Yesterday the LA Times ran a Rorschach-test of a story about Akhilesh Jha, a developer who is buying up single-family homes and replacing them with apartment buildings. Everybody hates him, but he doesn't care:
In the face of a crushing housing affordability crisis and shortage of available homes, state lawmakers have approved more than 100 new laws in six years that are designed to incentivize new housing proposals and force local governments to approve them.
In Los Angeles, no one is pushing the envelope more than Jha. Besides the 33-unit Harvard Heights project nestled between the 10 Freeway and Koreatown, he has two proposals in the San Fernando Valley to tear down single-family homes and build dozens of apartments and townhomes on the sites — all efforts that never before would have stood a chance of getting built.
Akhilesh Jha in front of a home he wants to replace with a 67-unit apartment building. —Mel Melcon, LA Times
Jha is exploiting a variety of new laws that are meant to cut through red tape and allow the construction of high-density housing regardless of local opposition. If your site is near a mass transit station, dozens of restrictions go away. Provide a bit of low-income housing and other restrictions go away. In one case, Jha took advantage of a loophole that makes it easier to build if the state hasn't approved a city's growth plan. This happened to Los Angeles very briefly last year and Jha slipped in his application during the few days LA was out of compliance.
In one sense, Jha is only doing exactly what lawmakers intended. They wanted to make it harder for local opposition to hamstring new construction, and that's exactly what's happened. But Jha has been so aggressive that he's essentially prevented any local input into his projects. He just points to frequently arcane provisions of the law and tells everyone to pound sand.
So: YIMBY hero or ruthless villain? You make the call.
83 thoughts on “LA developer is finding ways to build high-density housing that residents hate”
Mathis
Lived in Woodland Hills from 1992 thru 2013. Lost my house in 94 quake and built a new house (after a titanic fight with Allstate) on an almost acre
Lot. There are two neighborhoods in Woodland Hills w/ large horse lots like that. The only one near mass transit is College Acres and most of that is not anywhere near transit in any case . Walnut Acres (my neighborhood) is at least a mile or more from the nearest transit. I would have to know the address to know howI feel. WH is hottest place in LA and we left knowing the heat was getting worse and worse while traffic was already bad. And we didn’t know it would be this guy specifically but the large lots would be under relentless attack. Glad I don’t have to figure it out but in my experience guys that operate this way Are a net negative based on my experiences in Venice where a five story apt bldg got built (on a loophole) looming over our 1 story house, As much as I like ADUs etc I look to Santa Monica and the redevelopment from SFH to shitty apts in the 60’s for what it will look like - too profitable to tear down but a shitty place none the less.
Joseph Harbin
I've been living in Woodland Hills the past 24 years. The lot in the pic is big compared to most single-family homes in neighborhoods around here. Ours is 1/5 acre, not as efficient as a high-rise but not exactly wasteful. But we're 27 miles to downtown L.A. Anyone thinking Woodland Hills is the city core needs to think again.
For the record, Woodland Hills has a ton of development going on as we speak. Many apartment buildings and condos going up, most near the local transit hub and close to shopping and corporate offices. That makes sense.
You can be pro-growth and anti-NIMBY but also anti the stupidity in this article. No, it's not smart to replace a SFH with a 67-unit building, or to put an 89-foot building next to 1- to 3-story buildings, as mentioned in the article. (The home in the pic is likely a long, long walk from anything.) Stupid growth does not solve problems. It ruins neighborhoods and turns neighbors into new NIMBYs.
Growth is good. When a neighbor moved, the house was converted to a 5-unit dwelling. That's fine. It's growth that's organic and pays some regard to what existed before and what's in the vicinity. But stupid growth is stupid.
I would suggest most YIMBYs, like many in this comment thread, are not really YIMBYs. They are YIYBYs. Yes, In YOUR (not my) Back Yard. It's easy to cheer on ridiculous growth when it's in "L.A." When it's your neighbor's house that's torn down for an 89-foot-high building, you'll sing a different song.
This is a quote from the article:
“You can basically choose anything you don’t like in the zoning rules and you get free passes to throw it out the window,” Metcalf said. “It’s kind of an amazing law.”
That's dumb. People thinking that's a real solution are the flip side of MAGA Trumpists who say, Fuck the rules! just because they want to stick it to the enemy (in this case, NIMBYs).
There's gotta be a better way to grow and build.
jdubs
It doesnt sound at all like the same thing as MAGA. Thats a terrible comparisom. Maybe you dislike both, but the comparison is terrible.
Yikes
It is a Roarschach test. The house in the picture is the upper middle class LA dream. One feature is that its a fair bet, although not a certainty, that the surrounding houses are similar, which adds who knows exactly how much to the value.
And while, living in LA, I know of plenty of single family homes right next to muti-story buildings, and even can see (through Zillow, say) how much such a location means in terms of being worth less, I can say this:
Its not about whether its "worth less" when this guy plonks an apartment building next to it. It could very well be worth the same, but since LA is not Barcelona, and not designed in any way for acres of five story octagonal buildings, nor is it Paris, with its Hausmann arrondisments, no one is going to be happy with a single family house dwarfed by a multi-story something next door.
