Jaw, Jaw, Jaw about Los Angeles Initiative JJJ

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PLATKIN ON PLANNING--In response to a recent email for my take on Los Angeles Initiative JJJ, I explained why I continue to oppose it. (For those overwhelmed by this election’s ballot, JJJ calls for a small percentage affordable units in market projects, which would be constructed through local and union labor.) 

My reply: 

Dear T., the JJJ Initiative for inclusionary housing appears to be a remarkable advance in a backward city like Los Angeles. But first impressions can be highly misleading. This is because JJJ is so tainted by loopholes that it will only result in a tiny fraction of the affordable housing units it supporters envisage. In fact, I fully expect that if LA voters adopt JJJ, some new apartment buildings will not contain any affordable units or employ more than a token number of unionized or local construction workers. 

These are JJJ’s unfortunate loopholes, as Jill Stewart previously exposed in City Watch: 

1) The “We don't think this developer is making enough profit” loophole.

Under JJJ, developers’ projects can be spot-zoned and spot-planned as long as they include some affordable housing. But, the City Council can declare the developer is not making “a reasonable return on investment” and then undo the affordable housing requirement. (JJJ Section 5, A, g) 

2) The “Forget about building affordable housing; just pay City Hall an in-lieu 'fee'” loophole.   Under JJJ, no affordable units need to be built inside these new towers, as long as the developer pays an “in lieu” fee. This in-lieu amount is unknown to voters since it will be determined after the election — by the developer-friendly City Council. (JJJ Section 5, A, b3.) 

3) The “Forget the affordable housing, forget the fee, just pay a 'surcharge'” loophole. Under JJJ, developers can refuse to pay the in-lieu fee, and opt for a Deferral Surcharge whose price will also to be later set by the City. This Deferral fee amount, unknown to voters, does not have to be spent on affordable housing. The City Council could divert this revenue to pay city employees for running any housing-linked program. (JJJ Section 5, A, c2) 

4) The “L.A.'s Affordable Housing Trust Fund is a piggy bank” loophole. Under JJJ, the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund does not have to be spent on affordable housing. The fund could be diverted into: “such other housing activities as that term shall be defined.” (JJJ Section 5, B, c) 

5) The “We say we'll create local jobs, but not a single local hire is required” loophole. Under JJJ, contractors need only “make a good-faith effort” to hire people living within five miles of a proposed massive luxury complex, a toothless and meaningless standard that will never be met. (JJJ Section 5, A, g). 

What then can be done? 

As you might know, I am an active supporter of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative (NII), which has a totally different take on planning issues than JJJ.  If LA’s voters adopt the NII on March 2017, unlike JJJ it would bar the City Council from spot-zoning and spot-planning individual parcels unless they contained 100 percent affordable units. This would, therefore, stop all plush housing ventures in Los Angeles because they would remain illegal high-rise luxury proposals until the City Council legalized them through parcel-specific spot-zones and occasional General Plan Amendments. Even if these high-rise luxury projects contained a small percentage of affordable units as a deal sweetener, the City Council could no longer wave its magic wand to permit them. 

In contrast to JJJ, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative also forces the City of Los Angeles to expeditiously update its entire General Plan, including the 35 Community Plans that comprise its Land Use Element. This Update process would then be based on mandatory evening and weekend meetings held in every part of Los Angeles.  This consultative approach will ensure that the new General Plan answers three parts of the affordable housing quandary: 

• Which Los Angeles neighborhoods have the greatest need for affordable housing?
• Where in Los Angeles is the greatest amount of parcels that could support by-right or density bonus affordable and low-income apartment projects?
• Where is the existing network of public infrastructure and services sufficient to support greater population density? 

Once this General Plan update process takes off, I then expect the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative team to become a permanent watchdog body. Through careful monitoring of this voter-approved ordinance – and legal action when necessary -- the watchdogs will ensure to that the new General Plan’s elements are properly updated, implemented, monitored, and fine-tuned. 

But, some housing activists support JJJ
This is what I also replied to someone else who wrote me about JJJ. She pushed back hard against my critique and argued that since many affordable housing corporations and activists support JJJ, it deserves our votes. 

These supporters are, in my view, extremely well intentioned people. But, I nevertheless think they are mistaken. They have reached a point of total desperation because the government programs they once relied upon to build affordable housing ended up on the public policy scrap heap. So, without any other obvious alternatives, they are hoping against hope that JJJ, despite its crippling loopholes, will miraculously work. It will overcome the odds to build a modicum of affordable units by piggy-backing them on spot-zoned luxury projects, or it will recharge LA’s empty Affordable Housing Trust Fund through in-lieu payments. 

In effect, they have thrown in the towel on the public sector housing programs that once sustained affordable housing and that are the only real solution to the housing crisis now gripping every county in the entire United States.

As I have repeatedly written in CityWatch, the affordable housing crisis hammering Los Angeles since the Bradley Administration stems from the gutting of Federal housing programs. These cutbacks began during the second Nixon administration and culminated in the 1980s. Since then, one administration after another has never wavered. When faced with massive problems of homelessness, overcrowding, and affordable housing, from the White House to City Hall, they have resorted to the same old unsuccessful market-based housing programs. Their marketing campaigns succeeded, even though their products consistently failed. 

Unfortunately, these market incentive approaches, such as JJJ, are urban myths. As much as we might wish upon a star that they would work, they have not, cannot, and will not ever provide more than a small fraction of the affordable housing needed in this country. The reason is simple; the private market is governed by profit maximization, and the profits exist in market housing, especially luxury housing, not in affordable housing.

My conclusion: if the government does not build or heavily subsidize affordable housing, it does not get built. This point needs to be made again and again, especially when our developer-friendly elected officials foist real estate speculation as the secret sauce of affordable housing. 

Luckily, in this election there is an interim solution, Initiative HHH. It would directly involve the City of Los Angeles in the construction of supportive housing for the homeless, until the only real solution emerges, the restoration of publicly funded and operated affordable housing programs.

 

(Dick Platkin is a former Los Angeles city planner who reports on local planning issues for CityWatch LA. He welcomes comments and corrections at [email protected] ) 

-cw