Why it’s so hard to fix housing overcrowding in Los Angeles
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In an effort to solve the housing crisis in Los Angeles, advocates who have spent years studying the problem have suggested a plan called “A Better L.A.”
But many residents who helped create it are critical of what they call its focus on creating density far away from most of their neighborhoods.
As a result, in the short run, the plan may be useless, but in the long run it may be a success.
“A lot of people got on board with this idea because they like the idea of trying to make it work,” said John Mica, director of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs who serves on the committee behind the “A Better L.A.” plan.
A Better L.A.
A Better L.A. was first conceived in August as a plan to address the housing crisis in Los Angeles County by building more housing in existing neighborhoods. As part of the plan, local residents have been divided into five regions, and those in the more dense areas of each region were asked to help design new high-density housing developments.
That’s meant a lot of time spent in people’s homes – often living in the homes of those whose houses are being gutted – talking about the plan’s details, Mica said. “It’s a real conversation,” he said.
In addition to being a conversation – an intense two-day meeting of more than 400 people in a hotel ballroom – the team of experts who created the plan have also been meeting with experts from other cities and have been working with residents to assess their ideas.
Their ideas have been evaluated in what they’ve called a “living laboratory.”
The plan, which is designed by community organizer Jon Orcutt, a local architect and urban planning professor at UCLA, has been presented to the city council for approval.
It is a public-interest housing plan, designed to help with the issue of so-called under-utilized areas throughout the city, which have been built on a fraction of the homes needed to support the city’s population.
But there are many people who have not yet come around to the idea of changing