This actually illustrates how we got into this sprawl problem in the first place - letting the market decide. What should happen is something along the lines of all single family neighborhoods are immediately zoned for duplex or triplex, and work up from there.
LA has already approved any ADU you want to add to pretty much all houses, and you go from there.
But letting one developer decide or not decide is not going to cut it.
Laertes
The entire point of these laws is to empower guys like this. That current residents "hate" him is to be expected--everyone wants new housing to be built everywhere but here. I'm more interested in what the future residents of the units he's building think of him. If they hate him too, then I'll agree that he's a villain.
lawnorder
As I understand it, the state laws Jha is taking advantage of were passed because local governments were passing zoning ordinances that effectively prevented construction of higher density housing.
Sensible zoning works in rings. The first ring around a transit stop might be twenty story apartment buildings, with the next ring being ten story buildings, then five story buildings, then row-houses of two or three stories, then single-family houses. That way, you don't get the jarring contrast of a twenty story building looming over a SFH. but still get the benefits of high-density housing.. Perhaps, if the local governments would start being reasonable, the state would give them back some flexibility.
danglick
Bingo. The LA case--where the city was out of compliance for a few days--genuinely sounds like a loophole. But the other examples sound like the law working as intended.
shamhatdeleon
"...residents hate" meaning the people who live in the apartments he built don't like them? I doubt that.
Vog46
I have mixed emotions about this
Here start with this. Re-read this paragraph and emphasize the parts I highlighted
Jha is ***exploiting**** a variety of new laws that are meant to cut through red tape and allow the construction of high-density housing ****regardless*** of local opposition. If your site is near a mass transit station,***** dozens of restrictions go away*****. Provide a bit of low-income housing and *****other restrictions go away*****. In one case, Jha ******took advantage of a loophole that makes it easier to build if the state hasn't approved a city's growth plan*******. This happened to Los Angeles very briefly last year and Jha slipped in his application during the few days LA was out of compliance.
Is this guy being sneaky? Or is he being smart.
Its hard to answer because when I read this story what I get is thee will be MANY people who will think we need to tighten up on certain things to prevent multi-family units from coming into their 'hoods
Which then raises another question. I get where this developer is coming from BUT if I bought a house in a specific neighborhood BECAUSE of the neighborhood and someone comes along through ****taking advantage of*****, and *****regardless of the opposition*****, and my favorite ******because the state could not come to an agreement on a growth plan********
Then what is my recourse? Do I have ANY input into this when its such a blatant run around? When I have no input into the growth plan?
Something is very fishy here. The guys doing a great service, not doubt but his methodology may result in laws that are much more restrictive and put in place to "maintain the value" of that home that I bought 30 years ago, own outright.
Real Estate people should NOT be running development programs, or have input into them. If we cannot find a fix for this. But if I own a home thats been in my family for 2 generations and now is being "affected" by having low income people next door because some developer skirted the law or took advantage of no current agreement being in place you can bet that I will vote for folks who would put IRON clad protections that NO ONE could take advantage of.
illilillili
Yimby hero. This is exactly what you have been asking for by labeling a NIMBY anyone who wants some basic amount of planning. Want to keep water costs from rising for current residents? Want to reduce the frequency and probability of water rationing? Worried about ever increasing traffic congestion with no plans for improving mass transit? Then you're a NIMBY.
Lived in Woodland Hills from 1992 thru 2013. Lost my house in 94 quake and built a new house (after a titanic fight with Allstate) on an almost acre
Lot. There are two neighborhoods in Woodland Hills w/ large horse lots like that. The only one near mass transit is College Acres and most of that is not anywhere near transit in any case . Walnut Acres (my neighborhood) is at least a mile or more from the nearest transit. I would have to know the address to know howI feel. WH is hottest place in LA and we left knowing the heat was getting worse and worse while traffic was already bad. And we didn’t know it would be this guy specifically but the large lots would be under relentless attack. Glad I don’t have to figure it out but in my experience guys that operate this way Are a net negative based on my experiences in Venice where a five story apt bldg got built (on a loophole) looming over our 1 story house, As much as I like ADUs etc I look to Santa Monica and the redevelopment from SFH to shitty apts in the 60’s for what it will look like - too profitable to tear down but a shitty place none the less.
I've been living in Woodland Hills the past 24 years. The lot in the pic is big compared to most single-family homes in neighborhoods around here. Ours is 1/5 acre, not as efficient as a high-rise but not exactly wasteful. But we're 27 miles to downtown L.A. Anyone thinking Woodland Hills is the city core needs to think again.
For the record, Woodland Hills has a ton of development going on as we speak. Many apartment buildings and condos going up, most near the local transit hub and close to shopping and corporate offices. That makes sense.
You can be pro-growth and anti-NIMBY but also anti the stupidity in this article. No, it's not smart to replace a SFH with a 67-unit building, or to put an 89-foot building next to 1- to 3-story buildings, as mentioned in the article. (The home in the pic is likely a long, long walk from anything.) Stupid growth does not solve problems. It ruins neighborhoods and turns neighbors into new NIMBYs.
