Mary Cummins, Real Estate Appraiser, Real Estate Appraisal, Los Angeles, California, Mary Cummins.

Mary Cummins is a real estate appraiser in Los Angeles, California with 38+ years of experience. Cummins provides real estate appraisals for banks, lenders, mortgage brokers, Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs), lawyers, Courts, factors and private parties for lending, lawsuits, probate, estate planning, divorce and all types of litigation. Cummins provides 1004, 1073, 1025 and other form reports, narrative reports and historical appraisals besides real estate research and appraisal advice.

Showing posts with label affordable housing. Show all posts

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Reply to ChanZuckerberg Affordable Housing Solutions. Couple Ideas Might Work but Rest Would Make it Worse, by Mary Cummins.

chanzuckerg initiative, chanzuckerberg,mary cummins,real estate appraiser, housing crisis, affordable housing, marc zuckerberg, solutions,nimby,zoning,housing,planning, office, adaptive reuse

chanzuckerberg initiative, chanzuckerberg,mary cummins,real estate appraiser, housing crisis, affordable housing, marc zuckerberg, solutions,nimby,zoning,housing,planning, office, adaptive reuse

I just read ChanZuckerberg's "7 Creative Solutions to Affordable Housing in California." ( https://chanzuckerberg.com/blog/affordable-housing-solutions ) These people are clueless about the real causes and solutions to California's housing crisis. Their article makes me think it's an AI article, i.e. "Please write an article about how to solve the housing crisis using inspiring, positive terms in 1,000 words or less." I will reply to each idea noting which are total bombs and which will actually help.

"At CZI, we believe that, yes, California can solve its affordable housing crisis. We’ve seen several creative solutions to affordable housing work.""We’ve learned a lot over the years about how to solve California’s housing crisis. The solutions below are proof that, yes, it can happen."

If positive words and ideas could solve the problem, it would have been solved 50 years ago. This is not a new problem which they at least admit "This problem has been decades in the making." Many, many people have tried throwing inspiring words at the problem with no success.

1. "Exploring New Methods for Constructing and Producing Homes"

Construction costs aren't the main issue. The issue is the extremely high cost of land in California. California land value is 30-80% of the value of the home. Median home in California is $900,000 as of April 2024 compared to $400,000 for the US. In the rest of the affordable country land is generally 10 to 20% maximum of total home value. The high price of land was caused by, you guessed it, lack of development of sufficient housing units, i.e. the housing crisis. Lack of housing drives up home prices per simple supply and demand. Who cares if you just plop down a $50 prefab cubicle on the property if land costs $1,000,000 not to mention permit fees and California's costly, time consuming and difficult red tape. That's not affordable.

2. "Encouraging Alternative Forms of Home Ownership"

First off, the author doesn't know what the word "redlining" means. Here's an article I wrote about it. ( https://mary--cummins.blogspot.com/2021/05/redlining-in-home-loan-financing-mary.html ) Back in the day redlining by lenders made it difficult for mainly white property owners to get property loans not people of color. Most property owners in the red line areas were white. The people who lived there were mainly lower income tenants. Those tenants moved there because rent and homes were cheaper. Loans were not denied because of racial makeup of residents. It was based on many factors which caused low property values with higher maintenance costs and risk. These factors caused prices, rents to be low which is what attracted lower income people who are generally people of color. Research has shown that redlining doesn't affect properties today. People love to use the term to sound woke and DEI.

Their article includes racist stereotypes. Blacks, Latinos are not less likely to own homes just because they're black, Latino. People who make less money have less money and are therefore less likely to own a home. Blacks, Latinos make less money than whites. This is an income gap issue which has nothing to do with housing or access to housing. According to the scientific method in order to solve a problem you must first identity the problem. It's the income gap, stupid! Help all less wealthy people increase their income regardless of color, race and they can afford houses but first there must be enough houses to afford and own.

