Scott Kend

@hitsamty @DavidEvans9 The ironic thing is the fact that the city’s policies make it harder and harder for the small guy to operate… so they leave and sell out to the big guys… and then the city wonders why there are so many big guys (and wants to count them)

Prediction: LA's hapless housing bureaucracy will brainfreeze as soon as they run into their first LLC

@Lanefab Can you share plans?

Take our "4/5" single-stair prototype building and put it on two 33'x122 lots. Mid block or corner. 18 elevator accessible homes, where every home has windows on 3 sides. Light, Air, and a Social Stair

@streetsforall Will this be broadcast online?

We just secured an overflow room and released another 89 general admission seats and 25 more member seats in the main auditorium. First come first serve! bit.ly/lamayordebate

@CohenSite What about SB800 and condo defect liability? Reform coming on that one from our friends at @cayimby ?

This project in Oakland is a pretty good model of the future of homeownership in urban California. In 10 years time, you're going to see condo buildings like these all over Los Angeles.

@mnolangray Congrats Nolan!!

Well, this puts a lot of things in context.

@JohnGonzalesLA1 Is it actually going to get capitalized?

Word is that the District Square development in South L.A., adjacent to the intersection of the E and K lines (Crenshaw and Obama) is getting “unstalled”. They’re fully entitled and passed through a legal challenge, but hit the skids as the economics toughened and one of owners of the developer got convicted of impropriety on a separate project. Their entitlement is for 577 units and 80k feet of commercial. Unfortunately, despite getting some past govt assistance, there are NO affordable units at this point. Something, that they should be encouraged to do. They’re trying to make some final revisions and get a substantial conformance determination. So these photos would have revisions. This seems like a project that could be financed much more easily than a lot of others. Including Crenshaw Crossing next door.

@ChasenGreg @CohenSite @DonovanBuilds Ugh. Sorry to hear that. Can you summarize some of the most ridiculous ones?

@DonovanBuilds LA City Planning slapped 76 tract map conditions on my 4 home subdivision.

We are submitting a townhome project in LA city next week Not only do they require physical copies of all the (30) documents They also want me to download all the files on to a USB and turn that it along with the physical copy First submission btw

@maxdubler @mottsmith Max: how do you square this with SB-684/1123 requiring IZ units if a site is on a city’s approved housing element inventory list? This kills small projects!

So-called “inclusionary zoning” acts as a tax on new housing by requiring homebuilders to sell or rent some of the new homes at a loss. Unfunded IZ only “works” when the market price of new housing is significantly higher than construction costs. Glad to see OR rolling it back.

@CohenSite Terrrific post. Bravo, Joe!

