Planning Director Vince Bertoni on Rezoning LA’s Housing Element & Incentivizing Development

In your last TPR interview in December 2022, you were asked to reflect on Councilmember Harris-Dawson’s proposition that a political and demographic sea change had fundamentally shifted the City’s planning paradigm and land use priorities. Two years later, was he right?

That's a great question. I've been in this field for 35 years and the interesting thing for a lot of that time in my career was that answers to most land use questions would remain relatively consistent from year to year, but I don't think that's the case anymore.

The concept of cities, urbanized areas, and land use is changing—and it's changing fairly quickly. I think it's really a reflection of our city, our state, our nation, and what's happening in our society. The idea of land use is evolving, and at a much more rapid pace than ever before.

If you look back to when we adopted the current Housing Element in 2022—so, roughly two years ago—there's been an even greater emphasis on our housing crisis and the need to think about different options to address it. Communities are now thinking very differently about housing, how it relates to the communities they live in, and the importance of housing for a thriving community.

Today, we're really seeing an intersection of different needs, and these varying needs have led many communities to come to the table with different solutions than in the past.

Is there a consensus on the Council today—especially with the recent election of two new members—regarding the priorities and responsibilities of the Planning Department?

Come December, we'll have a new City Council with new members. Every time someone new joins the Council, the Council’s priorities can shift, and they often do. So, we may still see further changes ahead. However, I do think that this City Council understands the importance of land use, both for their own districts and for the city as a whole.

They’re really looking at how to strike a balance between addressing the unique needs of their communities and tackling issues at the citywide level. I also believe there’s a strong sense of urgency around the housing crisis. This Council is open to exploring solutions, and I see a willingness to think creatively to address them. 

Your response compels a reference to former LA City Planning Director Gail Goldberg, who introduced the concept of a "City of Villages" nearly 20 years ago. Is “City of Villages”—holistic neighborhood planning—still relevant when prioritizing greater residential density?

That’s an interesting question. So, when Gail Goldberg was the Planning Director of San Diego—and, for full disclosure, I lived in San Diego for college and still have family there—she pioneered the concept of a "city of villages." This was groundbreaking for San Diego at the time because it acknowledged the distinct communities that were thriving independently, while the city itself had primarily focused on developing areas such as the harbor, the airport, and downtown. "City of Villages" was a way to recognize and connect these vibrant communities within the broader planning framework.

When you come to Los Angeles, you see a similar idea, but one that’s been part of LA’s DNA for over a century.

LA’s planning approach has long acknowledged individual neighborhoods and communities, recognizing the need for centers distributed across the city. This idea dates back to early planning documents from the 1920s, and it was later reinforced with the "Centers Concept" introduced in the 1970s under former LA Planning Director Cal Hamilton.

In cities as large as LA and San Diego, there’s always this need to balance attention between individual neighborhoods and citywide concerns. Many of our challenges—like the housing crisis—are citywide issues but also affect individual communities deeply. So, we still need a conversation that balances both perspectives.

Since Goldberg’s tenure, there has been a host of state policies and legislation that impact housing policy and local control of planning. How has the aforementioned affected how the department addresses the balance between local and citywide planning priorities?

It’s important to understand why and how the state got involved, right? The state got involved because they looked at a housing crisis that wasn’t limited to any single city or county—this was a statewide issue. So, the state recognized that we need a solution at the statewide level, and that cities and counties have to be building housing across the state.

Look, we've been a housing leader for a long time in California. We’re about 10% of the state’s population, but almost 30% of the homes built in the whole state last year are in the City of LA. If you look at LA County, we’re 40% of the population, yet we’re producing almost 80% of the housing. So, it’s crucial that everyone steps up—not just in LA County but across the state.

There are some really important state policies that have helped with housing. For example, one of the most popular measures has been state legislation supporting accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. We're not just the state leader, but probably the nationwide leader in terms of ADUs. In some years, they account for a third of the housing built. It’s something almost everyone understands—even if they aren’t involved in zoning or land use-—and ADUs have become a household term.

Another priority we need to consider is how to build housing for everyone. One thing that state law recognizes is the need to encourage affordable housing—units with deeds restricted to lower-income levels, where you have to be income-qualified to live in them. This is crucial – we are a city that has really leveraged both the state density bonus and our local incentive programs to build a significant amount of income-restricted affordable housing. Mayor Bass' Executive Directive 1 (ED 1), which has been very successful at getting the private market to build affordable housing, strategically aligned with some relatively new very powerful state allowances for 100% affordable projects.

