UCLA Real Estate Wire

UCLA Neighborhood Integrity Initiative Forum: Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste

  

The proposed Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, which has potentially sweeping implications for large-scale development in the City of Los Angeles, is being targeted for the March 2017 Los Angeles City election.  The April 27th forum, a partnership of the UCLA Ziman Center for Real estate and the Los Angeles District Council of the Urban Land Institute, brought together a panel of experts to discuss the Initiative’s potential impact.  Key stakeholders included private developers, affordable housing developers, neighborhood associations, labor, transit-oriented development advocates, elected officials, planning professionals, and urban designers.  The forum will focus heavily on the underlying issues raised by the Initiative, for example the state of the planning process in the City of Los Angeles, and on creating a viable path forward.  The forum will also explore related topics such as the Build Better LA affordable housing ballot measure, and the recent call by Mayor Eric Garcetti and several council members to have the City’s 35 “community plans” revised by 2026, which would set the allowable size and density of development projects in neighborhoods throughout the City.

SPEAKERS

• David Abel (MODERATOR) Publisher & Editor-In-Chief, The Planning Report
• Dana Cuff, Director, cityLAB & Professor, UCLA AUD and UCLA Luskin School, Urban Planning
• Gail Goldberg, Executive Director, ULI Los Angeles
• Rusty Hicks, Executive Secretary-Treasurer, LA County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO
• Mott Smith, Co-founder & Principal, Civic Enterprise
• Jill Stewart, Campaign Director, Coalition to Preserve LA
• Zev Yaroslavsky, Director, LA Initiative, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
• Jonathan M. Zasloff, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law

 
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The Real Deal LA: "More LA Homes are Going Under the Knife"

“Prop. 13 has a strong tendency to keep people in homes longer than they otherwise would be,” Paul Habibi, a professor of real estate at UCLA’s Ziman Center, told the Journal. “If the market is rising faster than the assessed values, you have all the economic incentive to stay in place.”

[RDLA 5/10/16]

Wall Street Journal: "California’s Hot Housing Market Drives Pricey Home Facelifts"

"'Prop. 13 has a strong tendency to keep people in homes longer than they otherwise would be,' said Paul Habibi, a professor of real estate at the Ziman Center for Real Estate the University of California, Los Angeles. 'If the market is rising faster than the assessed values, you have all the economic incentive to stay in place,' Mr. Habibi said."

[WSJ 5/5/16]

Globe St: "Los Angeles Needs A New Master Plan"

"The consistent view from everyone on the panel was that the system was broken and that the city doesn’t function well, and it doesn’t work well for anyone. The audience was really struck by that. I think that there are some folks out there that believe that this puts developers at a big advantage; the reality is that it puts many more developers at a huge disadvantage, because many mid-sized developers can’t afford the risk of having to change the plan. I think that there was an understanding in the audience, maybe for the first time, that the system makes it difficult for everyone."

[GS 5/5/16]

Globe Street: "Ziman Center: Inglewood Ripe For Revitalization"

"'The one concern is whether gentrification of Inglewood is going to displace current residents including lower income residents, and there is economic research on this topic, but not that pertains to Inglewood. The research that we do have does not necessarily suggest displacement and we have significant new construction. We have a lot of reasons to be hopeful for Inglewood and for the residents of Inglewood and certainly for any property owner in Inglewood, because property values are going to rise,' Stuart Gabriel."

[GS 4/18/16]

Wall Street Journal: "Why Did These Homes Sell for $1 Million More Within a Year?"

"Paul Habibi, professor of real estate at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate also cites economic forces at work: 'As the dollar strengthened last year, you saw foreign money get increasingly desperate to park itself into American assets,' he says. 'It’s creating a bit of a frenzy, with lots of cash and people bidding up prices. People from out of town are never going to get the best deals, because they don’t have the insider knowledge of the market.'"

[WSJ 2/24/16]

Bisnow: "3 Biggest Ways To Boost Affordable Housing In LA"

"LA, like much of the nation, is struggling with affordable housing. To afford the purchase of a median-priced home in LA, the average household would require a 53% raise, according to Paul Habibi, a professor at UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, who says this situation threatens the economic vitality of the entire state. Here are three ways he says we can help..."

[Bisnow 8/13/15]

The Architect's Newspaper: "Into the Current"

"News that Gehry Partners is at work on a new master plan of the Los Angeles River took Angelenos by surprise late last week. While some had heard rumors for weeks, others were caught off guard by the somewhat strange combination. As the few details of the arrangement between Gehry and his team, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, and the nonprofit L.A. River Revitalization Corp. came in, fresh questions arouse: Why such a “cone of silence” around the partnership (as one well-known local landscape architect put it)? And how might this new plan impact hard-won funding and approvals from the Army Corps of Engineers for Alternative 20? And of course: How could the mayor compare the famed architect to legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted? AN reached out to local designers and developers for comment...

"Paul Habibi, Faculty at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, Habibi penned the report LA’s Next Frontier: Capturing Opportunities for New Housing, Economic Growth, and Sustainable Development in LA River Communities, which was commissioned by the Los Angeles Business Council Institute. The report links revitalization efforts with building sustainable and equitable communities.

'“There has been a lot of anxiety about the announcement because it seems like a top-down approach. This was not your traditional RFP where constituencies get to weigh in. The LA River, however, is already a patchwork of different initiatives. This just adds to the tapestry of many players. The thing that makes it so interesting is the thing that makes it so hard to coordinate. The river is 51 miles long; it snakes through different neighborhoods and council areas. There’s not a lot of homogeneity on plans, initiatives, and government agencies. In terms of development and architecture, my gut sense it that this is additive. Regardless of the process, if you look at it holistically, Gehry’s involvement has a gravitational pull to other developers.”'

[AN 8/12/15]

LA Times Op-Ed: "Easing LA's Housing Crunch"

"Los Angeles is stuck in a housing crisis with little hope for an easy escape. The standard definition of “affordable” is shelter that costs no more than 30% of a household's gross income; anything higher cuts severely into other types of consumption. Using that metric, to afford the median-priced home, the median household would require a staggering 52% raise, to $96,000 a year from $63,000. A more modest 14% raise would enable that family to rent the median-priced apartment. With housing costs rising faster than incomes, we are likely to retain our title as the least affordable city in the United States for years to come..."

[LA Times Opinion/Op-Ed 8/10/15]

The Three Best Ways to Boost Affordable Housing in Los Angeles

Los Angeles is trapped in a deep housing hole with little hope for an easy resolution. To afford the purchase of the median priced home, the median household would require a staggering 53% raise, from $63,000 to $96,000 per year. If that sounds too lofty, a more modest 14% raise would enable that family to rent the median priced apartment. With housing costs rising faster than incomes, we are likely to defend our title as least affordable city in the United States.

In the August 2015 UCLA Economic Letter, UCLA Ziman Center and UCLA Anderson Lecturer Paul Habibi examines LA's housing affordability crisis and offers the top three ways to ease the crunch. Read more...