When Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued Executive Directive 1, a key tool of her administration to prevent homelessness and create housing by fast-tracking the city’s approval of 100% affordable housing projects, her goal was to reduce the red tape and boost L.A.’s dwindling stock of affordable apartments.
But families in a rent-controlled building in Eagle Rock say Bass’ directive — which is widely known by the acronym ED1 — has created a situation that puts them at risk of losing their own affordable housing, however well-intentioned it may be.
That’s because a developer wants to demolish the 17 rent-stabilized residential units at 4319 N. Toland Way – where about 45 people live – to make way for an eight-story, 153-unit affordable housing complex.
The developer is seeking approval through the mayor’s ED1 streamlined approval process, which doesn’t require public hearings where affected tenants and others can weigh in – and doesn’t provide a way for an opponent to appeal if the development is approved.
The Eagle Rock apartment building is covered under the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, which regulates how much rent can be increased annually on housing units built before 1978. Most, if not all, of the people who live in the building are low-income, including some who may be severely low-income.
They might be priced out of the neighborhood they’ve lived in for decades if they’re forced to move.
The residents say they’ve reached out to the mayor’s office and other elected city officials to urge them to fix what they see as a flaw in ED1.
“Do you know that you’re taking away people in affordable housing, to put up affordable housing, but then you’re going to make them homeless?” Sally Juarez, who has lived in the building since 1978, said, posing a question as if she was speaking to the mayor.
“That doesn’t make sense to us, so that’s what we’re fighting,” Juarez said.
The mayor’s…
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