Pacific Palisades rebuilding must include low-income housing: Los Angeles law – Washington Examiner

Conservative News DailyJanuary 30, 2025

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A‌ recent law passed by Los Angeles mandates that any rebuilding in Pacific Palisades, especially following recent⁤ fire damage, must incorporate affordable housing options. The‍ Resident Protections Ordinance (RPO) stipulates that ⁤apartment‍ buildings built before⁤ October 1978, which are under rent control,⁣ must replace units with affordable options for lower-income ⁢families, regardless of ⁤the current⁢ tenants’ incomes. for newer ‌buildings, landlords must prove that ⁤their rental history does not include lower-income tenants over⁣ the‌ last five years; otherwise, a proportional amount of low-income units must be included in any rebuilds.

The law is designed to address housing equity within the city, which has been characterized as a “High Opportunity⁢ Area.” Consequently, the affordability of replacement units will⁣ be based on citywide median incomes, which are lower than those typically⁤ found⁣ in Pacific Palisades. This could considerably alter the ‌area’s demographics and perhaps exclude current‍ higher-income residents from returning to their ⁤homes after reconstruction, as displaced residents‍ may not⁢ meet the new income qualifications⁣ for affordable units.

Pacific Palisades rebuilding must include low-income housing: Los Angeles law

(The Center Square) – Housing and land use experts say a Los Angeles city law could require the Pacific Palisades to include “affordable” housing to replace older buildings, and for new buildings where owners cannot definitively prove that their rental apartments had no low-income renters in the past five years.

The new Resident Protections Ordinance taking effect soon requires that “In Higher Opportunity Areas and Moderate Opportunity Areas, units deemed or presumed to be occupied by persons or families above the lower income category shall be replaced with low income units.” The RPO applies to units “subject to a form of rent or price control through a local government’s valid exercise of its police power.”

In the city of Los Angeles, which includes the Pacific Palisades — a “High Opportunity Area” — all apartment buildings built before October 1978 are subject to the city’s rent control ordinance, which means all units in such buildings would need to be replaced with units “affordable” to lower-income renters even if the existing tenants were high income.

For buildings after October 1978, owners must be able to prove that in the last five years before the fire that the tenants were all higher income, or the city will automatically apply “the percentage of Extremely Low Income, Very Low Income and Low Income Households in the same proportion as their share of all renter households within the City of Los Angeles,” which would result in requiring proportional replacement with extremely low, very low, and low income housing if owners do not have complete records for the past five years.

This also means that “affordability” is likely to be determined based on citywide median household income that is half the Palisades amount.

If all units in RSO buildings must be replaced with units affordable to lower-income households making up to about $80,000 per year for a family of four, rents would be about $2,000 per month. For the units in newer, non-RSO buildings that must be affordable to very-low-income households making up to about $50,000 for a family of four, rents would be about $1,300 per month.

Before the fire, a market-rate two-bedroom apartment cost between $4,000 and $5,000 per month, requiring a monthly annual household income of $160,000 to comfortably afford, which means that the RPO replacement requirements could significantly alter the area’s demographics — and even bar higher earning residents from renting out homes at their old addresses.

“Under the Resident Protections Ordinance, in most cases landlords will be required to replace apartments burned down in the Palisades with low income units,” said Los Angeles Housing Production Institute director Joseph Cohen on X. “Displaced residents will then find themselves ineligible to return because they won’t meet the income requirements.”