The city of Los Angeles is re-planning its neighborhoods. Build over 250,000 new homesBut nearly three-quarters of the city will remain closed to further development due to the Department of City Planning's recommendation.

At stake is Los Angeles' very vision for the future: Will Los Angeles remain a predominantly single-family home community, or will the city make a historic shift to allow more affordable housing in areas that have long been off limits to housing?

The agency's proposal would leave intact areas where construction is only allowed for single-family homes (and often accessory dwellings) — a classification that makes up 72 percent of L.A.'s residential land. Instead, the agency would like the city to reach its 250,000-unit construction goal by encouraging expanded development in existing multifamily and commercial areas.

The city planning commission is scheduled to vote. Regarding Thursday's proposalThe City Council must approve the final plan by a state deadline in February.

Leaving the single-family neighborhoods intact will maintain the low-density character of the area, similar to other large American cities. Defined modern Los Angeles And it responds to the arguments of homeowners groups who want to keep the neighborhoods as they are, even as some social justice and housing groups argue doing so reinforces long-standing inequalities in a Los Angeles housing market that is facing an ongoing home affordability crisis.

A newly released report, produced over three years with city funding, ramps up criticism of excessive zoning for single-family homes.

of 124 page studyThe Department of City Planning initially refused to release the report through a public records request from The New York Times, which argues that the century-old zoning designation is a key factor in maintaining current racial and economic disparities and began as a means to advance the interests of white-led real estate and homeowner associations. The city contracted for the report in July 2021 and released it last week after The New York Times argued that it was illegal to withhold the report.

“Past planning and housing policies have too often prioritized the concerns of the white middle class over marginalized people, leaving communities of color without access to resources and excluded from opportunities to build wealth.” Read the report“The exclusionary policies of the past persist today, perpetuating patterns of segregation, expulsion, inequality and exclusion,” said the report, written by Architectural Resources Group and scholars affiliated with UCLA and USC.

The report noted that more than 80 percent of the land in Los Angeles with the best performing schools, the most public facilities, and the best access to jobs is designated for single-family homes. In small areas, including some of the wealthiest, majority-white neighborhoods, 95 percent of land is reserved for single-family homes.

“Single-family homes account for the majority of land allocated for residential use,” the report states. “This has led to a widespread supply shortage and an unaffordable housing market, coupled with the fact that single-family homes are more expensive than apartment complexes.”

The future of single-family neighborhoods has been one of the most contentious issues in the citywide rezoning debate. Every eight years under state lawNew regulations are forcing cities to come up with plans. There are more houses than before Shifting development to more affluent regions I've resisted for a long time.

City First proposal for November 2021 The city has pledged to consider allowing some low-income housing in single-family zones near public transportation and in wealthy areas. The plan would simply allow property owners to build apartment complexes if they wanted to. Last fall, the city decided not to change the single-family zones after homeowners groups argued the city should prioritize development along commercial strips.

The Department of City Planning's current recommendation is to keep single-family zones as they are, except for 1 percent of land owned by public or religious organizations that can build limited affordable housing. But the report to the City Planning Commission lists the option of allowing low-income housing to be built in single-family zones if the commission or city council members wish.

The recommended plan calls for 56 percent of the growth to go to Los Angeles' better-resourced apartment and commercial areas, a percentage the Planning Department expects to meet state requirements. For example, if single-family neighborhoods in the Mid-City, West Side and San Fernando Valley were included in the zoning change, the better-resourced communities would receive more than two-thirds of the planned new housing, the Planning Department said.

Nora Frost, a spokeswoman for the city planning department, said officials considered a range of options “given the importance of the issue and substantial public discussion.”

According to the department's report, about 3,000 comments were received about the status of single-family residential areas in the rezoning plan, with more than three-quarters opposed to the change. Housing Advocacy Groups They are campaigning for new rules.

Mahdi Manji, public policy director at the Inner City Law Center, said the rezoning proposal “pushes the envelope” of community integration by not allowing affordable housing in single-family neighborhoods.

Nearly two-thirds of housing in Los Angeles is rental, according to U.S. census data. By concentrating housing construction where tenants already live, the city is asking them to bear the brunt of the growth, because developers will have to tear down small, often rent-controlled apartment buildings and replace them with larger ones, Manzi said.

“The argument is that a disproportionately wealthy and white minority of residents cannot continue to maintain their neighborhoods as they are unless the majority of residents accept further disruption to their lives,” Manzi said.

Frost said the intensity of those talks has led city planning officials to insist that they continue after the rezoning work is complete. He noted that it took Minneapolis and Portland at least five years to customize affordable housing incentives in areas that previously contained only single-family homes.

“The city should further collaborate with Angelenos to reach an agreement that prioritizes housing equity while advancing the city's needs,” Frost said.

The city-funded study was meant to be part of the rezoning discussions: In May 2021, the city commissioned a consultant to document the plan's historical role in creating and widening housing disparities. The study cost $60,000 and was scheduled to be completed by August 2021, before the city first submits its broad rezoning plan to the state.

But the process dragged on as city planners made multiple revisions to the draft report. In December 2022, the city increased the contract value to $124,480 and asked the consultant to make final changes.

Earlier this month, more than three years after the study was supposed to be completed, the Planning Department denied The Times' request for the report. The department said that while the consultants had finished their work, planning staff were “preparing an outreach plan for the study,” and therefore the report was exempt from release to protect agency deliberations. On September 20, after The Times protested the withholding of the report, the department Published the document on the website.

The study said Los Angeles was a “pioneer” in creating single-family home zones in the early 20th century, which, combined with racially restrictive covenants, mortgage redlining, and other policies, ensured that only white residents had access to quality housing. Planning practices in the later 20th century were less explicit in their efforts to keep out poor and non-white residents, but reinforced existing patterns of exclusion, the report said.

According to the report, since the 1970s, the city The zoning of a vast area of ​​land was reduced.He cut building permits to allow the city to build housing for 10 million people to just 4 million and gave homeowners groups more power in the planning process.

The study calls the 1972 Westwood development plan “a useful case study of how zoning rollbacks exacerbated economic disparity.” The Westwood plan set aside 435 acres for apartment complexes for 51,000 people and 1,000 acres for single-family homes for 14,000 people. The plan called for future increases in population density to be reduced elsewhere in the neighborhood. This restriction limited housing opportunities and raised costs as UCLA Westwood's student and staff population grew, the study concludes.

“The Community Plan effectively reserves acres for use by affluent households, excluding them from high-density development and preventing future changes that may be needed to address housing shortages,” the report said.

The study found that while the city has updated the Westwood Plan over the past 50 years, many of its core elements have remained the same.