"Community land trusts, housing cooperatives or resident-owned communities, and more affordable condos like Tenancy in Commons" won't solve the problem. They need to be able to afford to rent, buy the homes. There need to be enough homes to buy. People with more money will be the ones buying the property trusts. You aren't helping the people who really need help.

3. "Advancing Cross-Sector Housing Solutions"

"They are collaborative efforts that address interconnected challenges in our communities — such as equitable access to housing, healthcare, transportation and economic opportunity." While this is a nice thought that could help some people it doesn't solve the problem of lack of housing. Equitable access doesn't help if there isn't enough housing. Equitable access goes back to the income gap or housing affordability.

4. "Learning From Successful COVID-19 Housing Solutions"

Were the Covid-19 "housing solutions" successful? Homelessness is up. Evictions are up. Rent is up. Mom and pop landlords couldn't afford to keep their buildings because the government forced them to subsidize their tenants' rent for years. They sold their buildings to big landlords. All tenants had to do was sign a form saying they couldn't pay rent. Many were still working and could pay but chose not to pay. For many landlords their tiny fourplex is their entire retirement savings and income. Many were just Mom owned and not Mom and Pop owned. The eviction moratorium actually made things worse. If people vacated during the moratorium, landlords refused to rerent the units for fear of lying Covid mooches. Those units stayed vacant for two years and people lost housing.

They suggested "sending cash aid to tenants and landlords to prevent evictions and foreclosures." Problem is you'd have to do this forever because most California wages don't cover rent and expenses. This again goes back to income and lack of housing problems which existed pre Covid. If we had more housing, housing costs would be lower. It's supply and demand.There is limited supply but high demand in this state.

5. "Transforming Surplus and Underutilized Lands Into Affordable Homes"

Now they're getting warmer. "We need to build homes at a sustainable rate to match population growth in the U.S. The Huffington Post reported that, despite population growth, fewer homes are now on the market than in 1982." Bingo! "One innovative way to address this extreme housing shortage is to convert surplus and underutilized lands — owned by school districts, faith organizations, government agencies, etc.— into permanently affordable housing."

I support this but there's a problem. If you build on government land you must have 100% affordable housing. This doesn't make economic sense and is not sustainable because property owners would lose money building and renting the units so they won't be built. Some projects I've seen wouldn't even allow some market rate units and some very low income units. Projects must make financial sense or it won't happen. The project I cited above died because developer said he'd lose too much money. Private businesses can't build buildings for free for the government. The government sure can't do it based on past public housing failures. We need real world economically feasible sustainable ideas not wishful thinking, thoughts and prayers.

Now if you alter zoning, planning, building restrictions for the entire state and not just some properties, that would help. Churches, schools, nonprofits, cities, counties have legal mission statements. They can only do what's in their mission statement. Church mission could be to help Christians in a certain parish. Nonprofit mission could be to help low income abused women. They also have a lot of restrictions and their own red tape. Make it statewide and everyone could be helped.

6. "Leveraging Infill Housing and Densifying Neighborhoods"

They're getting warmer again. "Infill housing refers to building new residential units on vacant or underutilized lots within existing urban areas or neighborhoods. These types of housing can include accessory dwelling units or ADUs, splitting lots, conversion of non-residential buildings, and demolishing and rebuilding on vacant lots or parking lots within neighborhoods."

As I've said for years "we can't ADU our way out of the housing crisis." While ADUs help they are expensive per unit and don't create enough units. One great idea is conversion of non-residential buildings like office, industrial, warehouse buildings and shopping malls. The problem here is government red tape, zoning, planning, Building and Safety requirements and of course NIMBYs. There are also logistical office conversion issues which I explain in this article ( https://mary--cummins.blogspot.com/2022/02/office-to-housing-conversion-is-not.html ).

Haney Bill AB 3068 titled "Adaptive reuse: streamlining: incentives" could help and must be passed. "By mandating by-right approval processes for mixed-use housing conversion projects in city centers, AB 3068 will pave the way for the construction of several thousands of new housing units." This is what we need.

