Am writing today with a request: That you click the link below and add your name to the long list of people and organizations in favor of adding more housing along the Expo Line in LA.
Here’s the link.
Regular readers know that LA’s housing crisis is basically the result of terrible land-use planning. We have plenty of land to build enough housing to meet the demand… but we stupidly reserve vast swathes of it for single family homes.
The results are predictable: High housing prices, sprawl, and lower property taxes per square mile, resulting in less revenue to maintain infrastructure like roads and water pipes.
Fortunately, there is a solution: Mass transit (to take cars off the road), coupled with much higher allowable housing densities near transit stops (to increase housing supply).
The two are mutually reinforcing:
- Each new line / stop makes the whole system exponentially more useful for everyone who lives and works close enough to stations to use it; and
- The more people who live and work close to stations, the more riders there will be, raising revenue and demand for yet more investment
In short, we can create a virtuous cycle that helps to solve our housing crisis.
The problem? We still have a bunch of hold-outs who are trying every trick in the book to block changes to the zoning code that would allow for more density. And so Abundant Housing LA, a group dedicated to addressing these issues, is asking for our help in pressuring these hold-outs to allow for more housing to be built where it will do the most good – right near the stations of the new Expo Line.