Kudos to candidates … and be wary of the State Senate

| April 1, 2021 | 0 Comments

JOHN WELBORNE

Our community owes thanks to the 44 candidates and the 447 stakeholders who voted (and the approximately 590 who attempted to register for the city-mandated, COVID-19-era, vote-[only]-by-mail election for directors of the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council [GWNC]).

Historically, GWNC elections always have been neighborhood gatherings on one weekend day, with registration issues efficiently addressed before a stakeholder is handed ballots to mark and submit. Regardless of the kerfuffle of 2021, “Thank you” to everyone who participated.

State housing bills

GWNC geographic areas

By and large, GWNC stakeholders live, work or own property in our neighborhood council area (approximately Western to La Brea, Melrose to Olympic). Much of our area consists of residential buildings, developed since the very early 1900s by private-sector land subdividers responding to market demands at the time.

Vast numbers of the units constructed here are single-family homes in single-family subdivisions. Also within Greater Wilshire, there are neighborhoods that include duplexes, and there are neighborhoods originally developed with multi-unit apartment buildings.

Over time, there has been government rezoning (“up zoning”) in some areas (such as the GWNC’s Geographic Area 9, the “Oakwood – Maplewood – St. Andrews Neighborhood” that extends from about Van Ness to Western, Beverly to Melrose. There, real estate developers have been buying up single-family homes and demolishing them to build denser, taller and far more lucrative apartment building projects.

EXAMPLE of changes under SB 9 and SB 10.

Some politicians, heavily funded by the real estate and construction industries, including a large cadre of such politicians from the San Francisco Bay Area, want to expand such up zoning and demolition to almost all single-family neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

These elected officials pretend that they are advocates for affordable housing (construction of which is urgently needed), but their proposed laws will not create much affordable housing, mainly expensive, market-rate housing. And their laws dramatically will change the quality of life for the people who have invested in single-family homes in single-family neighborhoods.

Again, all without providing adequate, needed affordable housing.

The legislative activities are taking place in Sacramento, right now — with little thoughtful oversight by California media outlets. However, this situation is the subject of several columns and stories in Section 2 of this month’s issue of the Larchmont Chronicle.

Senate Bill 9 and Senate Bill 10 are two of this legislative session’s problematic housing bills being discussed right now in Sacramento. Two concerned and informed residents from Sherman Oaks, Maria and Jeff Kalban, have prepared an instructive Zoom video presentation about SB 9 and SB 10. It will be available statewide on Wed., April 7 at 5 p.m. To learn more about the event, see: tinyurl.com/655h8bmu .

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Category: Real Estate

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