The Los Angeles City Council postponed some upzoning mandated by Senate Bill 79 by allowing increased density in areas across the city.
The City Council voted unanimously this week in favor of the Low-Rise Ordinance, permitting developers to build up to four stories in 57 neighborhoods near transit stops, LAist reported.
The move caps off several months of top-down pushback against SB 79 taking effect on July 1.
Mayor Karen Bass and Council Member Traci Park called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto the transit-oriented upzoning bill last fall but he signed the legislation. That prompted the City Council in November to ask the Planning Commission to draw up a local alternative to the law, as SB 79 allows cities to delay full implementation until 2030 if they create local legal pathways to create more housing.
The Planning Commission put forward options earlier this year, and in March, the City Council voted to upzone 55 single-family and low-density areas, largely concentrated in Central L.A., West L.A., the Eastside and the San Fernando Valley. It was an expansion of the Opportunity Corridor Transition Area, a provision that incentivizes developers to build small, multifamily housing projects near transit.
The change allows buildings between four and 16 units and up to four stories to be built in single-family and low-density areas.
The Low-Rise Ordinance seeks to delay SB 79 in areas deemed historically significant, at high risk of fires or economically “low-resource.”
The state’s push for upzoning under SB 79 would affect nearly three-quarters of single-family-zoned land across the city.
“The promise of having duplex, triplex and courtyard typologies of housing are being lost with this measure,” Barbara Broide, a Westside Neighborhood Council boardmember, said of SB 79’s “unintended consequences.” “Instead we’re seeing four-story apartment buildings with no setbacks, no trees, no place for families, for children to play or tomatoes to be planted.”
— Chris Malone Méndez
Read more
Bye-bye, SB 79: LA fends off citywide upzoning with limited low-density push
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City of LA looks to stall SB 79 with upzoning
