California Needs More Urban Density

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Robert Cruickshank

David Lazarus is showing to Southern Californians what Bay Area readers already knew: the man really understands the problems facing working Californians, and is not afraid to write about them directly and engagingly. In January he took on Prop 13 and called for it to be revamped, if not scrapped. Today he has shifted his focus to the struggles renters face in LA.

As any of us who have lived in the area realize, rents are nearly unaffordable in the urban center of LA - the place where it's easiest to live without a car. Lazarus opens his column with the story of a single mother who makes $38K as an admin assistant and who can only afford a rental way out in Lancaster. This is a familiar story to me - I know a LOT of Californians who make a similar commute. And as oil prices soar toward $4/gal, it is becoming more difficult for working Californians to get around.

For the last few decades, Californians have been told the solution is more of the same - more sprawl, more freeways, more commuting. The obvious solution - to build more housing in the urban core - is opposed by those who believe, as a USC professor lamented in Lazarus' column, "density is a four-letter word."

Lazarus helps explain why the anti-density movement is blocking what I described last summer as the redefinition of the California Dream for the 21st century - that unless we invest in greater urban density, we will inscribe inequality permanently on the urban landscape.
For example, one of the major obstacles to affordable rental housing construction in the urban core is the archaic parking requirement:

“One reason housing prices are so high is a requirement that newly built multiunit dwellings (and condo conversions) provide at least one -- usually two or three -- parking space per unit. This inflates the cost of each apartment and discourages construction of smaller, more affordable units because developers would be required to provide even more parking.

"The fixation on parking in Los Angeles has driven up the price of housing and increased congestion on our streets," said Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA. He said including two spaces with a unit can add about $45,000 to construction costs.

“One solution would be to waive the parking requirement for smaller apartments, thus creating an incentive for developers to place more such units on the market. And because there'd be no parking cost built into the rent, such units would (in theory) be cheaper than apartments that come with extra room for vehicles.