INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS - ED 1 Is Redeveloping Los Angeles—One Neighborhood at a Time
You know that persistent, annoying feeling when you're trying to sleep and a mosquito keeps buzzing in your ear? Eventually, you have no choice but to get out of bed, turn on the lights and hunt the damn thing down.
That's pretty much what happened to me. I kept watching apartment buildings appear in Granada Hills where single-family homes once stood, and one question kept buzzing in my ear: What the hell is going on? So I turned on the lights.
Follow the Money
Start at 16136 W. Devonshire Street in Granada Hills. There used to be a single-family home there. It was demolished and replaced by a 15-unit apartment building approved as 100% affordable housing under Mayor Karen Bass's Executive Directive 1, better known as ED 1. Then I looked a little farther down the road. At 17184 and 17188 W. Chatsworth Street, two more single-family homes are being combined for a six-story, 69-unit project. Three houses. Eighty-four apartments. Now I was curious.
ED 1 began as Mayor Bass's emergency effort to accelerate shelters and 100% affordable housing. The Los Angeles City Council later made the Affordable Housing Streamlining Program permanent. The terminology is soothing: affordable housing, streamlining, incentives, waivers. I have another word for what we're watching on the ground: redevelopment.
Los Angeles is already largely built. Greater density often means replacing something already standing. A house becomes a parcel. A parcel becomes a development opportunity. And a neighborhood begins changing one lot at a time. But I still wanted to know something: How affordable is the affordable housing? So I went apartment shopping.
At 16136 Devonshire, I found a 503-square-foot one-bedroom advertised for $2,100 a month, another one-bedroom for $2,585, and two-bedroom units for $3,256. Then I found Unit 301: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, 912 square feet. It had originally been advertised for $3,995 a month and later reduced to $3,662. Another 912-square-foot three-bedroom at the same property was advertised for $4,136. I looked at those numbers again: $2,100. $2,585. $3,256. $3,662. $3,995. $4,136. At a property approved as 100% affordable housing.
Wait. What?
Now let's be fair. An advertised rent alone doesn't establish that anyone violated an affordability covenant. Units can carry different income restrictions, and housing vouchers or third-party programs can affect what a landlord is permitted to collect.
Fine. Then show us.
Because $3,662 a month is $43,944 a year in rent. Using a simple 30-percent housing-cost benchmark, that corresponds to approximately $146,480 in annual gross household income. And how many people are supposed to squeeze into 912 square feet and split that rent before we finally get to call it affordable?
Listings for the property have welcomed vouchers from the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) and Brilliant Corners, while one stated that the owner reserves the right to request the maximum allowable rent for applicants using housing vouchers or third-party programs. So follow the money. What are tenants actually paying? What income levels are these apartments reserved for? How much, if anything, are vouchers paying? What public subsidies, loans, grants or tax advantages supported the project? What incentives and waivers did the developer receive?
Those answers shouldn't require a treasure hunt. If taxpayers and communities are being asked to accept extraordinary development privileges in the name of affordable housing, the public deserves to know exactly what affordable bought.
They Took a Sledgehammer to the Table
Then I found out what happened to the public. The Los Angeles City Council didn't forget to give residents a seat at the table.
It took a sledgehammer to the table.
When the Council made the Affordable Housing Streamlining Program permanent, it wrote five remarkably clear words into the law: “No public hearing shall be held.”
And that's what happens when you don't catch the mosquito. It bites you. Only this time, the allergic reaction is five words long: “No public hearing shall be held.”
If residents weren't at the table, there's an obvious question: Who was? Developers, real-estate interests, housing organizations, trade associations and lobbyists are entitled to advocate for what they want. But who met with Council offices while these rules were being written? Who proposed language? Who pushed for incentives and waivers? Who wanted parking requirements reduced? Who wanted hearings eliminated? And who was contributing money to the politicians making those decisions?
I have public-record requests pending with Council offices seeking some of those answers. I don't know what the records will show, and I won't pretend that I do. But we already know what became law.
The ordinance is the receipt.