7. "Preserving Existing Lower-Cost Housing"

And now they're ice cold. This is one of the causes of the housing crisis and not a solution! "An often overlooked piece of the solution to this challenge is to protect what’s referred to as naturally occurring affordable housing — existing, affordable multifamily rental properties. These buildings tend to be older and owned by mom-and-pop landlords."

If property owners were allowed to tear down a run down small rental home or four unit building to build 12 new larger units which house fives times as many people 20 or 30 years ago, those units would be affordable housing today. Older buildings costs less to rent than newer ones. Instead many people lost housing for 20 to 30 years because property owners were not allowed to build more units. It was either too cost prohibitive or difficult because of rent control tenants, NIMBYs, government red tape or long construction times which equal higher construction costs. Government, economy also lost billions in loss of property taxes, revenue, business tax from loss of more rental income from more units. If they build those 12 units today, land cost is up 1,000%, construction costs are up 500% so they must rent it for full new market rent which is at least triple affordable rent or what an older building would rent for today.

They state preserving existing affordable housing will prevent "private equity (from buying) out owners and raise rents quickly — displacing existing residents, exacerbating gentrification, and contributing to homelessness." Wrong. Forcing small landlords to pay their tenants rents for over two years during Covid caused moms with no pops to have to sell their buildings to large landlords who will push out those tenants.

Rents have risen because there's not enough housing! People move around all over the world to places they can afford. It's economics 101. They also clearly don't understand the meaning of the word "gentrification." I wrote another article here about gentrification ( https://mary--cummins.blogspot.com/2017/04/real-estate-cycles-mary-cummins-real.html ). Gentrification is actually just the real estate cycle of revitalization which is GOOD for communities. People are pushed out of, displaced from more expensive areas because of high costs caused by the housing crisis. They go to nearby areas which cost less. This causes those areas to improve and property values and rents rise. Owners who live there or sell their properties are happy about this! A few lower income tenants aren't happy because their rent rises. Most tenants would move to another low income area, rent a smaller place, share a place with friends, try to make more money... Most would not end up homeless. The people who move out of those cheap rent areas are generally POC because of the income race correlation and not because of race. Poor whites have to move too. Housing is not the main cause of homelessness. There are many factors including mainly steady income, savings, physical/mental health, family situations, having children, legal issues...

I'm amazed they didn't specifically mention rent control in this item though it's part of preserving older low income units. We have rent control in many cities, counties and the state of California. Rent control actually causes rents to rise overall. I wrote an article which explains this ( https://mary--cummins.blogspot.com/2024/04/rent-control-causes-rent-increases-loss.html ). It also costs cities, counties, states and individuals billions of dollars in lost income every year. That money paid to the government could have been used to help the housing crisis. Rent control doesn't even help low income people. While some are lower income most are not. They could easily afford market rent but stay put for many years and save or spend that money on other things. The private landlord is subsidizing their tenants. Some are paying $350/month for a $3,500 unit. I've seen some tenants buy a house with the rent savings all at the expense of the landlord.

In conclusion the ChanZuckerberg article states "With continued support for innovative housing solutions like the ones shared above, we can improve housing affordability and access so people from all backgrounds and income levels can live, work, and thrive."

Most of their suggestions not only don't help solve the problem but make it worse. They need some real estate experts with experience to help them. Many think landlords, developers, people in real estate are "evil," "greedy" "scum." They're not. It's a profession just like being a secretary or doctor. They're actually trying to solve the housing crisis and just end the scapegoat, whipping boy. This is probably why no real estate people were involved in ChanZuckerberg's project or article which is a shame. Maybe they could have come up with effective solutions if they had.

Some Real Solutions to the Housing Crisis

Now for some solutions which will actually help the housing crisis in California. BUILD MORE HOUSING! Reduce development red tape and construction times for new construction, conversions and additions. Zoning, Planning, Cities, Counties and the state must allow more housing and more dense housing in some areas. We could use more legal micro-units, communal units with less mandatory parking if near public transportation. I'm not talking about building a 20 unit building on a smaller home site with only single family homes in the area. I'm talking building 2-4 units (or 2-3 ADUs behind a house) on some single family sites in some areas and build 2-8 units in areas that already have duplexes, fourplexes and are zoned for multifamily R2+ zoning.

