California Construction News staff writer
A 62-unit affordable housing project that opened in October in Los Angeles was one of several projects expedited under the Mayor’s Executive Directive 1 and more than 8,000 units of housing are set to be accelerated under the new rules. A proposed draft to make the directive permanent is expected to be considered by the planning commission this month.
“There are going to be elderly unhoused Angelenos living inside this month as opposed to later this year or early next year because of our work to expedite this project,” said Mayor Karen Bass. “By streamlining the building of affordable housing, we are saving lives. We cannot let up – the homelessness crisis is an emergency and we must continue to treat it like one.”
The directive continues to dramatically increase the number of affordable housing projects and units in development :
- 105 affordable housing projects have been filed with the Department of City Planning
- 50 project cases have been completed (55 are currently under review)
- 8,228 units of affordable housing have been proposed, of which:
- 4,155 units of affordable housing are approved
- 4,073 units of affordable housing are currently under review
- 43 days is the average processing time for projects with complete paperwork compared with processes that previously took 6-9 months to complete
