On December 16, 2022, the LA Mayor’s Office issued Executive Directive 1 (ED1) to expedite the permitting process for qualifying 100% affordable housing projects. ED1 has become a rallying point for policymakers, developers, and communities to come together for sustainable, affordable housing solutions. But what is ED1 exactly? And what has its impact been on the LA housing landscape?
Under ED1, LA city departments must complete the pre-construction review process for all 100% affordable housing developments within 60 days. Building permits must be issued within five days.
Eligible projects receive expedited processing, clearances, and approvals through the ED1 Ministerial Approval Process. These projects are exempt from discretionary review as long as they do not require legislative action (e.g., General Plan Amendment, Zone Change, or Height District Change) or entitlements (outside of Density Bonus or Transit Oriented Communities) to modify otherwise applicable objective standards.
A“100% affordable housing project” is defined as a project with five or more units where:
• All units are at 80% of Area Median Income (AMI) or lower, based on U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rent levels;
• or Units are mixed-income, with up to 20% of units at 120% AMI, but the balance is at 80% AMI or lower.
From its introduction to July 1, 2024, there have been 323 applications for ED1 Administrative Review, referred to as ADM applications. ED1 applications also submit a pre-application review (PAR) to check for eligibility before an ADM.
Interested in the number of applications and the average approval timelines? ATC has crunched the numbers below.
ATC also has the data on what proposed ED1 Projects look like. See below.
On July 1, Mayor Karen Bass released her 3rd revision statement. The key takeaways:
In Fall 2023, Los Angeles City Planning prepared a proposed Affordable Housing Streamlining Ordinance to amend the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) and codify the ED1 review process. Read more from the City of LA here.
The latest changes include eliminating any requests to decrease the required open space and bicycle parking beyond 50 percent. In addition, the minimum floor area ratio (FAR) in residential zones has been increased to 3.5:1.
The new ordinance also prohibits single-family zones from using the ED1 entitlement pathway, and a revised order was issued earlier this year to amend the ED1 parameters.
The new ordinance also prohibits R1 single-family zones from using the ED1 entitlement pathway. Before the announcement, several applications for ED1 projects in R1 single-family zones were submitted for approval, but with significant community pushback.
In a 5-1 vote on November 16, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved a draft ordinance.
On November 16, Mayor Karen Bass announced Executive Order 7. The new directive aims to accelerate approvals for all housing projects, including those with market-rate units, and plans to increase the threshold for site plan review entitlements.
Notes on analysis:
ATC arrives at its findings using publicly available data from the City of Los Angeles based on biweekly case reports from Los Angeles City Planning. ATC’s analysis only covers Administrative Review (ADM) planning cases submitted from December 2022 to the end of February 2024 (including some projects legacied into the process).
Numbers may vary slightly depending on whether an application has been terminated or withdrawn since the publication of this data. Also, some projects do not include project plans with unit or affordability breakdowns; instead, we have noted the total number for those analyses
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