Pass the Adaptive Reuse bill to more easily convert office buildings into residential units. Planning and Zoning needs to quickly modify zones and uses to allow more legal uses especially mixed use zones. Building and Safety must modify some residential requirements to make these projects feasible while still maintaining health and safety. Many more office buildings could be reused this way instead of demolishing them, wasting materials and contributing to climate change. Right now an older office building must be brought up to residential code. If it's older, it's cheaper to demolish or gut to the shell and rebuild which is a waste and horrible for the environment. This can't be done with historic buildings or buildings in HPOZ so they can't be considered.

Most importantly don't allow NIMBYs to stop projects if they meet all regulations. NIMBYs have been extorting developers and cities for years with demands and many were mainly for the benefit of the specific local NIMBYs alone. The approval process takes years because of NIMBY involvement. Their goal is to cause it to become so expensive that developers abandon the project which they do frequently. Just because a NIMBY has a place to live doesn't give them the right to not allow, take away housing from others who don't.

A last related issue is helping people make more money to keep up with housing costs. You need two people making minimum wage in Los Angeles to afford a cheap median one bedroom $2,100. A single person can't afford a one bedroom on minimum wage which is actually high compared to the rest of the nation. This is another reason we need cheaper microunits, communical living units with shared kitchens, living rooms and more studios, singles.

In conclusion we need more than just inspiring words and pie in the sky ideas to solve the housing crisis. Some of ChanZuckerberg's ideas would actually make things worse. The housing crisis has existed for over 50 years because there hasn't been enough residential development. There hasn't been enough development because of government red tape and NIMBYs. We need to work with developers, builders to construct the housing that we desperately need. JUST BUILD MORE HOUSING!

**UPDATE: I just asked chatgpt to write an article stating how to solve the housing crisis in California. It wrote a very, very, very similar article to ChanZuckerberg Affordable Housing Solutions article. The same word salad, similar major ideas, same two bad ideas, sound bytes, woke language and wishful thinking. The only difference is item one was increase housing supply which included sub ideas I suggested. Chatgpt article made much more sense than ChanZuckerberg article and it was free.

Who wrote ChanZuckerberg's article? A lazy employee using chatgpt? Is this some stunt by Zuckerberg? Did they hire people for a task force and pay them thousands per month for a few months to come up with this article? If so, I could see how so much money gets wasted on trying to fix the housing crisis and homeless situation with no actual results.

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Mary Cummins of Cummins Real Estate is a certified residential licensed appraiser in Los Angeles, California. Mary Cummins is licensed by the California Bureau of Real Estate appraisers and has over 40 years of experience.

Mary Cummins, Mary K. Cummins, Mary Katherine Cummins, Mary, Cummins, #marycummins #animaladvocates #losangeles #california #wildlife #wildliferehabilitation #wildliferehabilitator #realestate #realestateappraiser #realestateappraisal #lawsuit real estate, appraiser, appraisal, instructor, teacher, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Brentwood, Bel Air, California, licensed, permitted, certified, single family, condo, condominium, pud, hud, fannie mae, freddie mac, fha, uspap, certified, residential, certified resident, apartment building, multi-family, commercial, industrial, expert witness, civil, criminal, orea, dre, brea insurance, bonded, experienced, bilingual, spanish, english, form, 1004, 2055, 1073, land, raw, acreage, vacant, insurance, cost, income approach, market analysis, comparative, theory, appraisal theory, cost approach, sales, matched pairs, plot, plat, map, diagram, photo, photographs, photography, rear, front, street, subject, comparable, sold, listed, active, pending, expired, cancelled, listing, mls, multiple listing service, claw, themls, historical appraisal, facebook, linkedin