The Planning Commission has recently transmitted determination letters to the LA City Council regarding policies to implement its  Housing Element Rezoning Program. Could you share what those policies address & change?

I’d like to zoom out a bit and go back to the housing element itself because understanding that context is crucial to answer your question on rezoning. The state requires that every city and county in California plan to meet their future housing needs, and this includes evaluating both future needs and past shortfalls—what should have been built but wasn’t.

As I mentioned, Los Angeles has been a housing leader in recent years, but for decades, like many places in California, we didn’t build enough housing and fell behind. So, in the last cycle for the housing element, the city took a bold step. The state sets housing goals by region, and we advocated for the Southern California region to focus on building housing close to jobs and transit, rather than in more remote areas like northern LA County or the Inland Empire. As a result, we took on a very high target: building over 486,000 homes between 2021 and 2029. This includes not only future needs but the deficit from past under-building. To get there, we had to conduct a candid assessment of our zoning capacity. Since nearly all potential housing sites in LA are already developed, we analyzed the likelihood of redevelopment—properties that might transform into new housing or mixed-use developments—and found it relatively low, around a 1% redevelopment likelihood over eight years.

Our analysis showed that, to realistically meet the goal of 486,000 homes, we would need to rezone for an additional capacity of over 255,000 units across the city’s 469 square miles. All of this rezoning must be completed with ordinances in place and permits ready to issue by February 12, 2025 – just a few months away.

How does the city plan to meet the ambitious goal of the City building 486,000 homes in five years?

We built upon what has worked well in the past. Programs like the state density bonus and our local Transit Oriented Communities Incentive Program (TOC) have been our primary tools for producing affordable and market-rate housing. Moreover, community and advocacy groups strongly support new development, provided it includes affordable housing. So, we embedded a 'value capture' mechanism that requires developers to include affordable units when they build more densely.

As we developed  these programs, we centered climate and equity considerations. We’re avoiding high fire hazard areas, such as hillside zones, as well as coastal areas vulnerable to sea level rise. We’re also focusing on high-resource areas— those areas with the highest resources— that have the best access to high quality education, recreation, and amenities that lead to the most positive outcomes. That's the framework that we came up with, and the program itself has multiple components to it.

The first part involves taking a look at our state density bonus rules. Our local density bonus implementation goes back more than 16 years, but, as you rightly acknowledged, state law on density bonuses has changed significantly. We want to ensure that we’re very clear about aligning with current state density bonus rules. This will be helpful for everyone—for developers to understand the rules more clearly and also for communities to have clarity on the rules. That community understanding is really important.

Another key piece is our Mixed-Income Incentive Program (MIIP). It’s a three-part program, focusing on our high-resource areas. One part involves our main corridors—major streets in high-resource communities—where we’re adding an incentive program that allows developers to build more housing if they include a minimum level of affordability. This approach lets us capture value for affordability. The second part is the corridor transition, which addresses the areas between main streets and single-family neighborhoods. Think of a major boulevard in Los Angeles and creating missing middle housing to connect that corridor to nearby single-family neighborhoods; it is also embedded with value capture.

The third component of MIIP centers on our transit areas by taking our Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) incentives—which were initially created through Measure JJJ and are set to expire in December 2026—and embedding them into this program.  The City Council has the option to extend JJJ for two five-year periods. If it’s not extended, both JJJ and the TOC incentives will go away. Embedding these incentives into our new framework allows similar benefits to continue beyond JJJ’s expiration.

So, that’s the main thrust of the Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP).  Companion pieces that are separate from CHIP are equally important. CHIP also contains an Affordable Housing Incentive Program (AHIP). AHIP creates new incentives for 80 to100% affordable projects on sites owned by public agencies, faith-based organizations, and shared-equity developers.  Another supporting policy is a Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance. We currently have a successful adaptive reuse program in Downtown LA, as well as in Hollywood and parts of Koreatown, primarily converting office buildings to residential. We’re looking to expand this citywide and broaden its applicability. This initiative is both a housing solution and a way to adapt to today’s reality, where many ground-floor uses are no longer viable, partly due to the rise in online commerce.

