We now have three years of post-ULA permitting data to compare to pre-ULA, and...it's not good. Average annual building permits issued in LA City have fallen by 1/3 since the measure passed. If you think this is due to macro factors, look at the rest of the county and state - doing mostly fine.

The trend shift in adults per family household is so insane. its even more insane that every important policymaker and economist thought we were slowly soaking up a glut of homes even into the 2010s. And it’s even more insane that there are still supply-crisis skeptics today.

👀

Incredibly deeply reported history by @maylin.bsky.social of LA's failure to build curb ramps for decades. Her discussion of the Willits settlement makes me wonder if the city stopped repaving in response to developments in that case (which has been in mediation in recent years).

LA keeps saying it's fixing its housing shortage. Oren Hadar got the real numbers and asks whether the City Council will use this moment on SB 79 to finally do something real, or just do the minimum to delay another four years. Full breakdown in his thread. Highly recommend reading.

👀 The insane correlation in LA between how long it takes to build an apartment building and how wealthy the neighborhood is. Left is from Soltas' paper, right is the Planning Dept.'s neighborhood map. Maybe we should make it easier to build in rich neighborhoods!

Update: the Planning Dept. told me they listed a 500+ unit TOIA project by mistake, and I found a duplicate (also TOIA). The correct total homes proposed in CHIP's first year: 99 projects, 8,835 units. Total TOIA: 2,286 units, or less than a quarter of what was proposed in TOC's first year.

Here's a map of the (paltry) 101 CHIP projects proposed in LA in the program's first year. See thread below for my analysis.

Happy first birthday to CHIP, LA's big housing plan to spur homebuilding and help us meet state housing targets. How was baby's first year? I got a list of all the projects submitted so far, and it's...underwhelming at best. A 🧵, including how this could affect SB 79 implementation:

"Public comment" was always hackable, first by NIMBYs, then by astroturf groups funded by big corporations, and now by AI. All along the way it has made our government less representative and more captured by special interests who favor the status quo. It causes more harm than good. Let's ditch it.

LA City Council: serving hyper local special interests over the greater good since 1850

Perfect framing of how LA’s political elite view things: elections aren’t for giving voters an opportunity to choose on the future of their city, county, or district; they’re for rewarding loyalty to the establishment machine. www.latimes.com/california/s...

When they say "millions" here, they mean over $100M! Together these awards totaled to: Wilmington Safe Streets: $32M Skid Row Connectivity Project: $39M Boyle Heights Connectivity Project: $32M (it's notable that the motion omits the embarrassing total)

A horrible, horrible reminder of what's at stake when we fight for pedestrian safety. God bless and keep this family.

In 2017, the city rolled back planned safety improvements that were being implemented *because people were getting killed,* including *on Pershing!* But drivers wanted to drive fast, so now they do, and occasionally they kill someone and her unborn baby, leaving two kids without a mom.

This isn't some bolt from the blue tragedy like pancreatic cancer. This is a man-made tragedy. And one where the blame is *extremely* easy to assign. The decision that led to this mom's death happened while I was in graduate school in LA.

This family's blood is on the hands of the LA City Council and former Mayor Eric Garcetti. There's just no other way to put it.

A family completely wrecked by our politicians' lack of a backbone to stand up for real safety and protect human lives. Transportation improvements are often matters of life and death. When the City of LA reversed these improvements, they collectively decided it was OK for people to die.

Near a beach by LAX 9 years ago, fatal crashes led city officials to carry out a road diet — with protected lanes for cyclists to make it harder to mow them down. Residents went so apes*t that then-mayor Eric Garcetti ordered the bike lanes ripped back out. You'll never guess what happened next.

I remember this when I was still a teen in LA. Undoing infrastructure that is meant to reduce speeding and address traffic violence makes no sense at all.

Tragedy in Playa Del Rey, as a 7-months-pregnant mother was killed by a driver while biking with her family. The baby was delivered by C-section but died in the NICU. The crash took place on Pershing Ave., where safety measures were removed in 2017 after NIMBY backlash. Donate here:

New buildings in LA suck because the city forces them to suck

My 5th grader's LAUSD teacher commutes from Ventura County to Mid-City LA. The magnet coordinator drives in from San Dimas. Both are well paid yet have to commute 40-50 miles. The school has tons of unused open space that could be converted to housing. LAUSD could do this if it had the willpower.

2025 was a decent year for homebuilding in California: - CA added a net 224k homes, 22% more than 2024. - LA County added 45k homes, 75% more than 2024! - Alameda, Placer, Santa Clara all doubled their pace. - Shoutout to San Francisco - only 420 homes added in 2024, but 5,545 in 2025 - 13x more!

