You are here

Los Angeles Times: San Pedro Project Illustrates a Cause of Limited Housing Affordability

August 6, 2014

At a groundbreaking ceremony in May, neighborhood activists and local government officials celebrated Ponte Vista, a development of 676 homes in San Pedro.

But officials also spoke of the decade it took to get construction started, amid neighborhood protests over the size and style of the homes and the traffic they would bring. Original plans called for a multifamily development with three times as many homes, with many more affordable options.

Now, with plans modified to include 208 single-family homes, prices will range from about $400,000 to $1.1 million.

The Los Angeles project highlights what economists and housing experts call a major contributor to Southern California's housing affordability problems: Developments routinely get delayed, scaled back or killed amid strong opposition from community groups.

The difficulty in winning construction approvals, however, is a trend that long predates the housing meltdown and will probably continue long after. California has failed to build enough homes, relative to population growth, every year since 1989, according to a November 2013 report from a state Senate committee.

In Los Angeles and elsewhere, large-scale plans often need special approvals that give neighborhood groups a venue to push back against development. Little land has been zoned for high-density housing. And much of the region has been set aside for the single-family homes that many Southern Californians prefer.

"It's sort of the desire to keep L.A. a certain way — that is not compatible with it being affordable," said Richard Green, director of USC's Lusk Center for Real Estate. "You can have sprawl or you can have density or you can have very expensive housing."