Growth is good. When a neighbor moved, the house was converted to a 5-unit dwelling. That's fine. It's growth that's organic and pays some regard to what existed before and what's in the vicinity. But stupid growth is stupid.
I would suggest most YIMBYs, like many in this comment thread, are not really YIMBYs. They are YIYBYs. Yes, In YOUR (not my) Back Yard. It's easy to cheer on ridiculous growth when it's in "L.A." When it's your neighbor's house that's torn down for an 89-foot-high building, you'll sing a different song.
This is a quote from the article:
“You can basically choose anything you don’t like in the zoning rules and you get free passes to throw it out the window,” Metcalf said. “It’s kind of an amazing law.”
That's dumb. People thinking that's a real solution are the flip side of MAGA Trumpists who say, Fuck the rules! just because they want to stick it to the enemy (in this case, NIMBYs).
There's gotta be a better way to grow and build.
It doesnt sound at all like the same thing as MAGA. Thats a terrible comparisom. Maybe you dislike both, but the comparison is terrible.
It is a Roarschach test. The house in the picture is the upper middle class LA dream. One feature is that its a fair bet, although not a certainty, that the surrounding houses are similar, which adds who knows exactly how much to the value.
And while, living in LA, I know of plenty of single family homes right next to muti-story buildings, and even can see (through Zillow, say) how much such a location means in terms of being worth less, I can say this:
Its not about whether its "worth less" when this guy plonks an apartment building next to it. It could very well be worth the same, but since LA is not Barcelona, and not designed in any way for acres of five story octagonal buildings, nor is it Paris, with its Hausmann arrondisments, no one is going to be happy with a single family house dwarfed by a multi-story something next door.
This actually illustrates how we got into this sprawl problem in the first place - letting the market decide. What should happen is something along the lines of all single family neighborhoods are immediately zoned for duplex or triplex, and work up from there.
LA has already approved any ADU you want to add to pretty much all houses, and you go from there.
But letting one developer decide or not decide is not going to cut it.
The entire point of these laws is to empower guys like this. That current residents "hate" him is to be expected--everyone wants new housing to be built everywhere but here. I'm more interested in what the future residents of the units he's building think of him. If they hate him too, then I'll agree that he's a villain.
As I understand it, the state laws Jha is taking advantage of were passed because local governments were passing zoning ordinances that effectively prevented construction of higher density housing.
Sensible zoning works in rings. The first ring around a transit stop might be twenty story apartment buildings, with the next ring being ten story buildings, then five story buildings, then row-houses of two or three stories, then single-family houses. That way, you don't get the jarring contrast of a twenty story building looming over a SFH. but still get the benefits of high-density housing.. Perhaps, if the local governments would start being reasonable, the state would give them back some flexibility.
Bingo. The LA case--where the city was out of compliance for a few days--genuinely sounds like a loophole. But the other examples sound like the law working as intended.
"...residents hate" meaning the people who live in the apartments he built don't like them? I doubt that.
I have mixed emotions about this
Here start with this. Re-read this paragraph and emphasize the parts I highlighted
Jha is ***exploiting**** a variety of new laws that are meant to cut through red tape and allow the construction of high-density housing ****regardless*** of local opposition. If your site is near a mass transit station,***** dozens of restrictions go away*****. Provide a bit of low-income housing and *****other restrictions go away*****. In one case, Jha ******took advantage of a loophole that makes it easier to build if the state hasn't approved a city's growth plan*******. This happened to Los Angeles very briefly last year and Jha slipped in his application during the few days LA was out of compliance.
Is this guy being sneaky? Or is he being smart.
Its hard to answer because when I read this story what I get is thee will be MANY people who will think we need to tighten up on certain things to prevent multi-family units from coming into their 'hoods
Which then raises another question. I get where this developer is coming from BUT if I bought a house in a specific neighborhood BECAUSE of the neighborhood and someone comes along through ****taking advantage of*****, and *****regardless of the opposition*****, and my favorite ******because the state could not come to an agreement on a growth plan********
Then what is my recourse? Do I have ANY input into this when its such a blatant run around? When I have no input into the growth plan?
Something is very fishy here. The guys doing a great service, not doubt but his methodology may result in laws that are much more restrictive and put in place to "maintain the value" of that home that I bought 30 years ago, own outright.
Real Estate people should NOT be running development programs, or have input into them. If we cannot find a fix for this. But if I own a home thats been in my family for 2 generations and now is being "affected" by having low income people next door because some developer skirted the law or took advantage of no current agreement being in place you can bet that I will vote for folks who would put IRON clad protections that NO ONE could take advantage of.
Yimby hero. This is exactly what you have been asking for by labeling a NIMBY anyone who wants some basic amount of planning. Want to keep water costs from rising for current residents? Want to reduce the frequency and probability of water rationing? Worried about ever increasing traffic congestion with no plans for improving mass transit? Then you're a NIMBY.
Embrace what you asked for.