I wrote about the Cloverfield Commons ballot measure to build 3,000 affordable homes at Santa Monica Airport after it closes in 2028. I'm a big fan of building housing at the airport, but this everything-bagel measure makes it pretty hard to achieve the vision of the folks who wrote it.

I wrote about the Cloverfield Commons ballot measure to build 3,000 affordable homes at Santa Monica Airport after it closes in 2028. I'm a big fan of building housing at the airport, but this everything-bagel measure makes it pretty hard to achieve the vision of the folks who wrote it.

I'm probably the most sympathetic ear that the Metro Board would get amongst the transit / YIMBY folks when it comes to their position on SB79 - that it will increase pushback to new lines and trains. I'm pretty understanding of that concern. My response to the Metro Board is, simply, "skill issue"

Get in losers, we're firing the Metro Board. From @futureis.la

Yesterday the Metro board made two terrible decisions that show they're incapable of leading this agency, which is currently in the middle of the largest transit expansion in the country. The state legislature has the power to restructure the board, and LA needs them to do it.

All of the new housing being built in the more central neighborhoods of San Diego seems to be almost entirely positive beyond the disruptions during the building of the new housing.

Wow - new market-rate apartment buildings in San Francisco created big gains for tenants in nearby existing apartments. Lowered their rent, prevented evictions, and reduced displacement. New affordable housing didn't have any of these local benefits! static1.squarespace.com/static/5c51b...

I regret to inform you that the NIMBYs are up to their shit again.

More Metro drama! The C Line South Bay Extension, up for a board vote next week, has two competing motions on the agenda - one to pick the staff recommended "hybrid" route using existing tracks, and one by Holly Mitchell and others to pick the more expensive route on Hawthorne Blvd.

Agree housing is a no brainer. But there’s a lot of bagel toppings on this particular ballot proposal. Who would build something with a 50% inclusionary requirement?

New Santa Monica ballot measure from Cloverfield Commons that would allow 3,000 low- and moderate-income homes to be built at the airport after it closes. Two pro-housing City Councilmembers have already come out against it. City Council nixed housing at the airport last summer.

🎯🎯🎯 "If Los Angeles is exempted from SB 79...Metro will continue building expensive infrastructure through low-density neighborhoods while ridership lags, housing costs soar, and access to homes near transit remains scarce. That is not a transit success story. It is the status quo, reinforced."

*LA METRO* opposes SB 79 - the law that makes it possible for more people to use the transit Metro builds! They worry cities that don't like SB 79 will slow down their projects. Metro wants to exempt LA County from the law, or maybe even all of California except the Bay Area. Just totally unhinged.

After three years of stalling by Heather Hutt, tonight Metro is finally starting outreach for bus lanes on La Brea from Olympic south to Coliseum. Bus lanes were installed on La Brea north of Olympic (Katy Yaroslavsky's district) in 2023. Meeting tonight 7pm on Zoom. Register at bit.ly/4qUBCk2

Has anyone done a moving chain study for new affordable homes? Folks have estimated the number of naturally occurring affordable homes kept that way by market rate apts. What about for below market rate apts? Would help quantify cost/benefit of IZ. @cselmendorf.bsky.social @michaelwiebe.bsky.social

Tokyo is a city that makes the argument that architecture is irrelevant. What matters more is urbanism: The street network The density The freedom of uses The clustering around rail

Protip: park your Cybertruck in a compact spot to make it look even bigger!

Thread about a damaging pothole on La Brea that developed last night after the latest rainstorm. This stretch hasn't been repaved since 2000! Instead of repaving it, the city did a "large asphalt repair" - a patch - a couple months ago, stopping 100 yards before the spot where the pothole formed.

"The slowdown has meant some landlords and property managers are struggling to find renters — something hard to image just a few years ago."

The "impact" of more housing is a better city.

"Instead of full resurfacing, StreetsLA has shifted most of its street maintenance budget to what it calls 'large asphalt repair' ...'It literally doesn’t exist,' said Oren Hadar. 'If you Google it, you get no results. It’s a thing they made up.'"

Incredible thread about the details of curb ramp design. The institutional culture favors designing for wheelchair users only, at the expense of other pedestrians.

“What is the city thinking? These half-baked solutions are going to end up costing taxpayers millions in legal settlements, and those settlements will probably force the city to put in the infrastructure they tried to avoid installing anyway.” futureis.la/p/breaking-t...

Well it's hard to keep up the streets given LA's brutal freeze/thaw cycles.

Car-centric development is unsustainable with a local tax model. It creates maximum infrastructure to maintain with minimal residents to support it. San Diego’s unfunded infrastructure repair/replacement needs are continuing to grow well into the billions of dollars.