LOS ANGELES – Mayor Bass today lauded the City Council’s vote to exempt affordable housing projects from Site Plan Review, which is expected to save zoning-compliant affordable housing projects an average of six months processing time.
“In December, I signed Executive Directive 1 to dramatically accelerate and lower the cost of affordable housing and temporary housing. The City has approved 22 projects totaling more than 1,600 housing units by cutting red tape through the Directive, saving each project about six months of processing time,” said Mayor Bass. “Today’s action by the City Council complements our efforts to bring Angelenos inside by exempting affordable housing from the Site Plan Review threshold, which means that projects that include affordable housing can see a time savings of up to 6 months. These are strategies that work. I want to thank Council President Krekorian, Council President Pro Tem and Chair of the Planning, Land Use and Management Committee Marqueece Harris Dawson, and the entire City Council for taking this important step. I look forward to signing this ordinance into effect in the coming days.”
“The Los Angeles Business Council study shows that we’re missing more than 11,000 units of housing that were planned but never built because of Site Plan Review delays,” said City Council President Paul Krekorian. “And that’s not counting projects that never reached the planning stage because the review process was too daunting. This measure will encourage developers to maximize the number of affordable units in mixed-income projects and that will improve housing affordability for everyone.”
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.