LOS ANGELES – Mayor Karen Bass today signed an ordinance to accelerate the building of affordable housing in Los Angeles. The ordinance was passed unanimously by the City Council last Friday. Mayor Bass was joined by Council President Krekorian and Council President Pro Tempore Harris-Dawson. View the press conference here and pictures here.
“Today I am signing an ordinance that takes a major step in codifying Executive Directive 1 by exempting affordable housing and qualifying mixed income projects from the process of Site Plan Review. Like Executive Directive 1, this exemption will save projects six months of processing time – saving time means saving money.” said Mayor Karen Bass during today’s press conference. “I again want to thank Council President Krekorian and Council President Pro Tem and Chair of the Planning, Land Use and Management Committee Harris-Dawson for their leadership on this and for seeing this exemption through.”
“We’re making housing more affordable for people who need it in Los Angeles. I want to express my gratitude to Mayor Bass and gratitude on behalf of the entire City Council for locking arms with us once again and taking on this challenging issue,” said Council President Paul Krekorian, “By eliminating this process for affordable units, we are going to open the floodgates for projects that want to build but are afraid of having to go through the burden of Site Plan Review.”
"The codification of ED1 feels like a breath of fresh air in our City in tackling the biggest challenge of our time, homelessness," said Council President Pro Tem Harris-Dawson and Chair of the Planning, Land Use and Management Committee. "This will help ease the pent-up demand for housing… nine months from now, we can see people turning keys in housing projects that went faster because of this process."
This ordinance will amend the Site Plan Review process to exempt affordable units from counting towards the review threshold. This amendment makes a focused portion of the Mayor’s Executive Directive 1 permanent. The remainder of Executive Directive 1 will be codified under a subsequent effort by a motion that was approved by City Council on June 27, 2023. City Planning is expected to release a draft ordinance in 90 days.