The percentage of affordable housing construction projects in Los Angeles has been relatively steady over the past few years, though the city could see these projects taper off, according to an analysis by The Real Deal.
TRD analyzed permits for new apartment buildings with at least 10 units in the City of Los Angeles between 2020 and 2025, searching for terms related to affordable housing.
In each year from 2022 to 2024, between 41 and 50 percent of city-approved apartment projects had an affordable component. These figures were down from 2020 and 2021, when affordable housing developments comprised 58 percent and 63 percent, respectively, of the city’s issued permits for multifamily projects.
In 2025 so far, 34 percent of the city’s approved apartment developments — 22 projects — have some level of affordable housing.
The data also show signs that developers are including affordable housing in fewer projects.
In 2022, for instance, 57 percent — 68 projects — of the permits that builders and developers submitted to the city had some affordable element. This figure fell to 43 percent in 2023 (40 projects) and 21 percent last year, as 13 of the 63 submitted projects will have affordable units.
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However, in terms of the number of projects, the city last year approved permits for 67 affordable projects — the most from 2020 to 2023.
So far this year, there have been three multifamily projects with affordable units submitted to the city for approval out of 16 total, or 19 percent.
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Gov. Gavin Newsom recently directed the California Department of Housing and Community Development to put $101 million toward building affordable units in areas damaged by the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year.
Many of the largest building projects that Los Angeles approved in the first half of the year have an affordable component, another TRD analysis recently found. For instance, the city issued a building permit for Harmony Senior Apartments’ 53,000-square-foot project at 11410 West Burbank Boulevard, which will comprise 83 units that all will be affordable, senior housing.
State legislators in California are working to create a new agency to address major housing issues in the state. For instance, the agency would streamline the Golden State’s many affordable housing financing systems.