Here’s how I’d craft a ballot measure to solve LA’s housing crisis. It’d be an expensive campaign, but I believe it would win in a landslide. The ballot measure should address the following areas: 1) Zoning, 2) The Complexity and Lack of Clarity of Our Codes, 3) Entitlements & Permitting, 4) Inspections, 5) Homeownership, 6) City-Imposed Costs, 7) Fair Tenant Protections ULA will need to be tackled separately, and some things, like defect liability, building codes, and taxes need to be handled at the state or federal level. This ballot measure would reduce the time, cost, and effort to build housing, which would result in a building boom and lower rents. It also would enable starter homes and condos to be built in high-numbers for the first time in 18 years in LA. We could increase the number of households that own their home in LA by 50% in under a decade. First, Zoning & Reducing Complexity: LA Currently has two zoning codes. The old one is straightforward, but outdated. The new one has good ideas but is a complicated mess. The ballot measure would unite the city under one easy-to-use code. We’d get rid of CPIO’s, most overlays, and Q Conditions. HPOZ’s would remain. Development would be restricted in hillside fire zones, and ~90% of single-family areas would remain for family homeownership. The rules for family zones would be modernized to enable more starter homes to be built and incentivize homes that are for actual families, not investors. This also includes better design standards that result in beautiful homes rather than the “slop boxes” that have proliferated in recent years. A small number of neighborhoods that are closest to the best transit and jobs would be upzoned. These will allow 5-7 story buildings, with a major emphasis placed on good urban design. In existing multifamily neighborhoods, zoning would be updated to get better results. The FAR definition will change to lot area, but base FAR allowances would be reduced to keep buildable area the same. Unit-count based density would be removed, transitioning to a fully form-based code. Finally, the ballot measure would propose three new high-rise zones in currently-industrial areas. The first would be between Exposition and Olympic near where the 405 meets the 10. The second would be at the La Cienega/Jefferson Expo Line stop, at the border of Culver City. The third would be in the Arts District. Second, Entitlements, Permitting, and Inspections: This bucket of problems is harder to fix, because a lot of it comes down to institutional functioning rather than written laws. Still, we can include many things to force some changes and make it easier to enact other reforms if/when we have someone competent running the city. Entitlements is the easiest place for a ballot measure to reform. Many LA specific plans and overlays force projects to go through slow and unnecessary reviews even though state law requires that we approve the projects. We can simply get rid of these and go to an administrative review system. We also need to stop subsidizing appeals that come from special interest groups that are trying to extort projects. Permitting will be much more difficult to reform. Ideally, we should get rid of the clearance system, but doing that by fiat could make things worse. What we can do is require that all departments have in-person walk-in office hours and give projects a single point-of-contact that is responsible for shepherding builders and resolving conflicts between departments. We also will want to consider adopting Chicago’s “Office of the Underground” approach to coordinate utility issues up-front. LA may have the most complex inspection system in the country. The ballot measure should 1) create an independent commission to study inspection best practices and empowered to implement changes, 2) Require that inspectors stick to the approved plans, and 3) Allow the hiring of private inspectors if the city is unable to come out within a reasonable time frame. I will also loop LADWP into this category. If you follow LA development, you probably know that the Department of Water and Power is the biggest problem, often delaying projects by months or years or requiring last-minute costly redesigns. For transformer placement rules, the ballot measure should require DWP to adopt the standards utilized by San Diego Gas & Electric. To improve timelines, the ballot measure should 1) allow 3rd party design and installation, 2) create an online portal to track statuses and ensure DWP has received notice of DBS power release, and 3) Publish a public map of existing transformer capacity so developers are aware of needed upgrades before beginning a project. Third, Homeownership: Did you know that LA makes it much harder and more expensive to build for-sale housing than rental housing? That is a major contributor to why LA has one of the lowest homeownership rates in the country. Fixing some of this requires changes to state law, but we can go a long way by making condo subdivisions easier. The ballot measure would 1) Adopt an optional state provision that allows by-right approval of simple condo subdivisions, as long as the project isn’t demolishing or converting existing rental housing, and 2) Prohibit offsite improvements from being imposed on for-sale projects that would not equally be applied to rental projects. Another big fix: Equalize fees (like park fees) between for-sale homes and rental homes. An additional reason why few affordable condos get built is because of how the city’s incentive programs work. Under TOC and CHIP, developers have to dedicate between 7-25% of homes as deeply affordable. For condos, that means those homes essentially have to be given away for free, resulting in the remaining condo buyers having to pay higher prices to cover the cost of building those free