SoCal Has To Plan For 1.3 Million New Homes. But Where Should They Go?
 

From LAist:

SoCal Has To Plan For 1.3 Million New Homes. But Where Should They Go?

BY DAVID WAGNER IN NEWS ON NOVEMBER 11, 2019 7:00 AM

In the midst of California's deepening housing crisis, the state has given Southern California a big task: Plan for at least 1.3 million new homes by 2029.

But where to put all those new homes has been a contentious question.

At a regional planning meeting last week, local representatives rejected an initial proposal to concentrate growth in the Inland Empire, instead voting to put more homes near major job centers and transit lines in L.A. and Orange counties.

WHY 1.3 MILLION HOMES?

Under state law, each region has to plan every eight years for new housing. That means figuring out how many homes are needed to meet the needs of the population, and where, and then asking cities to zone for them.

Here, that job goes to the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), a planning body made up of local representatives across six counties: L.A., Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and Ventura.

Originally, SCAG told the state it only wanted to plan for about 430,000 new homes by 2029. But state housing officials said we needed triple that amount — 1.3 million new homes.

That level of homebuilding would be a major change for sprawling Southern California, a region that has for decades failed to build enough housing to keep up with population growth.

Housing advocates argue this shortage is the root cause of the region's homelessness, sky-high rents and home prices, and the exodus of middle-class Californians to cheaper states like Texas and Arizona.

THE PLAN THAT LOST: BUILDING FURTHER INLAND

At last week's meeting, SCAG had to decide how to divvy up the state's goal of 1.3 million new homes across Southern California cities. They had two options on the table.

SCAG's initial plan would have focused new homes in the Inland Empire, while setting fairly low housing goals for many wealthy, coastal communities.

For example, the city of Coachella would've been asked to plan for more than 15,000 homes over the next eight years. Meanwhile, Laguna Beach — with half the population of Coachella — would've been given a goal of just 55 new homes over that same time period.

UCLA urban planning professor Paavo Monkkonen said the original methodology, which relies on population projections, tends to reward cities that have historically resisted new housing. Without new housing, a city's population doesn't grow, creating a kind of feedback loop: Restrictive zoning in the past leads to less zoning for homes in the future.

"Current local zoning plays a big role in their expected (population) growth," Monkkonen said. "Cities that don't want housing were able to project very low growth and get a very low housing number."

Other critics of the original plan said it would have forced residents to live farther inland, potentially away from their jobs near the coast. They argued that would extend commutes, add cars to congested freeways and increase greenhouse gas emissions.

Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu tore into the plan. He said that limiting housing options for lower-income residents in coastal areas amounted to "economic redlining."

"The only people this allocation serves are the wealthy cities in Orange County and the Westside, who have all the jobs and all the places where people want to live, but expect far-flung desert cities to build all the housing," Ryu said.

In the end, Ryu's preference won. The plan was scrapped.

THE WINNING PLAN: BUILD CLOSER TO JOBS AND TRANSIT

The alternative plan, which was passed by SCAG members 43-19, places more homes near major job centers and transit lines — in effect, concentrating new housing in coastal Los Angeles and Orange County.

Local officials who received bigger housing goals under the new plan were split. Some said they welcomed the change.

Culver City Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells said Westside cities that have seen major tech employers moving in with big expansion plans now need to build housing for workers at all income levels.

"We cannot attract teachers to our excellent Culver City Unified School District, because they can't live within three hours of our city. It is a crisis," Sahli-Wells said.

Most of the 19 representatives who voted against the new plan were from Orange County, a region where new housing development is often met with fierce opposition from local voters.

The new plan increases Orange County's overall goal by about 75,000 units. Some high-income communities that have fought growth in the past will see a big rise in the number of homes they have to plan for.

Huntington Beach is expected to zone for 13,321 homes under the plan. Under the initial goal, it would have been required to zone for just 3,612 new homes.

Yorba Linda's number went from 207 new homes to 2,322.

Yorba Linda City Councilmember Peggy Huang voted against the plan. Her proposal to address the imbalance between where people work and where they can afford to live: Tell employers to move to the Inland Empire.

"In Orange County and Los Angeles, where it's job rich, we should be encouraging companies to go out there. Don't look at us. Go over there," Huang said.

Other local officials said the new housing goals would be impossible to meet.

Downey City Councilmember Sean Ashton said his city has "no room to build." The new plan bumps Downey's housing goal from 2,773 to 6,552 new units.

"I don't know where we're going to do that," Ashton said. "So my question really is, what happens when we don't make these numbers?"

[...]

Read the rest by clicking the link:
https://laist.com/2019/11/11/socal_h...W1DOTsZjpeZorU

Of course all the wealthy suburbs are resistant. The homeowners benefit from scarcity in property value. Of course frankly a 1300 sq ft 1960's era tract home should never sell for 600K in places like Downey, but eh.
Guess they will have to accept that if they want to keep a booming economy locally that benefits from people spending money there, they need to make room for it.
How? Turn the strip malls and shopping centers along major Blvds into 5 and 6 story mixed use structures with retail and some parking below, and residential above. Any new Wal Mart or Target should have a parking structure and residential on site, no more giant lots that waste space. Implement townhomes and zero property line homes in denser parts of the city. designate some high rise areas for condo towers. Start creating people movers in each city that somewhere connects to one of the rail lines. These are not revolutionary changes.

No more big lot single family homes ca be built in these areas, so time to densify.

Sounds like progress!

As for Downey, that councilman sounds like an idiot. Look at all this sprawly retail that could become mixed-use.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Do...4d-118.1331593

Here's a good spot -- that's why it's one of the fastest growing regions in California.

