Affordable Housing

A four-mile stretch of the southeast San Fernando Valley has emerged as one of the premier battlegrounds in the fight over urbanization that has roiled neighborhoods across Los Angeles in a manner reminiscent of the growth wars of the mid-1980s. Developers' plans for the area, which stretches from Universal City to the upper reaches of North Hollywood, include roughly 5,500 new residences and millions of square feet of commercial and office space.

Lawmakers returned to Washington this week determined to address the home-loan fiasco that has dragged down the economy. The Senate quickly fashioned a bipartisan, $14.9-billion package of tax breaks and grants aimed largely at home builders and buyers. These moves might help boost some segments of the housing market, but they won't do much about the problem most in need of a federal response: the growing ranks of defaulting borrowers and repossessed homes.

The debate about the availability of housing in Los Angeles and the city's development policies has been testy but long overdue. Fueling public outrage over growth policies that would significantly increase density are well-grounded fears that, in the clash between overdevelopment and neighborhood preservation, the developers will prevail.

An Irvine planning commissioner and a retired police officer sued the city this week, challenging a closed-door "settlement agreement" with a high-rise developer as questions have arisen about the builder's support of City Council members who approved it. The Irvine City Council in January approved the agreement to resolve a dispute with Maguire Properties, a Los Angeles real estate developer known for the 72-story US Bank Tower downtown.

State officials Friday earmarked $30 million in voter-approved housing bonds for a group with ties to Staples Center owner Philip Anschutz, for sprucing up the street next to his multibillion-dollar entertainment projects in downtown Los Angeles. Legislation governing access to the bond money, and tailored to Anschutz's purpose, passed just hours before lawmakers adjourned last year. The funds come from a pot of $2.

A state panel has approved $30 million in housing bonds to improve the Figueroa Street area near Staples Center in downtown L.A. even though the initial application failed to show how the project would help provide affordable housing. The funding was approved Thursday night by the state's Local Assistance Loan and Grant Committee after the state allowed backers of the project to submit additional information.

For much of the 20th century, Los Angeles was one of the few major cities in the United States--maybe the only one--that offered so much promise to new arrivals when it came to residential architecture. In New York and other large cities on the East Coast, showing up as a new resident without a trust fund has always meant scratching out a living and moving slowly up the housing totem pole, from undersized apartment to slightly-less-undersized apartment.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday will unveil a $5-billion, five-year plan to build housing for the poor and middle class. The blueprint, which calls for thousands of new homes along subway and bus lines, and developments with people of all incomes living together, would, according to the mayor's deputies, alter the look and feel of the city forever.

In 2006, California voters passed Proposition 1C, a $2.8-billion housing bond. Los Angeles currently can get a share of the funds to build affordable housing for seniors, but the city's current need is for affordable housing open to families -- and in order to get money for those projects, it needs voters to update earlier authorizations. There's no good reason to lose out on this funding and the housing it would bring. The Times urges a yes vote on Measure B.

As the cost of Wall Street's credit crisis has mounted, the hunt for villains has intensified and the accusations of fault have widened. At first the focus was on greedy profiteers among lenders and investment bankers, who were an easy (and deserving) target.