Multifamily permitting in 2025 was flat compared to 2024.
11.03.2026 23:02
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Multifamily permitting in 2025 was flat compared to 2024.
Mazel tov!!
Data from 2018-2024 is from HCD (the state housing dept). 2025 data is from the Census Bureau. When HCD publishes its more robust 2025 numbers in July, I'll update the chart.
Also note that this is for 5+ unit apartment buildings, the ones most likely to be charged the ULA tax.
We now have three years of post-ULA permitting data to compare to pre-ULA, and...it's not good. Average annual building permits issued in LA City have fallen by 1/3 since the measure passed. If you think this is due to macro factors, look at the rest of the county and state - doing mostly fine.
This move is proof they know congestion pricing works. They are just too chickenshit to do it.
Yikes. That's worse than the bike rack at my Vons.
Sure!
They just ignored it until somebody told them they had to stop. The Willits people seem to know about it, but the settlement was 10 years ago, so...
The trend shift in adults per family household is so insane.
its even more insane that every important policymaker and economist thought we were slowly soaking up a glut of homes even into the 2010s.
And it’s even more insane that there are still supply-crisis skeptics today.
A little confusing that the dashed line for the NoHo bus goes right through the letter "D" by Wilshire/Western. (Also I rewrote that three times to avoid provoking giggles).
👀
Incredibly deeply reported history by @maylin.bsky.social of LA's failure to build curb ramps for decades. Her discussion of the Willits settlement makes me wonder if the city stopped repaving in response to developments in that case (which has been in mediation in recent years).
LA keeps saying it's fixing its housing shortage.
Oren Hadar got the real numbers and asks whether the City Council will use this moment on SB 79 to finally do something real, or just do the minimum to delay another four years.
Full breakdown in his thread. Highly recommend reading.
Plus single-stair reform...
Would CT be feasible in single family areas with lower IZ requirements? I believe it's currently two low-income or three moderate-income units for a 16 unit building.
FWIW, the map depicts the average time to permit a 30-unit building, using a very complicated methodology that takes up an entire appendix (C) of the paper.
👀 The insane correlation in LA between how long it takes to build an apartment building and how wealthy the neighborhood is. Left is from Soltas' paper, right is the Planning Dept.'s neighborhood map. Maybe we should make it easier to build in rich neighborhoods!
Update: the Planning Dept. told me they listed a 500+ unit TOIA project by mistake, and I found a duplicate (also TOIA). The correct total homes proposed in CHIP's first year: 99 projects, 8,835 units. Total TOIA: 2,286 units, or less than a quarter of what was proposed in TOC's first year.
Here's a map of the (paltry) 101 CHIP projects proposed in LA in the program's first year. See thread below for my analysis.
But the single-family debate might get a redo as the city debates SB 79 implementation. LA could delay SB 79 until 2030 by allowing either TOIA or CT in single-family zones around transit stops. Would these meh programs work better in SFZ? Even more than SB 79 itself? City Council has to decide.
The two truly new programs that actually allow apartment buildings in new places were total busts. Opportunity Corridors - 6 projects submitted the entire year. Corridor Transitions - zero projects submitted. Part of what handicaps OC and CT is that they can't be used in single-family zones.
A bar graph titled "Homes proposed in first year" with two columns representing two LA housing programs - the old TOC, which producedd 9909 it its first year, and the new TOIA, which produced just 2862.
A bar graph titled "Homes proposed in first year" with two columns representing two LA housing programs - the old ED 1, which producedd 10306 it its first year, and the new AHIP, which produced just 6077.
And those rebranded programs did worse than their predecessors did in their first years. TOIA produced 30% of the homes TOC did in its first year, and AHIP produced 60% of ED 1.
(Note: I ignored homes submitted using the state density bonus program - they should be counted separately from CHIP.)
A bar graph titled "Homes proposed in CHIP's first year" depicting the total homes proposed through CHIP's four programs. The columns are TOIA, which produced 2862 homes, AHIP, which produced 6077, Opportunity Corridors, which produced 472, and Corridor Transitions, which produced zero. There is also a Total column, which shows 9411 total homes proposed.
Only 9,411 new homes were submitted through CHIP's four big programs in year 1. Way less than the state's expectation that LA build ~60k homes per year. Worse, 95% of homes were submitted through the two programs (TOIA and AHIP) that are basically update/rebrands of existing programs (TOC and ED 1).
Happy first birthday to CHIP, LA's big housing plan to spur homebuilding and help us meet state housing targets. How was baby's first year? I got a list of all the projects submitted so far, and it's...underwhelming at best. A 🧵, including how this could affect SB 79 implementation:
1. Singapore
"Public comment" was always hackable, first by NIMBYs, then by astroturf groups funded by big corporations, and now by AI. All along the way it has made our government less representative and more captured by special interests who favor the status quo. It causes more harm than good. Let's ditch it.
LA City Council: serving hyper local special interests over the greater good since 1850
