IN one of her first moves leading Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass today issued an executive directive to accelerate and lower the cost of building affordable housing and temporary housing.

This comes as the city continues to grapple with a homelessness crisis.

For affordable housing built under Executive Directive 1, the City must complete the approval process within 60 days. When construction starts, the permit, utility and certificate of occupancy process will be completed in just 5 days for 100% affordable housing and in no more than 2 days for temporary housing. The Executive Directive comes on the heels of the mayor’s Emergency Declaration on Homelessness (her first act as mayor) and her activation of the Emergency Operations Center.

“This is a dramatic reduction in red tape and acceleration of the construction timeline that will move people inside faster and save precious dollars that can be invested in more housing and more solutions for L.A.’s homelessness crisis,” said Bass. “By declaring a state of emergency; by activating the City’s Emergency Operations Center; and by signing this executive directive today, we are breaking City Hall away from its traditional approach that is focused on process and replacing it with a new approach focused on solutions, results and speed. This is a sea change, and that is what we need to bring a new direction to Los Angeles.”

The signing of the Executive Directive took place on the active construction site of Lorena Plaza in Boyle Heights, which took 14 years of navigating regulatory and legal hurdles to finally break ground. Under this directive, at least 31 pending 100% affordable housing projects will be immediately expedited with the urgency representing the emergency that the city of Los Angeles is facing. (AJPress)