L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has made speeding up the development of new affordable housing a centerpiece of both her successful campaign and her time in office.
During her first week on the job, Bass signed an executive order streamlining the approval of new affordable housing. Executive Directive One, or ED1, represents her biggest step toward making good on those promises. And exempting new affordable housing from lengthy environmental reviews has been a key pillar of ED1.
Now, about a year after her swearing in, LAist has found that city officials have quietly started accepting environmental challenges from groups opposed to new apartments.
One developer aiming to construct a four-story apartment building for low and moderate-income renters in the Westside neighborhood of Sawtelle was assured in writing by the L.A. Planning Department in mid-December that their project was exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Two weeks later, the same department accepted a CEQA appeal from opponents of the development.
Steven Scheibe — co-founder of Generation Real Estate Partners, the company behind the development — said the city signing off on a CEQA challenge was “highly unexpected.”
“It's pretty frustrating,” he said. “It has obviously delayed the start of construction, which we were expecting to do in the middle of February. We're unlikely to be able to start at that time period.”
Scheibe and his partners submitted the project through ED1, which promises to speed up the construction of 100% affordable housing projects by approving applications within 60 days, and issuing building permits within five days.
Exempting projects from CEQA allows developers to avoid lengthy environmental impact studies that can delay new housing construction, often for a year or more. So far, the city has fast-tracked dozens of projects under ED1 that bypass CEQA.
The Planning Department’s guidelines continue to say that ED1 projects are “exempt” from environmental review. A letter of compliance Scheibe received on Dec. 12 explicitly says his project “is statutorily exempt” from CEQA. Scheibe was surprised to see the city sign off on a CEQA appeal on Dec. 27, because he was counting on ED1’s guarantees.
Standing in a dirt parcel where two single-family homes were recently torn down to make way for the 44-unit project, Scheibe said, “We would not have acquired this lot if it wasn't for ED1.”
L.A. housing advocates have generally cheered ED1, saying it has convinced many private developers to build affordable housing without taxpayer funding.
The planning department reported in late November that in ED1’s first year, the program had received proposals for more than 9,000 units of new affordable housing, almost double the amount proposed the previous year.
But some housing advocates now worry that the Sawtelle project’s appeal could open the floodgates for all ED1 projects to be delayed.
“I think it was a bad decision. I think the city should have not accepted the appeal,” said Scott Epstein, the policy director for the pro-housing group Abundant Housing L.A. “This appeal directly attacks ED1 and its legitimacy.”
In response to questions from LAist, the mayor’s office said they’re currently working with the city attorney on how to handle the appeal moving forward.
“CEQA should not be used as a strategy to block affordable housing projects from moving forward,” said Clara Karger, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, via email. She said ED1 “cuts through red tape and breaks down bureaucratic barriers.”
If time-consuming CEQA appeals are allowed to move forward, L.A. could struggle to meet obligations under state law to plan for nearly 185,000 new low-income homes by 2029.
City planning officials also recently accepted a CEQA appeal for an ED1 project in the San Fernando Valley’s Sherman Oaks neighborhood. Land use attorney Dave Rand, who represents the developers behind the project, described the appeal as a “Hail Mary” attempt by opponents.
Rand believes city officials’ hands were tied by opponents’ interpretation of state law, essentially forcing them to accept the CEQA appeals. But he expects the city to bat down the challenges.
“Even though this is an annoyance and a slight hiccup in the process, this by no means undercut the substantial benefit of ED1,” Rand said.
It’s unclear what happens next for the projects facing CEQA challenges. Typically, these appeals go to the city council, where public commenters will have a chance to express opposition or support for new housing projects. Affordable housing developers expected their ED1 projects to proceed without contentious public hearings and council votes.
“All of this is very new for both us and for the city,” said Scheibe. “We're unsure as to what it means. But we do know that we're going to be delayed.”
State lawmakers passed the California Environmental Quality Act in 1970, and it was signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan. The law requires studies and disclosures of possible environmental harms from various development projects.
A fierce debate has raged over the years about CEQA’s role in slow-rolling, and even killing, new housing. Local governments exempt many projects from CEQA. The California Legislative Analyst’s Office has concluded that CEQA is often used to delay or scale down housing projects, and can result in years of review for projects in the state’s largest cities.
Opponents of the Sawtelle project have raised some familiar objections to new housing, including concerns about street parking. Located about a mile from two Metro stops on the Gold Line, the project includes no on-site parking.