In our efforts to achieve the goal of increasing the zoning for more than 250,000 homes by February 2025, it’s worth noting that the CHIP program is a main component, but it’s not the only one. We’re also implementing a more traditional rezoning approach, particularly for our downtown plan. The DTLA 2040 plan is part of our housing element implementation, and while we’re emphasizing incentive programs, we’re also using a more conventional approach that other cities use. Our goal is to have this all passed through City Council and in place at the beginning of next year to meet the state’s deadline – it’s a lot.

Share how the city's new housing element/plans ensure that new housing development not only meets projected demand but also improves the quality of life in neighborhoods/communities?

In addition to building a lot of housing, we want to do it thoughtfully. Our goal is to build over 480,000 homes, but we want to approach this in a way that enhances livability. You mentioned the 'city of villages' concept in San Diego, which emphasizes that while communities are going to change and see more housing and development,  the goal is to make them more livable.

One way we’re supporting livability is by bringing a Landscape and Site Design Ordinance to City Council, which we hope to have in place at the same time as these other ordinances. This ordinance will help create vibrant communities by ensuring that building designs incorporate open space, trees, and landscaping as part of the development.

A very important component of our overall housing strategy is housing security, which was central to the housing element - Plan to House LA - that we adopted back in 2022. The Resident Protection Ordinance, part of this plan, includes initiatives aimed at keeping people secure in their homes. This includes policies like the right of return, ensuring that if an affordable unit is removed, it is replaced, and tenants have the first right to return.

Vince… the City is fortunate to have somebody with more than 35 years of urban planning experience navigating this transition.

Pivoting a bit—many say that LA’s traffic congestion today is the worst it’s been in their lifetime. Is there much collaboration currently between the Department of Transportation and City Planning?

You know, really, that’s been one of the defining issues throughout my career. Until the housing crisis emerged as a top priority, I’d say the number one concern people would bring up was traffic – it was all anyone would talk about. Now, while the housing crisis has definitely taken the spotlight, we still have to acknowledge the connection between traffic and housing.

Vehicular traffic is generated in so many different ways—not only where people live but also where they work, shop, and recreate. These daily activities also contribute to the movement of goods and commerce, which in turn creates traffic, and it’s worth noting how much has changed. With the rise in online shopping, that’s just become part of our daily reality. So, yes, traffic today is very different in terms of its causes and patterns. For instance, the ways we navigate and get directions have changed traffic flows. With GPS apps like Google Maps showing people the fastest routes, it’s common now for traffic to flow through neighborhoods that didn’t experience it before. All this adds complexity and means that traffic patterns are different from even 10 years ago.

Now, one thing to note is that housing itself is one of the lowest generators of vehicular traffic compared to other types of land use. Apartments, for instance, generally generate less traffic per home  than single-family homes and much less than commercial businesses. In our previous traffic modeling, apartments consistently scored low in traffic generation, while high-end restaurants were among the highest. So, while new housing isn’t necessarily a primary traffic generator, the location of housing can have a big impact. When housing is located on main corridors—where people are already shopping or accessing services—it can reduce the need for extra car trips. That’s why much of our planning is focused on building housing along main corridors and near transit opportunities, as it provides people with viable alternatives to driving. In that sense, the link between housing and traffic is critical.

The City Planning department also recently released a new draft with options to upzone R1 zones to allow multifamily development. Elaborate on those options and their status at Council.

As we did  public outreach, there was discussion as part of the housing element itself about single family zoning . The Housing Element set out a program to explore looking at single-family zones for multi-family development. When we  were developing the drafts of our housing element implementation, we heard loud and clear from many neighborhoods that they did not support including single family zones for multi-family development. Almost all comments received on the program discussed single family zoning with supporters and opponents continuing to discuss this issue today, post Commission and PLUM. 

Although our drafts and recommendations did not include rezoning single-family areas, we wanted to give the Planning Commission and City Council all the options available. Our job is really to listen to all of the inputs we’re getting. We will make recommendations, but ultimately, it’s up to the City Council and Planning Commission whether they accept them or not. We wanted to make sure to acknowledge all the feedback and present it to the Commission and Council in a way that allows them to consider it thoroughly, offering these options as background information for them to consider.

The Planning Commission did review these options and chose not to recommend them to the City Council. When the City Council looks at it, they will essentially have a recommendation from the Planning Commission to not include single-family zoning changes. The Council will have the option to review the public comments and decide if they want to take them into account. The Planning Commission’s recommendation is just that—a recommendation.

Address why the issue of rezoning (upzoning) single-family areas is increasingly contentious in Los Angeles and urban California.

