From the Los Angeles Times, January 20:
- San Diego is building apartments at nearly twice the rate of Los Angeles, with new construction up 10%, while L.A.’s has plummeted 33% over three years.
- San Diego’s streamlined permitting, clear general plan and no traditional rent control make it easier for developers to build, while L.A.’s restrictive regulations discourage projects.
As Los Angeles grapples with a housing shortage, it could learn from San Diego, which has proved better at convincing construction companies to build more.
The city is more welcoming to developers, industry insiders say, with fewer regulations and fees, better planning and less rent control.
“It is easier to build in San Diego over Los Angeles because of its legal structure, political culture and defined processes,” said Kevin Shannon, co-head of capital markets at real estate brokerage Newmark, which is overseeing the sale of a sprawling development site in San Diego that is zoned to have thousands of apartments.
The result: As of last quarter, the number of new apartments under construction in San Diego County rose 10% from three years earlier, CoStar data show. New apartment construction in Los Angeles County tumbled 33% over the same period, hitting an 11-year low in the three months through December. San Diego is expanding its apartment pool at nearly twice the rate of L.A. and other major city clusters in the state.L.A.’s vacancy rate is among the lowest in the country and rental rates are among the highest nationwide. Still, the supply of fresh rental units, which make up the bulk of new housing in Los Angeles, is thinning out despite robust demand.
Although local lawmakers create regulations to protect renters and keep rents down, hoping to combat homelessness, developers and economists warn that the wrong regulations often can add to the cost of building and maintaining apartments, making it hard to make a profit on new and existing projects. People who already have apartments may be protected, but over the long run, fewer are built, they say.
Rent control has been at the center of the debate recently. The city of Los Angeles just tightened its rent control.
It has just lowered the cap on rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments, a massive portion of the city’s housing stock that houses nearly half of the city’s residents. Although the cap doesn’t apply to units built after 1978, it still discourages developers, as it sends the wrong signal to those already worried about restrictions.
At the state level, a similar housing bill that would have halved the cap on rent increases to 5% a year died in the Assembly last week. Assemblymembers decided that too many restrictions can be counterproductive.
“That sounds nice and humanly caring and all that and warm and fuzzy, but someone has to pay,” said Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach). “How far do we squeeze the property owners?”
San Diego doesn’t have traditional rent control, though it does enforce less restrictive statewide tenant protections....
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