Down-to-earth housing

A battle is shaping up over the future of downtown Los Angeles. Developers are lining up to build new residential skyscrapers for the extremely well-heeled. These luxury apartments and condos, however, will be far out of reach for thousands of people who work downtown -- the hotel and restaurant staff, sales clerks and parking lot attendants, janitors and security guards, government employees and accountants.

About 95% of new residences built downtown since 2000 are expensive -- renting for $1,800 to $2,800 a month, selling for $450,000 to $800,000 -- and there are billions of dollars more on the drawing board. And yet Los Angeles, which still has no plan for how to build affordable housing, is preparing an enormous giveaway to developers called the Greater Downtown Housing Incentive Area. If this ordinance is approved by the City Council in the next week or so, the city will have missed its opportunity to guarantee that downtown's prosperity works for everyone.

The ordinance will alter zoning regulations to allow developers to build bigger buildings. But the rules only require making some of the units affordable if the developer requests a "bonus" -- that is to say, to build even more units than normally allowed. But even that is easily sidestepped, with the up-sizing bonus available for a fee. The result will be virtually no affordable housing in the new developments.

High housing costs are no longer a problem limited to low-wage immigrants or those with limited job skills. The problem is hitting two-income households, college graduates, those already working two jobs. The median home price in Los Angeles County is more than $500,000. A family needs an annual income of $57,000 to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment with a rent of $1,400 a month.

Last November, an important shift took place: Angelenos moved past the shock of the last decade's run-up in rents and home prices and said something needs to be done. A majority of Los Angeles voters -- 63% -- backed a $1-billion housing bond that only failed because it required 67% to pass. Across L.A., voters were saying it was time to address the housing mess -- time to help working-class families rent apartments and middle-income families buy homes.