Nithya Raman Wants to Triple Housing Development in Los Angeles

Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman sought to close her gap with incumbent Mayor Karen Bass as she revealed a plan to make sweeping changes to boost housing production.

Raman’s press conference Wednesday morning at Barnsdall Park, which also came with housing advocacy group Abundant Housing LA’s endorsement, seized on the results of a Los Angeles Times-University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released on Sunday. The survey of 840 likely voters between March 9 and 15 found affordable housing topped the list of priorities among those polled for the city’s next mayor.

The 4th District representative claimed her plan would triple the city’s annual housing construction. Los Angeles’s current goal mandated by the state equates to around 57,000 homes each year between 2021 and 2029. The city has fallen short, however, between at least 2021 and 2024, with the most permits issued in any calendar year totaling 23,422 in 2022, according to Los Angeles City Planning.

“We didn’t drift into this crisis,” Raman said during her press conference. “We planned our way into it. This city deliberately reduced housing production over many decades and continues to stand in the way of much needed housing today.”

She accused the city of “antiquated bureaucracy,” “outdated zoning rules” and “overlapping departmental reviews” for getting in the way of development.

“We have created a system here in the city of Los Angeles that rewards delay and denial, as opposed to rewarding saying ‘yes’ to the thing that we all agree is the most important resource here in the city,” she said.

Ramping housing development would come via several moves made under a Raman administration. That includes an executive directive promising approval in 60 days or less for projects that comply with current zoning. That’s doubled for those that don’t. There’s also a proposal to cut down on the number of inspectors involved in a project by assigning only one from the pre-construction phase to the point of occupancy.

Raman also wants to expand self-certification on projects, a program the city began piloting under Bass in response to the rebuilding effort underway in the Pacific Palisades. A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday on the pilot and timing of a full rollout.

The self-certification program is open to architects and civil engineers licensed in California and working on a single-family project or related structure destroyed or damaged by last January’s Palisades fire. Under the program, which uses artificial intelligence-backed tools, those individuals take on the responsibility for building code compliance.

Raman is also calling for “gentle density,” or development of more duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes near transit stations. It’s an aim for middle ground between calls for more density and single-family neighborhoods opposed to such development.

Office owners could also see relief with the council member’s plan to make it easier for conversions to residential with cuts to fees and other barriers.

Closing the gap

Raman’s housing announcement, which her campaign called the first of several policy proposals to address affordability and accountability, followed Monday evening’s first mayoral debate. The group of three participating candidates made Raman the political elder statesman of the bunch, which included fellow Democratic Socialists of America and housing advocate Rae Chen Huang and entrepreneur and affordable housing investor Adam Miller.

Bass and former reality TV star Spencer Pratt chose to sit out the debate, despite the incumbent’s lead and Pratt’s third place spot among voters in the L.A. Times-UC Berkeley poll.

As the debate jumped from housing to transportation and infrastructure, clear delineations among the participating candidates were hard to come by. While Huang sought to cast Raman as part of the establishment and, therefore, a lead character in what’s wrong with the city, the attempted blows did little to stun Raman. Meanwhile, Miller’s fallback was to repeatedly point out his leadership experience as proof of action.

The primary election is set for June 2. If no one candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote, the top two head to a run off in November.