units. That isn’t fair! The ballot measure would get rid of that requirement for condo projects where every home is sold at a price affordable to middle-class families. This will enable new condos to be built in the $300’s for one bedrooms and the $500’s for three bedrooms. Finally, the ballot measure would enable many more starter homes to be built. Single family homeownership is still the ultimate goal of many families, but it’s increasingly out of reach, with the average home in LA above $1 million. The ballot measure would allow smaller lot sizes and additional floor area for homes that are priced at least 20% below the average home price in their zip code. That way, home builders are incentivized to build starter homes rather than McMansions. Fourth, City Imposed Costs: Many of the aforementioned reforms, like quicker permitting and streamlined inspections, will lower development costs. But there are also fees that the city directly charges to projects. These fees can add between $15,000 to over $50,000 to each home, depending on project details. While it's important for projects to pay necessary costs for plan review, utility connections, and other infrastructure, many of these fees are far less necessary. And, because the fees reduce development, they result in less property tax being collected by the City, draining the general fund. For example, LA is currently sitting on nearly $150 million in unspent park fees. These fees can only be used for buying new park land and building new facilities, not to cover everyday operations and maintenance expenses. While LA needs more parks, we desperately need more revenue to cover the maintenance of parks we already have. Another questionable expense is school fees. These fees are supposed to be spent on expanding facilities to accommodate student growth from new development. Yet, for years, the student population of LAUSD has been shrinking. What the district needs is more students, not more classrooms. Building more family-friendly homes could improve the finances of LAUSD by bringing student populations up to more-sustainable levels, which would bring in more state funds. This might be too controversial to make it into a ballot measure, but I think it would be a good idea to impose a five-year “impact fee holiday” to help jumpstart development. While this would cover park fees, school fees, transportation fees, and potentially linkage fees, project would still pay all of the permitting and infrastructure fees to cover real costs incurred by the city. Fifth, Fair Tenant Protections: This is not the place where I will wade into the debate about the need for increased tenant protections vs. the burden on landlords, but it is important to acknowledge that new development, while good for tenants overall, can have a drastically harmful impact on tenants that get directly displaced by the development. On paper, Los Angeles already has some of the best tenant protections for redevelopment of any city in the country. Last year, the city passed the Resident Protections Ordinance (RPO), which provides Lower Income tenants with the “right to return” to a unit in the new building at an affordable rent, plus a relocation fee ranging between $85,000 and $112,000. However, in reality, a lot of tenants fall through the cracks. Qualifying can be complex, and in high-cost areas, larger families that are technically not “lower income” still can’t afford market-rate rents. Very few families actually exercise their “right to return,” as they often get displaced for years during construction. A well-designed “zero displacement” policy could ensure that everyone can afford to remain in their neighborhood during and after redevelopment, while also providing more certainty and potentially even lower costs for developers. Another tool for protecting tenants is to allow landlords to sell unused development rights in exchange for the rehabilitation and long-term preservation of naturally-affordable rent controlled housing. This will give landlords the money necessary to address major maintenance needs without having to raise rents. ___________ I originally included an additional topic area for Architecture Standards, but whenever I’ve proposed that idea, it’s gotten a cold response. Personally, I believe that most new buildings in LA are incredibly ugly, and we could solve this problem by putting in place architecture standards that include 1) pre-approved designs, 2) a pattern book, and 3) a style catalogue where neighborhoods could choose which architecture styles are allowed. This system could be highly flexible and could even include a “freedom of expression” process allowing architects to build something that doesn’t comply if they have a strong desire to do so. The idea behind this framework is to “default to good design.” If an architect has a strong vision for what they want a building to look like, we shouldn’t stop that. However, in most instances, LA buildings are built by profit-motivated developers who don’t care about design. For these types of projects, the “path of least resistance” would be to utilize a pre-approved design or elements from the pattern book, which would result in much better looking buildings than today. ___________ I’d love to hear feedback, both on what people think about the inclusion of Architecture Standards along with overall thoughts about this ballot measure idea. Los Angeles has a decades-long housing crisis, and our leaders seem incapable of solving it. We need comprehensive reform to jump-start development, get more housing built, lower rents, and increase homeownership. Rather than waiting around for the city council or mayor to wake up to the urgency of this issue, or expecting the state to solve it, maybe we need to take matters into our own hands and pass a grassroots ballot measure.

