Everyone Is Losing the Development Debate

Carl Muhlstein is a regional director at JLL.

LOS ANGELES—“ There is no clear path to land use in this city, and it is failing everyone,” says Carl Muhlstein , a regional director at JLL . The development debate has escalated in recent months with two new ballot measures that could slow or stop development. One, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative seeks to end all development exemptions to the master plan—which would limit development while encouraging a new master plan; and the second is the Build Better LA initiative, which would require developers include affordable units in every new project. This debate made headlines again last week when CGI dropped its bid to operate the Villa Carlotta as a boutique hotel. Muhlstein, who said that the push back from the community was tied to this development debate, has been closely following the divide, and is looking at city leaders for a solution. “There is a lack of leadership by city politicians,” he tells GlobeSt.com, speaking generally about the issue and not about one piece of legislation specifically. “It is a heated subject and they aren’t educating their constituents as to the ramifications. The easiest thing to do is to side with the residents, which means more loss of housing; more loss of hotel tax revenue; more loss of construction jobs. It is easier to say no.” Muhlstein, like the ULI in a recent interview , says that the real problem is the outdated zoning and development requirements. “The city has had the same zoning on the books for decades, along with the same parking requirements,” he says. “They are not waking up. They want to keep the same size houses that were built years ago, but in those years, the population of the city has grown fourfold. The city wants to maintain the original land-use plans from the 1930s, so that means more driving, more traffic and a lower quality of live. That is worse than more bedrooms on your street.” We have an extreme housing supply in the city for all income levels, which has been helping to fuel this issue, because people don’t want to sacrifice the little affordable housing available. “The city hasn’t come up with a plan to deliver housing for all income levels,” he adds. “I am a broken record that you don’t stop development for two years when the vacancy rate is 3.5%.” Muhlstein adds that more development will help to stabilize rents and provide a better quality of life. “If there were another 3,000 units of market-rate housing, people would have to lower their rates,” he explains. “It is market-rate. If people only make so much, then they can only afford so much. Plus, new projects bring more community serving retail so that we don’t have to get in our cars an increase traffic.”