Other complaints have centered on perceived impacts to nearby property values and neighborhood crime levels. Manhattan Beach resident Allen Pachtman owns an apartment building next to the proposed 44-unit building. He helped organize the CEQA appeal filed by a group calling itself Missouri Avenue Neighbors.
“I can just picture somewhere down the line that it's going to end up being a high-crime neighborhood,” Pachtman said. “People will be leaving, and it'll just ratchet downwards.”
Pachtman, a doctor, said he’s relying on the apartment building on Missouri Avenue to help fund his retirement. But he worries new low-income apartments next door will harm that investment.
“It’s going to degrade the value of my building,” Pachtman said. “I don't know if that's environmental enough. I don’t know that you're going to be able to measure, like, air pollution is any worse. But the quality of life is certainly going to decline.”
Such concerns about the impact of low-income housing on neighborhoods have been studied, with academic researchers finding that these projects do not hurt nearby property values and do not increase crime. When LAist asked Pachtman by phone to elaborate on his concerns about increased crime, he hung up and ended the interview.
The proposed Sawtelle project consists mainly of one-bedroom apartments. Most of the units will be restricted to tenants in the city who qualify as low-income (the cut-off is currently $70,640 for a one-person household).
The project also includes a few studios and two-bedroom apartments. Some units will be reserved for moderate-income tenants (those earning up to $82,500 for a one-person household).
If the apartments were being rented today, most one-bedroom units in the building would rent for no more than $1,892 per month.
“If you go two blocks over, you're looking at $3,000 rents for a one-bedroom,” said Scheibe. “We saw this as a really good opportunity to provide affordable housing that is at a major discount.”
Unlike other ED1 projects in areas such as South L.A., where existing renters are now facing relocation, no tenants were displaced for this project. Scheibe said many of the prospective tenants will likely be students and staff commuting to the nearby UCLA campus without a car.
Some opponents of the Sawtelle project have argued the entire neighborhood should be off-limits to ED1 projects. They’ve said it’s unfair that Bass banned ED1 projects in single-family neighborhoods, while allowing developments in designated ethnic enclaves such as Sawtelle’s Japantown.
“What we foresee is that this will be of catastrophic effect to us,” said Cesar Aranguri during a recent planning and land use committee meeting of the West Los Angeles Sawtelle Neighborhood Council. “It’s striking right at our core in terms of our culture and our history.”
Aranguri presented a plan calling on Bass to exclude all named cultural districts from ED1, just as she did back in June for single-family neighborhoods. California housing advocates have already sued over the city’s decision to halt projects in single-family zones, which make up 74% of the city’s residential land.
Scheibe says affordable housing benefits communities. In Sawtelle, he says new low-income housing could provide a place for aging Japanese American residents to live.
“A lot of seniors who want to stay in their neighborhood feel like they're being priced out,” he said. “This would provide an opportunity for them.”
The district’s council member, Traci Park, said she has not yet taken a position on whether the CEQA appeal should move forward.
“I was surprised that it had been accepted,” Park told LAist. “Now that it’s there, and the question exists, it's going to have to be answered. I don't know that there is any kind of process to roll back the appeal.”
Kristina Kropp, the attorney helping opponents of the Sawtelle and Sherman Oaks projects pursue the CEQA appeals, declined to comment for this story.
Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents Sherman Oaks, has supported the ED1 project in that neighborhood. The full council is currently considering a plan to transform ED1 from a mayoral directive into a permanent ordinance.
Meanwhile, L.A. faces a lawsuit aiming to overturn ED1 in its entirety. The Westside nonprofit Fix The City, which frequently sues the city over land use issues, filed the complaint in December, claiming ED1 “eliminates public hearings, due process and the right of appeal.”
The developers behind the Sawtelle project have sent the city a letter demanding a dismissal of the CEQA appeal. They said if the city fails to overturn the challenge within 90 days, it will be in violation of the state’s Housing Accountability Act.
The legal sparring is playing out against the backdrop of a worsening housing crisis. Most L.A. County tenants pay more than 30% of their income on rent according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a level deemed unaffordable by federal government standards. The number of people experiencing homelessness in the city of L.A. increased 10% last year to 46,260.
Scott Epstein with Abundant Housing L.A. said environmental challenges, which he sees as often abuses of CEQA’s original intent, are slowing down much-needed new housing.
“We need to shift our attitude away from the notion that housing is an impact, and toward the notion that housing is a benefit,” Epstein said.