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Mary Cummins

Mary Cummins of Cummins Real Estate Services has been in real estate since 1983, over 35 years. She is licensed by the Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers. Mary Cummins was an agent and broker licensed with the California Department of Real Estate selling residential income, commercial buildings, raw land and homes for Merrill Lynch Realty in Beverly Hills and Westside Properties in Los Angeles before concentrating on appraisals. Mary Cummins currently provides real estate appraisals, expert witness testimony, historical research, legal real estate research for mortgage brokers, banks, lawyers, factors, insurance companies, financial consultants and private individuals. Mary Cummins was born and raised in Southern California. Cummins attended Beverly Hills Good Shepherd Catholic School and Beverly Hills High School. Besides being on the Dean's list, Mary Cummins was a top ten national swimmer and competed on the men's water polo team. Mary Cummins began college at the age of 15 attending the University of Southern California on scholarship, majoring in Psychology/Sociology. http://www.animaladvocates.us http://www.facebook.com/AnimalAdvocatesUSA

Thursday, April 25, 2024

California Bill ACA 10 - "Housing is a Human Right" - Depends on who is Paying for it , by Mary Cummins

Bill Assembly Constitutional Amendment ACA 10 has been proposed to state that housing is a human right in California. Below is from the bill.

"Article XXV Right to Housing

SECTION 1. The state hereby recognizes the fundamental human right to adequate housing for everyone in California. It is the shared obligation of state and local jurisdictions to respect, protect, and fulfill this right, on a non-discriminatory and equitable basis, with a view to progressively achieve the full realization of the right, by all appropriate means, including the adoption and amendment of legislative measures, to the maximum of available resources."

Below is from supporters of the bill.

"California, a safe, affordable home is currently a privilege reserved for those who can afford the state’s skyrocketing housing costs. Our state is home to a quarter of all unhoused people in the nation, and more than half of all unsheltered people. Due to generations of racist housing policy, these burdens of housing insecurity fall hardest on Black Californians.

Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 10 will recognize that every Californian has the fundamental human right to adequate housing. Here is what this would mean in our state:

An obligation on the part of the local and state governments to ensure that all Californians have access to adequate housing;

A commitment to ensuring equitable access to housing that is not subject to any form of discrimination; and

A recognition that the right to housing is not merely a roof over one’s head, but rather adequate housing is permanent, habitable, affordable, and close to employment, healthcare, and schools."

My issue with this bill is who will be paying for it? Are they talking about government housing? We all know the government got away from public housing because they turned into slums in some areas. They are more expensive to run than regular apartments because of government administrative fees of at least 15%. They were rife with corruption because of the government bidding system. They concentrated lower income, disabled, elderly people, POC into specific high density areas which ended up becoming high crime with limited services. Some even said it was segregation and discrimination which it was indirectly because blacks, Latinos, elderly, disabled make less money than whites, younger people and able bodied.

If they are talking about forcing private landlords to subsidize public housing, I'm totally against this. Rent control has harmed the economy. If we didn't have rent control in Los Angeles, the city would have billions in property, income, transfer tax which they could use to subsidize housing for homeless. I fully support fair and legal eviction control. I support all rental housing to be safe and legal. I don't support forcing private individuals paying most of the rent of anyone who happens to score a rent control unit. I've seen people paying $216/month for a two bedroom in Santa Monica. The renters aren't even low income but high income. They don't give rent control units to low income so the program doesn't even serve a purpose. Generally people would move to a cheaper area when they can't afford the rent. That's what commercial and regular tenants have done for years. I'm sure if private homeowners were forced to allow homeless people to live in their homes, they would also oppose the forced taking of private real estate for public use without proper compensation.

What the government needs to do is allow developers to build housing. This means not allowing NIMBYs to stop projects that benefit the community. If the government hadn't stopped housing development for the last 50 years, we'd have enough affordable housing today. Any housing we build today costs too much because of today's high cost of land and construction. If they were built 50 years ago, they'd be affordable today because they'd be a B, C class building.

