Panel Urges Fewer Limits on Housing

A housing task force convened last fall by the Los Angeles City Council warned Thursday that the city must allow property owners to build more housing on their lots and convert commercial buildings into apartments to solve the city’s worsening housing shortage.

The dramatic land use changes recommended by the group are certain to be challenged by homeowners and environmental groups opposed to any measure that would increase crowding and traffic congestion.

The recommendations were presented in a report titled “In Short Supply,” the work of the Los Angeles Housing Crisis Task Force, a coalition of more than 100 people representing unions, architects, mortgage lenders, developers, tenants and government.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and council members Mike Feuer and Jackie Goldberg joined task force members who presented the report at a news conference Thursday.

The document explained the trouble faced by tens of thousands of struggling Los Angeles residents: Renters spend a higher proportion of their incomes for housing than anywhere else in the state. While the city’s population is growing by the tens of thousands each year, affordable housing is being added by the hundreds.

“It’s time for the city government of Los Angeles to stand up and resolve this crisis and address the real housing needs of the working poor,” Goldberg said.

The coalition suggests, for example, that zoning restrictions be eased in some parts of the city to allow the construction of additional stories to existing housing.

The group also recommends that the city decrease minimum lot sizes for housing, reduce some parking requirements, create more apartments over retail shops, and allow housing on obsolete industrial properties.

“I would expect those changes in regulations to be controversial,” said Franklin Eberhard, the city’s deputy director of planning.

He said he expects opposition from homeowners groups. “There is a feeling that we already don’t have enough infrastructure to support the population we have,” Eberhard said.

If enacted, the measure would actually discourage new housing development, said Harold Greenberg, a spokesman for the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles and a task force member. Greenberg complained that the group had too many members from nonprofit groups and tenants rights organizations.

“There is no question that there is a lack of decent, affordable housing in Los Angeles,” he said. “But part of the problem is that there are no incentives for the private sector.”

The report is expected to cause controversy, said Mike Woo, a former councilman and a task force chairman. But he hopes to eliminate some opposition by excluding single-family neighborhoods from the proposed zoning changes.

Woo said he expects little opposition to some of the group’s other recommendations, such as having the city provide better telephone and Internet information for housing, building, zoning and planning.