los angeles city - housing plan
"A way home" ad-hoc committee
District 14 Council Member Kevin De Leon
Purpose
- A special “Ad-Hoc” committee was formed to provide input and suggestions, via letter, to Councilmember Kevin De Leon from the business community on his “A Way Home” plan.
Position
- Arnie's Comment: Recently council member DeLeon has been developing his “a way home” initiative to develop residential units. I was part of an ad-hoc committee where we provided input to council member DeLeon. I made a suggestion that the various business entities come together to create a cost benefit analysis study on the soft costs and based on my own experience, over $100,000 is placed on the builder from the city. The only thing the developer can do is pass the fees onto the tenant to recover their costs. This is one of the major obstacles to building affordable housing.
- The city may claim they need revenue, if they analyzed the detrimental effects of those soft costs, the ultimate cost to the city would be much greater than what they collect on fees, bonds and taxes, and the bureaucracy that it has caused.
- Cost benefit analysis: Charging 100k but also creating legal bond agreements, bureaucracy, makes affordable housing cost significantly more.
- Our recommendation is to show the hinderance of city fees and other charges on how they inhibit housing development. The consequences of those fees and cost is far more consequential than reducing them.
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