The challenges of trying to plan for Downtown LA's projected growth over the next 20 years seem overwhelming, even more so while having to concurrently navigate pandemic-related concerns with respect to high-density housing. But we have to start somewhere, and this article gives a nice overview of the various players who are contributing to the process, as well as the competing interests that must be weighed and balanced. For example, planners may see the movement from a discretionary approval process for DTLA to a more certain (but regulated) approval process as a positive step towards facilitating the necessary development of additional housing in DTLA; however, when it comes to actually underwriting and capitalizing a new housing project, developers and investors may be more focused on how the new DTLA approval process would compare to the approval process in other parts of LA where there is also a need to develop additional housing, rather than how it compares to the status quo. We look forward to helping clients steer their development projects through the intersection of business and public policy over the next 20 years and beyond!
The Department of City Planning's Downtown LA Community Plan [2040] update offers guidelines for what can be built and where in Downtown LA over the next two decades... The plan projects that Downtown will add 125,000 residents and 55,000 jobs by 2040. That boom in residents would represent 20% of the city's housing growth happening in a neighborhood that takes up 1% of the city's land.
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