Why It Took 17 Years to Build 49 Housing Units in Los Angeles

https://wsj.com/real-estate/housing-affordable-building-real-est…

Lorena Plaza, a 49-unit development rising in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Boyle Heights in eastern Los Angeles, is taking longer to complete, a city official said, than practically any other residential building this size in the history of Los Angeles.

The development has faced nearly every hurdle that California laws allow opponents to place in the way of affordable housing. Approvals by politicians and commissions took years, often held up by a single determined opponent on the city council. It took the developers more time to win over skeptical neighbors who were particularly opposed to nearby housing for the mentally ill and homeless. Financing hurdles and other costs piled up along the way. Construction finally began about a year ago.

In California, affordable housing developers typically abide by a host of requirements when they take public subsidies, such as tougher energy-efficiency standards and higher wages for construction workers. They often need to build amenities such as offices for social workers and transit-boosting features such as bike storage.

Housing costs and homelessness have become the top political issue in the state, prompting officials to set ambitious goals to build more housing, faster. Los Angeles is aiming to construct more than 450,000 new homes by 2029, a feat that would require five times as much construction as occurred in the previous decade, according to a May report from researchers at the University of California Los Angeles’ Ziman Center for Real Estate and California State University Northridge.