LA Mayor Karen Bass Glosses Over Measure ULA Debate

Real estate was left wanting more — a lot more when it came to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s State of the City on Monday.

This summer’s FIFA World Cup and U.S. Women’s Open, along with the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic games, dominated much of Bass’s address beginning with the remarks being delivered about five miles southwest of city hall at the Expo Center in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park neighborhood south of downtown.

After last week’s messy battle over the two-tier property-transfer tax, Measure United to House L.A. (Measure ULA), Bass offered little to shed light on where she stands on major reforms proposed by Councilmember Nithya Raman that would create aggressive carveouts across commercial and residential real estate. Bass’s own push to get Palisades Fire-impacted property owners relief from the tax, which she introduced in October, was also absent from Monday’s address.

Measure ULA applies to sales of properties that sell for at least $5.3 million, applying a 4 percent levy on the deal and increases to 5.5 percent for those trading for $10.6 million or more.

Raman is a Democratic Socialist and prominent local progressive. She represents the city’s 4th District and attempted last week to get her City Council peers to consider and vote on a 15-year exemption from the so-called mansion tax for newly constructed apartments, commercial and mixed-use projects. Raman had hoped to push the item onto the June ballot, but it was instead kicked to the Housing and Homelessness Committee. Her move raised hopes among real estate executives in the commercial and residential sectors, who want to see the city roll back ULA, while also inflaming the Measure ULA Citizen Oversight Committee for bypassing the group established to monitor implementation of the tax.

Instead, the only reference to ULA on Monday was when Bass confirmed the approval of $14 million in rental assistance for seniors and individuals with disabilities. The city confirmed those funds came from the over $1 billion ULA has generated since its inception in April 2023.

While Bass stressed the need to “continue accelerating the construction of permanent affordable housing” — a key point in Raman’s explanation for her proposed carveouts — a firm stance on the mansion tax didn’t factor into the mayor’s address.

Rebuild: year two

Specifics around the Pacific Palisades in year two of the rebuild were also thin.

Bass said she, along with Councilmember Traci Park and Palisades residents, would travel to Sacramento next week “to make clear to the state that continued investment in building the Palisades is not optional; it is essential.”

While permitting was mentioned by Bass, it was to confirm more than 400 homes are under construction in the neighborhood, while “hundreds more” have received approvals.

The remarks come as the mayor and California Gov. Gavin Newsom fend off heat from the federal government over permitting delays. Late last month President Donald Trump signed off on an executive order authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Small Business Administration to leap over local permitting to create a self-certification process for builders, which a federally appointed agency would oversee.

It’s unclear if the Trump administration has authority to step into local permitting processes, and whether it also plans to inject itself into California’s tangled insurance ecosystem, which has been a major cause of delays in jumpstarting rebuilding.

A total of 10 homes have been rebuilt and about 2,500 projects have been permitted post-Palisades and Eaton fires, according to the federal government.

Election year

The rosy outlook was delivered in an election year, crowded with 25 hopefuls looking to unseat Bass as mayor of Los Angeles.

The most recent to enter the field was former “The Hills” reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who announced his bid for the seat in January on the anniversary of the Palisades Fire. There’s also Austin Beutner, a former L.A. deputy mayor and Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent, and Democratic Socialist of America Rae Chen Huang, who some call a longshot candidate likened to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Bass has pulled in the lion’s share of funding, so far raising $2.4 million in campaign contributions as of Dec. 31, according to the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. Meanwhile, Beutner’s raised $314,601, while Huang — who announced her bid for mayor in mid-November — has drawn $107,644 as of Dec. 31.