This issue of maintaining single-family zoning or not has become a major topic across California right now. It’s one of the top housing and land-use issues. Interestingly, in Los Angeles and much of California, we don’t really have single-family zoning in the strictest sense anymore. This is because we have laws like accessory dwelling unit (ADU) laws, which allow multiple units on a single-family property. It’s a very popular program, and a lot of people are taking advantage of it. Additionally, SB 9 mandates that cities allow at least two units on any property in urban areas, and it also allows those properties to be subdivided. A single-family property could have up to four units or more.

The way we view single-family zoning has changed over time, and we’re considering various options. We’re producing a low-rise design study, which has been underway for a few years. This study is intended to help us think about the future of single-family homes in Los Angeles, particularly in terms of design. How we design single-family homes is critically important as we consider potential zoning changes. It’s also important to note that several cities around the country have already eliminated single-family zoning. Even though we have ADU laws and SB 9 that allow for multiple units, those units are generally detached. If we were to allow multi-family housing in single-family zones, it would change the typology of housing in neighborhoods. It would be a neighborhood transformation, and that’s something we need to carefully consider.

If the city decides to go down this path, it’s crucial to ensure that new regulations will create the desired outcomes. For instance, if we allow more development on a property, we need to make sure it produces multiple housing units rather than just larger single-family homes. We also need to consider the location of these developments in relation to traffic and climate, among other factors. This is a dialogue that needs to take place, and the city has to think carefully about where it wants to go with this issue. I should also point out that cities that have made this change didn’t do it under tight deadlines. They had the time to study the issue, gather community feedback, and adjust policies accordingly. When you have a very firm deadline, such as the City of LA to rezone by 2025, it makes it harder to have the thoughtful, back-and-forth conversations needed.

How, if at all, is community feedback playing a role in shaping these land-use & zoning at the Commission and Council?

Looking at successful incentive programs, we know that those are more likely to achieve the desired outcomes in a shorter period of time. Completely changing the housing typology is a more challenging task, especially when done quickly. It requires more thought and discussion.

We wanted to present options because these are recommendations, and the City Council can decide whether or not to follow them. After we released the first draft of the CHIP that did not recommend rezoning single family neighborhoods, we received over 3,000 comments, with about 95% of them addressing single-family zoning and the need for more flexibility in these areas. These are very important issues raised by advocates, and they’re something we need to consider thoughtfully as part of a larger reform conversation. I think it's also important to note that even with the comments about single-family zoning and the importance of including it from an equity standpoint, from a transformative standpoint, understand that even without single-family in this CHIP and rezone, this program is very transformative.

When the City upzones residential property, don’t the property values of the impacted zones concomitantly increase? Explain how cities will incentivize more affordable housing through zoning changes that increase land values by reflecting the value of increased density? 

I'll give you one thing: the areas where we have the most housing construction in the city are the areas that have the least amount of rise in rents right now. Rents typically don't go down, but, we've seen that, time and time again, the neighborhoods in the city where we have an increase in housing production and the housing gets constructed and occupied, those areas are the ones that have the most stable rents.

But again, if upzoning positively impacts underlying residential property values, as Henry George noted a century ago; then, without a value capture requirement, how is greater affordability achieved? 

Yes, that's true. If you look at the programs we're working with, they're really centered around value capture. Our community plans now focus on value capture, using a base and bonus system. We also do economic analysis to ensure these plans are viable. The goal of our programs is to make sure that any added value comes with affordable housing or other benefits on-site, in line with our definitions.

Is it not true that the State’s one-size fits all upzoning mandate is without any value capture requirement for the benefit of the public? Which, as we close, begs the question: who, with recent changes in state laws and the usurpation of local land use control, is now the steward of the built environment in Los Angeles?

That's a big question. The built environment includes not just private developments, but also public spaces like streets, parks, and more. There are multiple stewards involved in maintaining and developing it. Ultimately, cities are about the people—the residents, workers, and those who experience the city. If you’re asking who oversees it, there are multiple stewards. The Planning Department plays a key role in this, but we also rely heavily on other agencies like the Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Engineering.

Think about major public projects like the Sixth Street Bridge, which is an important part of the city. These projects uplift communities and contribute to the public realm. There's an obligation for all these agencies to work together as stewards of the built environment, making sure it serves everyone in the community. So, it’s really a shared responsibility between multiple entities.