Beverly Hills Opts Not To Expand Affordable Housing – For Now

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The city won’t require any additional affordable housing mandates or rent stabilization policies after the City Council on Tuesday opted against strengthening state requirements.

But a change could be on the horizon: City staffers will return to the council in about six months armed with more research so the lawmakers can revisit the matter.

At issue is the state’s Housing Crisis Act of 2019, or SB 330, a complex law that requires developers who demolish certain multi-family buildings to make way for new construction replace some of those old units with new, deed-restricted affordable units. It also seeks to streamline some regulatory processes for developers.

Part of the law already applies to Beverly Hills and all other communities: A new building must have at least as many units as the demolished one. And demolished units occupied by low-income tenants or subject to rent control must be replaced with units that are deeded as affordable for 55 years.

In practice, most developers are forced to rely on a citywide figure of low-income renter households provided by the federal government. In Beverly Hills, it's around 45 percent.

For example, if a developer wants to knock down a 10-unit building to build something new, generally at least 5 of the new units must be deed-restricted.

Beverly Hills has a decision to make: Should the city impose stricter requirements meant to support renters, or just stick with what the state requires?

Other cities, including West Hollywood, have beefed up the state requirements by mandating that some new units be covered by rent stabilization. But the complexity and recentness of the requirements mean that many cities haven’t yet ironed out their plans for SB 330. And there’s many flavors of additional rules that cities can choose from, according to Community Development Director Timothea Tway.

Councilmember John Mirisch pointed out that if Beverly Hills fails to act it would result in a net loss of rent-stabilized units – construction of new rent-stabilized units isn’t among the state requirements.

“If we think there’s a shortage of luxury housing and we care more about developer profits, then we should not have more restrictions,” he said. “But if we care more about our residents and we care more about the ability to have a varied kind of diverse population in our city – not just rich people – then we need to focus on affordable housing.”

But his colleagues said they wanted to revisit the matter down the road. Councilmembers Sharona Nazarian, Lester Friedman and Julian Gold said they recognized the need to balance a housing shortage with concerns that additional regulations could discourage new construction.

Mayor Lili Bosse drew parallels between this matter and previous zoning efforts by the city. The council previously tweaked initial policies regarding mixed-use developments and medical buildings.

City staffers will return to the council in about six months with additional research about other cities’ policies, the impact to developers and more information about the city’s low-income population.