Government decided to force developers to build expensive units then forced them to rent some or all to low income earners. This makes no sense. It's not sustainable because there is no profit or incentive to build those units. It's unconstitutional for the government to force only one industry to subsidize lower income people. You don't see the government forcing grocery stores, water vendors, doctors, dentists, car dealers, clothing retailers to sell for a loss. We all fundamentally need food, water, medical care, cars sometimes and clothes.

If the bill passes, I believe it'd probably just be lip service. I see no way they can figure out a fair way to build affordable or free housing today in California. All the ways they've tried so far haven't worked. You can't have rent control, NIMBY power, forced private low income housing and affordable housing for all. Something has to give.

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Mary Cummins

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Gentrification and Urban Renewal, the issues and solutions for an improved community. Mary Cummins

The article linked below is an interesting read about "gentrification." The article states people should be more upset about the areas not being revitalized but they're not.

"What we talk about when we talk about gentrification. The worst problems are in the neighborhoods that aren’t gentrifying." By Jerusalem Demsas@JerusalemDemsas Sep 5, 2021.

https://www.vox.com/22629826/gentrification-definition-housing-racism-segregation-cities

The term is not even American. It was coined in 1964 by a British sociologist to describe the British "gentry" moving into working class areas. It has to do with affordability. It's not the racial issue that it's become here in the US starting in the 1990's. "Gentrification" is not a dirty word as stated by today's US media and some local community groups.

The article states "But the core rot in American cities is not the gentrifying neighborhoods: It is exclusion, segregation, and concentrated poverty." I agree with this. The article goes on to state the exclusion, segregation and concentrated poverty is caused by unequal income. Poor people live in less expensive areas they can afford. It would make more sense to help them make more money so they can afford an apartment, living expenses, education ... This concept goes hand in hand with the recent false articles about appraisers appraising homes owned by black people for less than homes owned by white people. POC are more likely to have less money and buy less expensive homes in less expensive areas. The homes used in the data weren't even appraised by appraisers but by robots.

The article stated "Gentrification as the juxtaposition of the haves and have-nots." I see this every day. Someone with less money moves into an area with less expensive rent. Over time the city, businesses, neighborhood groups improve the blighted area as part of urban renewal and revitalization. New parks, streets, stores open as the area is cleaned up and improved. Sometimes the people demanding that the city improve the area are the ones who end up complaining about the improvement which increases property values and corresponding rent. Long time resident property owners are happy but not the tenants. Those tenants originally drawn to the blighted area for cheap rent now may have to pay a higher rent or move. This upsets them and causes them to protest, attack new businesses and new neighbors falsely claiming the new people are intentionally destroying their culture, history and language. The renters actually just want the money, homes and stores the new people have.

From the article, "It’s no wonder that people who have faced centuries of disinvestment grow angry as public and private money flows into their neighborhoods only after high-income, college-educated people choose to move there. Even if those people are not wholly responsible for the inequality, the blatant injustice is hard to ignore."

This is why some Latinos in Silver Lake attacked new white owned businesses and residents. What's ironic is in that area Latinos replaced Jewish people who replaced Asians who replaced Mexicans who replaced Spaniards who replaced Native Americans after stealing their land. Which one is the bad gentrifier? At least the people who came after the Mexicans bought the land and didn't steal it.

I'm positive that if you offered the current lower income tenants to either stop the revitalization and let the area become a more blighted but affordable slum or increase their income so they can afford a nice apartment in an improved area they would prefer to increase their income. This is the no brainer solution to the conflict. Help lower income people increase their income. The solution is not to stop urban renewal and revitalization. That would mean encouraging blight, crime and loss of housing units. From the article, "As George Washington University professor Suleiman Osman wrote in his 2011 book The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn: “Stories abounded of renters [in Brooklyn] being pressured by landlords to leave revitalizing areas. But non-revitalizing blocks with high rates of abandonment and demolition saw rates of displacement that were just as high.”