This Isn't a Game
And this is where the story stops being about three houses in Granada Hills. Homeowners across Los Angeles bought into neighborhoods based in part on what was around them and what the City's planning and zoning rules said could be built there. They paid mortgages and property taxes, maintained their homes and accumulated equity. Then the Los Angeles City Council changed the rules of the game.
Except this isn't a game.
A home isn't simply a number on a zoning map. For millions of Californians, it represents decades of mortgage payments, savings, sacrifice and accumulated equity. It may be the largest asset they will ever own and the financial security they expect to carry into retirement. When the Council changes the rules governing what can be built next door, it isn't merely changing a zoning map. It is making decisions that can affect people's financial security.
Cities evolve. Housing needs change. But there are real people underneath that zoning map, and they have skin in the game.
Then there's parking. This is the San Fernando Valley. Low-income people drive too. They drive to work, take children to school, buy groceries, visit patients and come home from late shifts. Apparently the Los Angeles City Council has discovered a fascinating new economic law: When your income falls below a government threshold, your automobile evaporates.
It doesn't. The car simply ends up parked somewhere else.
And parking is only the beginning. This is California: wildfires, earthquakes, evacuations. Los Angeles firefighters are asking voters for additional funding to help protect us, while residents are asking their elected officials to stop adopting policies they believe are putting their communities at greater risk. There's some irony for you.
The Council is pushing substantially greater density while the emergency-response system is asking taxpayers for more resources to serve the city we're building. So here's the question: Can the infrastructure we already have safely handle what you're approving? Fire and EMS. Evacuation routes. Water. Sewer. Streets. Traffic. Parking.
Apparently, we're doing this backward.
Density first. Fire station later. Preferably paid for by you.
And here's my test for the people making these rules: don't put one of these projects near your house. Put it next door. Same density. Same parking rules. Same incentives and waivers. No special Council office intervention. No private meeting. No political influence. And, of course: “No public hearing shall be held.”
How quickly would the rules change? We should probably bring a stopwatch instead of a calendar.
Los Angeles City Council: You Made It. You Fix It.
Let's get something straight. This isn't an argument against affordable housing. Los Angeles needs genuinely affordable housing. But the word affordable cannot operate like municipal holy water, cleansing every development decision that follows. Asking what these apartments actually cost, whom they serve, who pays the difference, what concessions developers receive and what happens to the communities around them isn't anti-housing. It's accountability.
And let's stop talking about “City Hall” as though this policy floated down from somewhere above the rotunda. Mayor Bass created ED 1. The Los Angeles City Council made the Affordable Housing Streamlining Program permanent. You made it. You fix it.
Start by pausing additional approvals long enough for an independent, public, address-by-address audit. Count completed units—not press-release units—and count the homes demolished to build them. Publish the actual rents and affordability restrictions. Identify vouchers, subsidies, public financing, grants, tax advantages and fee reductions. Disclose the incentives, waivers and density increases granted to each project. Compare parking otherwise required with parking actually provided. And measure the cumulative impact on fire protection, emergency medical services, evacuation, water, sewer, streets and traffic.
Then do something revolutionary: let the public speak. Hold a citywide public hearing on the results.
A real one. With chairs.
And every Angeleno reading this should write their Councilmember. Ask for the pause. Ask for the audit. Ask your Councilmember to bring it before the full Los Angeles City Council. Ask one question:
Before you streamline another neighborhood, will you prove that what you've already approved is delivering genuinely affordable housing at a public and community cost Los Angeles can sustain?
Because that buzzing isn't going away.
For years, we've heard the housing movement's catchy little acronym: YIMBY — Yes In My Backyard. Fine. Here's one from the people who actually have a backyard:
BYE-BYE.
You may be able to streamline residents out of the planning process. You cannot streamline them out of the voting booth.
So if you're hearing that buzzing now too, don't roll over and go back to sleep. Turn on the lights. Write your Councilmember. Demand the records. Demand the audit. Demand your seat back at the table.
And then remember what you do when you finally find the mosquito.
You swat it. At the ballot box.
Because elected officials who keep choosing the lobby over the people who elected them may eventually discover that voters can make development decisions too.
Your seat becomes available.
(Eva Amar is a West San Fernando Valley community organizer, investigative contributor to CityWatch Los Angeles, and National Sexual Assault Victim Advocate.)
