Abundant Housing LA supports vigorous enforcement of state housing element law, and commends the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for holding cities accountable for the highest-quality housing elements.
We are proud of our housing element advocacy at the local and state level. Our work ensured cities are well-informed about the requirements and best practices for housing element updates, and provided helpful resources to city officials and planners. Our members across LA County organized for and spoke up for housing every step of the way.
Crucially, we mobilized support for HCD as they face mounting political pressure from anti-growth electeds to certify clearly non-compliant housing elements. As a result, HCD stood their ground and held cities to high standards. They declined to certify Redondo Beach and Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica’s housing elements, writing comprehensive review letters. These review letters exposed these cities’ bad faith tactics, including putting housing on clearly infeasible sites and overstating expected ADU production.
Today, we learned that HCD has found the City of Los Angeles’ housing element non-compliant with state law. While Los Angeles’ housing element is in many ways an outstanding housing element, and the city had made a good-faith effort to achieve historic housing growth, we support HCD in seeking the highest quality housing plans from all cities.
Cities had to get their housing elements certified by 2/11/2022 to have the 3-year rezoning deadline instead of one year, per AB 1398. Once Los Angeles has a compliant housing element it will not be at a disadvantage in applying for state grants. If they don’t complete the rezoning by 10/15/2022, they might be at a disadvantage in applying for grants.
Some voiced concerns about the feasibility of rezoning in a few months’ time. We appreciate these concerns, but we must treat the housing crisis as the urgent crisis it is, and complete the rezone as urgently as possible. Abundant Housing LA stands ready to provide any assistance needed to accomplish this essential task, and seeks to support cities and the state in ensuring that good-faith attempts to achieve housing element compliance, such as the City of LA’s housing element, do not result in negative consequences.
Support our work. Sign up to stay updated on housing today.