The people moving into these less expensive areas don't just have more money. They are also more educated and different in other ways. This can cause friction with some people similar to what's happening in Texas with the California tech industry relocation. In Texas things are even worse because property tax goes up based on current market value. This means an elderly person who has lived in a house a long time now has to pay very high property taxes. They generally are forced to sell and move. At least in Los Angeles we don't have the same property tax issues.

Gentrification isn't always about people of color being displaced by white people. Again, Austin, Texas is one example, another is England. The tech industry is more diverse. People of color and wealthier more educated white people are displacing less educated, less wealthy white people in Texas. It's not a race issue but a wealth issue. Obviously the more wealth a family has the better education the children can receive.

A main issue of people who cry “fire, fire, gentrifier” is increased rent. That's not always the case. In Los Angeles, California we have rent control which prevents most of this. I've seen people who have stayed in their same cheap apartment since the '70's for this reason. During that time they've even bought homes which they rent to other people which doesn't really support the purpose of rent control.

"Overall, the research literature leans toward the view that gentrifying neighborhoods can lead to displacement, but they don’t have to. Gentrification can bring with it the promise of integration and sorely needed investment that can increase residents’ quality of life — but only if disadvantaged residents are set up to take part in the benefits of increased investment."

The article goes on to summarize the situation as "City by city, the message is clear: Segregation and concentrated poverty are the true blights of urban life, despite our fascination with gentrification." They're talking about segregating people with less money and not race. Here in Los Angeles and most of the US there is a correlation between people of color, immigrants and having less money. That's not the case in Texas, England ...

The article offers a solution to the real problem, "How to ethically create integrated neighborhoods. First, the economic literature is clear that increased housing production reduces rents. Second, tenant protection policies could help forestall some evictions. Third, rezoning of wealthy white segregated neighborhoods could slow the speed at which gentrifying neighborhoods change, and help tackle segregation. These types of interventions can provide a roadmap for how to ethically integrate urban neighborhoods."

By rezoning they mean allowing 2-4 units in some residential single family zones near public transportation. They're not talking about turning Beverly Hills estate neighborhoods into huge apartment buildings with only cheap studio units. Limiting homes to single family only zones is a more recent development in cities. Years ago in Los Angeles you could almost build whatever you wanted anywhere. By the 1900's the first developers and then cities limited zones to single family, 2-4 units, apartment buildings, commercial, industrial.... because that is what home buyers wanted. Some early examples are housing developments which had deed restrictions starting in 1903. The deed restrictions didn't have to do with race, color or nationalities but with the type of properties that could be built in the development. Some restrictions included quality, styles of homes, set backs, height, size... Only homes could be built in those residential developments.

The article ends with this, “Gentrification is a cultural sphere to work out feelings of resentment around inequality. ... Those feelings aren’t to be discounted,” Gottlieb argues. “This is a manifestation of a long-running sense of ‘I am not welcomed in the city, I don’t have a right to the city.’ Sometimes those feelings can be worked out in the cultural terrain of gentrification, even indeed if the people moving in aren’t the proximate cause for them leaving.”

We need to deal with the issue of "gentrification" for what it actually is which is revitalization. People pushed out of more expensive areas move into less expensive areas. The city, businesses and community improve and revitalize those areas. The revitalization must just be done ethically while still attracting new business investment to the area. Most importantly we must help people with less money improve their financial situation. This would help all of us and our community by solving the disparity of income, home ownership rates and home values among wealthy and less wealthy people. It's not a race but a financial issue. Fighting, NIMBYism and trying to stop all development is not the answer. That would just make the situation even worse for everyone.

Mary Cummins

Mary Cummins, Real Estate Appraiser, Animal Advocates, Los Angeles, California

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Reply to ChanZuckerberg Affordable Housing Solutions. Couple Ideas Might Work but Rest Would Make it Worse, by Mary Cummins.

Thursday, April 25, 2024

California Bill ACA 10 - "Housing is a Human Right" - Depends on who is Paying for it , by Mary Cummins

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Gentrification and Urban Renewal, the issues and solutions for an improved community. Mary Cummins