His solution is to build out in areas where land is abundant and inexpensive and pair it with public transportation. “One idea is to create affordable housing in an area where the land costs allow for the creation of affordable housing and then create transportation solutions that allow commutes to jobs in the metropolitan area,” says Gabriel. “The solution to the affordable housing solution is not just about housing, it is about transportation. You have to look at these solutions in more of a holistic sense.”

The housing affordability crisis is the hottest topic in commercial real estate. Experts from every niche are presenting solutions to the problem, from advocating for more mixed-income properties to pegging high-density legislation as the best solution. Stuart Gabriel, Arden Realty Chair, professor of finance and director at Richard S. Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA, thinks there is a range of solutions—both public and private—to solve housing affordability. While he agrees that affordability is ultimately a supply issue, he says that the problem is too large for the public sector to handle alone.

“The public sector alone has nothing close to the wherewithal or the capacity to deal with the magnitude of these issues,” Gabriel tells GlobeSt.com. “The creation of affordable housing can only occur in concert with the incentive structures that are available in the private sector and for private development. Without that, we are going to be talking about a cup of water in the Santa Monica Bay. In other words, we are going to be talking about solutions that may be symbolic but that are materially not adequate enough to deal with the magnitude of the problem.”

The problem is that land prices are too high for private developers to build affordable units. However, Gabriel says that there is land outside urban cores that is inexpensive enough to build more affordable housing. “It is not so much that we can't build affordable housing,” he says. “There are many parts of the region where the land is cheap and it would be economical to develop affordable housing. It is simply that the land costs in the central parts of the city are not consistent with the development of low cost housing. In other words, the land costs are in excess of what would make development profitable to private developers.”

As an example, he explains that in Los Angeles, affordable housing is never going to be viable in expensive areas, like Marina del Rey and Santa Barbara. “The fact is that it is not going to be possible to create the magnitude of affordable housing we need in the expensive places,” he says. “The marketplace will not allow that to happen.”

His solution is to build out in areas where land is abundant and inexpensive and pair it with public transportation. “One idea is to create affordable housing in an area where the land costs allow for the creation of affordable housing and then create transportation solutions that allow commutes to jobs in the metropolitan area,” says Gabriel. “The solution to the affordable housing solution is not just about housing, it is about transportation. You have to look at these solutions in more of a holistic sense.”