Affordable Housing Ordinances Backfire in Southern California Cities, Report Says

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Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation says that inclusionary zoning ordinances have backfired in 13 Southern California cities
By James Nash

Daily News, Los Angeles

RISMEDIA, June 11- (KRT) – Southern California cities that require developers to set aside part of their projects as affordable housing — as Los Angeles is considering — have experienced higher housing prices and decreased construction of low-income housing, a Libertarian think tank reported Thursday.

The Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation concluded that so-called inclusionary zoning ordinances have backfired in 13 Southern California cities where the laws were enacted to force developers to build more below-market housing.

Each of the 13 cities saw housing construction decrease after adopting the zoning laws, the foundation reported. And the cost of new homes jumped $33,000 to $66,000 to compensate for discounts on the mandated below-market housing.

The cities’ experiences should serve as a cautionary tale for Los Angeles officials, who are considering whether to require developers to include units for people of low and moderate incomes in nearly all projects, said foundation Vice President Adrian Moore.

“The number of affordable homes that were built actually went down, rather perversely,” Moore said of the other cities his foundation studied. “It’s a lose-lose on every front.”

Los Angeles City Council members Ed Reyes and Eric Garcetti, who have championed the inclusionary zoning proposal under consideration, said the Reason Foundation’s libertarian philosophy likely skewed the results.

Garcetti said the Reason Foundation looked only at homes for sale, not rental properties. Reyes said the foundation looked at inclusionary zoning in isolation, whereas city officials are considering it as part of a package of measures to enlarge the city’s stock of affordable properties.

“From my perspective, inclusionary zoning alone is not the answer,” Reyes said. “The question for me is, how do we shape an inclusionary zoning policy in the context of everything else we’re doing.”

? 2004, Daily News, Los Angeles. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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