support the construction of between 700 and 1,000 units a year. In the context of our deficit of 32,000 affordable units in the city, this is a meaningful impact.

The authors neglect to mention Proposition HHH, the recently passed city bond measure paid for by an assessment on our property taxes. That focuses on the chronically homeless, and the linkage fee would focus on those at the risk of homelessness due to the high cost of housing. These two strategies therefore work together.

The linkage fee is not a radical concept. Our homelessness crisis is our housing crisis, and we need to use every tool in the toolbox to address it, including the linkage fee.

Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, North Hollywod

The writer is president and chief executive of L.A. Family Housing.

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