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.7689.../data=!3m1!1e3

People always forget San Diego has its own regional planning agency. We're SoCal too!

That brings the total number of new homes closer to 1.5 million. Even assuming a low 2.8 persons per household, that's an additional 4.2 million people. Or roughly the combined populations of Huston and Phoenix, plus a Honolulu thrown on for good measure.

I guess you didn't read the article:

THE PLAN THAT LOST: BUILDING FURTHER INLAND

THE WINNING PLAN: BUILD CLOSER TO JOBS AND TRANSIT

That Lake Elsinore area you posted is... blech. It's growing because it's cheap, but it's also trafficky because the people who live there have to commute into/out of there to areas with jobs and such. I guess also the traffic is cause by people going to/from the Temecula wine country and Pechanga Casino/Resort.

No, I did read the article, which doesn't make much sense considering there is affordable open land that has been a leader in growth in California that has commuter rail connections to Los Angeles already in place [Perris] and could easily be extended.

That area will add another million people with ease in the coming decades.


MetroLink Station streetview:
https://goo.gl/maps/WFMRdRKz9CRiZMov5

This area will explode with growth in the near term.

Excellent Plan. Absolutely no reason to build 60 - 70 or 80 miles from the core of the metro area. Frankly, i wish we could revert back to nature for a majority of the exurbs as well as any planned developments such as tejon ranch and other fire prone areas. Every major street in core Los Angeles needs to have a bare min of 5 - 8 story buildings with retail on the ground level and housing / office above. We should look very similar to Tokyo as thats the most efficient model.

Here's another perspective of the area that is set to absorb a lot of SoCal growth:

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6940.../data=!3m1!1e3

Not really....

The Lake Elsinore/Temecula area lies within a bit of a gap in the SoCal regional planning structure. The territory itself lies within SCAG, but its more of a commuter region for SANDAG's North County San Diego than SCAG's job centers in the LA basin. So when SCAG does its analysis it sees the region as being extremely far from jobs, making it less desirable for housing, when in reality it's still reasonable close to a job center that's just outside of SCAG's jurisdiction. SCAG could do some sort of joint analysis with SANDAG if it wanted to, but considering there's zero transit in the area Sacramento isn't exactly going to be encouraging. In the end the area is receiving a very low housing requirement, and anything else that gets built there won't be receiving any help fighting off the NIMBYs.

Build up, near transit & jobs
 

Higher density, taller, near transit and job centers. NIMBYs be d*med,

Metrolink is already in place, with the possibility of future expansions.

For instance, the city of Perris in Riverside County is 71 miles southeast of Los Angeles and 81 miles northeast of San Diego, has two Metrolink stations in operation and since 2000 has more than doubled in size.

2000 36,189
2010 68,386
2018 79,133

Yorba Linda's representative does have a point about bringing more jobs into the Inland Empire and far inland Orange County (where Yorba Linda is). Previously most jobs in the IE were of the warehouses/blue-collar variety. With the increase in population and spending dollars, there's been higher paying jobs moving in.

Downtown Riverside has seen an increase and has the best chance at gaining more white-collar jobs. It's at the convergence of three separate commuter rail lines, has a university surging in the rankings (UC-Riverside), and isn't as far inland or on the edge as Downtown San Bernardino. Riverside also has the better reputation. Another area seeing some growth, though more in the mid-rise office park nature, is the Ontario Mills/Ontario Airport area. Outside of that, there is very few going on in the way of attracting white-collar jobs to the IE. Downtown San Bernardino has improved, but still only county government office jobs seem to be expanding there. Guess that's a start.

Overall, I'm glad they chose adding housing where most of the jobs and transit are. That's the smartest thing and Downey's rep has their head in the sand if they think Downey doesn't have more room. Plenty of parking lots that can be ripped up. The coastal cities need to beef it up and many of them have inland areas that can handle more housing. I do worry about transit in places like Huntington Beach. Most of the midrise apartments are being built near the 405 currently and there isn't a transit option outside some bus service. Could really use a rail line down the 405 into OC connecting it with Long Beach and/or the future Santa Ana line.

check out this trash site plan in downey. this probably wouldn't even fly in many built out suburban areas of the midwest, to say nothing of the LA basin. this is what is currently under construction, not built in 1999.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5...6ad14d~mv2.jpg
static.wixstatic.com

If Tokyo can have 38 million in a small area, then California certaintly has room to build more housing.

38 million packed into a small area or high quality of life. Choose one.

In what way do people in Tokyo have a lower quality of life compared to southern California over the obvious things it can't change(beaches/weather)?

Japanese culture is also very unique in the world. California has been the single family American dream for a century. What many here are proposing is a shift away from that to much high density living, which LA is well on its way. Doesn't mean the entire area will follow suit, but the basin will.

I didn't say people in Tokyo had a lower quality of life. I'm sure their doing just fine.

The comparison isn't between SoCal and Tokyo. The comparison is between SoCal today and a hypothetical SoCal with a similar population and density to Tokyo. I think the latter would be an unlivable dystopian nightmare.

Sorry I misspoke a bit. I meant there's no transit between LA County and SD County in that area. All commuting has to be done on the 15, and the state government is discouraging plans that increase the number of automobile commutes.

Also for everyone saying LA is going to become Toyko because of this, the official LA and Tokyo metro areas have roughly the same population (~13 million), but LA has nearly six times the land area (4,850.3 sq miles vs 847.9). Even at the most extreme population growth LA won't start looking like Tokyo for decades.