Curbed LA— Last year, the Los Angeles Business Council put out a report written by UCLA Anderson School of Management lecturer/developer Paul Habibi saying that average working Angelenos can’t actually afford to live anywhere near where they work. Now they’ve paired up again for a new report (pdf) that looks at one way to fix that: by building new workforce housing along transit corridors. The report includes a ranking of neighborhoods by how primed they are for transit-oriented development (“The Index ranks 104 station areas and is based on six key demographic and market indicators – population, housing density, income, employment, transit ridership and land values – to evaluate whether a given market can support the type of mixed-use, mixed-income and higher-density development that comprises livable communities.” See the gallery for the rankings.) And luckily enough, the best opportunities are spread throughout LA County (see the “hot markets” on the map in the gallery).
The report also included case studies of two neighborhoods with big potential for transit-oriented workforce housing: the area around the Orange Line’s Van Nuys station and the section of Inglewood around the Florence/La Brea station on the upcoming Crenshaw Line. Metro owns land near the former, which is also near a bike path and several bus routes; Inglewood owns a nice piece of developable land near the latter.
Habibi writes that identifying hotspots is just step one, and that government will need to get involved “to attract investment and make these new livable communities financially feasible … Policymakers have the tools to make these projects attractive to potential investors and builders, and it’s time to use them.” (Ideas include reducing parking requirements near transit and reducing development fees for these kinds of projects.) And luckily Mayor Garcetti’s on board with that, according to a press release about the report.
· The Average LA Worker Still Can’t Actually Afford to Live in LA [Curbed LA]
· 2013 Livable Communities Report: A CALL TO ACTION [LABC]
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