Well, people keep saying that the way out of this defacto Nationalization by the Federal Government will be driven by the current administration's desire to monetize or cash out the Government from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and use the proceeds to fund the American Residential Affordability Deficit.
But you're right, one of big problems of supply is the issue which is governmentally shut down or squeezed at the local zoning boards.
I just don't see this idea of cashing out the Government from their financial position in the GSES to fund affordable housing to be able to be done without Congressional approval and ultimately it could be nixed by locally elected officials on zoning boards.
Yesterday's WSJ: A Housing Project's 17-Year Saga --- In L.A., 49-unit development has faced nearly every hurdle state laws allow
A Los Angeles nonprofit was given government land in January 2007 to build a few dozen units of affordable housing. They're finally hoping to open the building next year.
Lorena Plaza, a 49-unit development rising in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights in eastern Los Angeles, is taking longer to complete, a city official said, than practically any other residential building this size in the history of Los Angeles.
The 17 years of false starts and delays are an extreme instance of how difficult it has long been to build affordable housing in California -- for both the homeless as well as lower and middle-income workers -- and in other states with complex regulations and high costs.
The development has faced nearly every hurdle that California laws allow opponents to place in the way of affordable housing. Approvals by politicians and commissions took years, often held up by a single determined opponent on the city council. It took the developers more time to win over skeptical neighbors who were particularly opposed to nearby housing for the mentally ill and homeless. Financing hurdles and other costs piled up along the way. Construction finally began about a year ago.
In California, affordable housing developers typically abide by a host of requirements when they take public subsidies, such as tougher energy-efficiency standards and higher wages for construction workers. They often need to build amenities such as offices for social workers and transit-boosting features such as bike storage.
Even home builders who are sympathetic to these priorities say those same objectives undermine the state's ability to produce enough affordable housing. That means California will continue to suffer stubbornly high rates of homelessness that plague the Golden State and are evident on the tent-filled streets of cities like L.A.
"We're really committed to things like climate change and we're very committed to transit-oriented development," said Linda Mandolini, president of Bay Area-based Eden Housing, a nonprofit low-income housing builder. "But those goals don't come for free."
Housing costs and homelessness have become the top political issue in the state, prompting officials to set ambitious goals to build more housing, faster. Los Angeles is aiming to construct more than 450,000 new homes by 2029, a feat that would require five times as much construction as occurred in the previous decade, according to a May report from researchers at the University of California Los Angeles' Ziman Center for Real Estate and California State University Northridge.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pointed to the delays with Lorena Plaza as an example of what the city is trying to fix. The mayor is expediting permits for projects in which all of the units are considered affordable and cutting other red tape that has sidelined projects. "How on earth could we expect to house 40,000 [homeless] people if we continue to do business as usual?" the Democrat asked in a speech at the development's construction site last year.
There are still serious impediments to building enough housing in Los Angeles and the state. Existing subsidies that fund affordable housing construction are oversubscribed. And cities keep looking for ways to block new housing, market-rate or affordable. The Bay Area suburb of Woodside, for example, last year tried to declare that its entire city was a mountain lion refuge to prevent apartment development. The town, which later reversed the decision, didn't return a request for comment.
Affordable housing faces hurdles outside of California, too. In New York City, a developer's plan to build low-income apartments at the site of a community garden in lower Manhattan has been held up for a decade by city review processes and lawsuits filed by opponents. In Dallas, a mixed-income apartment complex planned for an empty field in the northern part of the city was delayed for more than three years by deed restrictions that allowed neighboring property owners to dictate land use.
An apartment building takes an average of four years to build in L.A., according to a UCLA and CSU-Northridge analysis of building permits from 2010 to 2022. Two-and-a-half of those four years come after the approvals process. About 36% of projects that received permits in California between 2010 and 2022 had not yet been completed, according to UCLA.
those who had experienced homelessness or mental health issues, and who would rely on services such as social work and healthcare provided by on-site staff.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to provide the land, but was slow to make it available, in large part because it was being used as a staging area during the construction of a train line. A global financial crisis further derailed plans. By the time the economy began rebounding in 2012, the deepest troubles for the 49 could-be apartments were setting in.
The city councilman representing the neighborhood, Jose Huizar, had broad powers to delay projects on his turf. To get a city subsidy, the developers would need a signed letter from Huizar, who sat on the MTA board and remained opposed to the project for years.
particular project."
Much of what stifled construction of Lorena Plaza likely wouldn't have happened now due to recent law changes. Developers no longer need a letter of support from their city council member to receive affordable housing funding. Environmental appeals have to be heard within 75 days. Zoning approvals for affordable projects, which took more than a year at Lorena Plaza, are now happening as quickly as a few months-time under a Mayor Bass executive order.
The new rules mean Lorena Plaza may permanently hold the title for perhaps the city's longest-running development. ACOF plans to start taking applications from prospective tenants in the spring."