@bobbyfijan Great work @bobbyfijan!!!

Our company was founded a little more than a year ago ... but we've already built our first rowhouse My company is The American Housing Corporation.  We're a real estate development (and manufacturing) company building rowhouses designed for families: the American Starter Home Our mission is to solve the problem (at scale): "How can we build housing in places where young people already live, so they have kids and stay?"

@LA_Multi_Fam How does the 10 year tail in SB800 work for in terms of construction defect liability for new construction TIC units?

This is a TIC sale. Built as an ADU and sold by the developer for $979,000. 3BR 2BA just under 1,200 sq ft. It’s one of the reasons we’re building an SB9 plus 2 ADUs not far from it. SB9 permitting is relatively fast (we’re hoping for permits in 4 to 5 months) from purchase of the lot! And organizing a TIC structure avoids lengthy tract map issues, which can take up to 18 months in CA. Attorney puts the TIC documents together in a couple of weeks. Avoids a lot of LA rental nonsense too :)

@DRand2024 Dave, anything specific you want to highlight in terms of new housing bills that will affect the coastal zone?

Not only a shift at the Commission thanks to our pro housing Gov. But also look for multiple new housing bills this session designed to juice housing production in the coastal zone. Currently the only place in CA largely immune to most state housing laws. Huge equity issue!

@realsaadasad @dillonliam The idea that an entire new building like this would be subject to RSO (and not just, say, the three units that were demo’d) is batshit crazy.

@dillonliam 48 apartments are better than 3! Now, it may stay 3 for a far longer time.

A vote to sharply lower rent hikes for 1.5 million Los Angeles tenants caps years of wins for local activists and comes amid a national focus on affordability punctuated by Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York. politico.com/news/2025/11/1…

@LAMultiBroker See today’s OpEd in the WSJ: wsj.com/opinion/rent-c…

The results are in: LA City Council votes in rent increase formula of 90% of CPI with a 1% floor and 4% ceiling. They also eliminate 1-2% additional increases for master-metered buildings. A blow to LA’s housing market, but much better than the 60% of CPI they were pushing.

@mattbaran How big is that lot? How big are the modules?

Coming soon to the OC! 8 units on a single family / R1 lot using SB-1123. This project also includes a remainder lot that allowed us to stay under the 10 unit threshold. Remainder lot will contain one additional unit. Ministerial approval. 60 day shot clock. Let’s goooo!

@atnissly Congrats Austin! Great work

~$150mm of buying power with a debt facility that gives us lower interest costs, quicker closes, and greater certainty of close. This is important in a down real estate market where sellers are struggling and typically value certainty/speed of close above price.

@mnolangray Eliminate the need to provide deed restricted affordable units for lots on the housing element inventory list. 95% of the lots eligible for SB684 in LA fall into this category. Absolutely kills a project.

Open thread: what needs to be fixed with SB 684/SB 1123?

@SRichardGeorge @bobbyfijan How is this parked?

@bobbyfijan Coming soon Bobby! 3 Bed 2.5 Bath. Rear Patios and Roof Decks. 1500 SQF. *Gotta fix the master bedroom layout!

We need to build brownstones again. Masonry. Soundproof. Alley loaded. 1600sf, 3BR+Office/2.5BA

@shawngorham 💔💔💔

There were multiple factors to Artem taking his life to young, ONE of them was he could not get C of O on a finished building he had sold and in escrow. While in escrow rates pushed up, cap rates expanded, buyer lost the rate lock and cancelled the deal.

@CSElmendorf How is the 1/2 mile radius defined? Universities typically are big places. Is it 1/2 mile from the outer perimeter of a university campus? What if a university owns some random building a block “off campus”? Does the 1/2 mile extend out from there?

Quite a list ⤵️! A bill that wasn't even on my radar has upzoned ***sites w/in 1/2 mile of a UC, CSU or community-college campus*** for apartment buildings 65' tall! "SB 79 lite" is coming to Davis after all. The bill is AB 893. 🧵/8