Public Counsel

Imagine the Los Angeles of 2050. Will it still have traffic-choked freeways, ever-increasing pollution, and neighborhoods divided by lines of wealth and poverty? Or will it have smog-busting transit and bike lanes, playgrounds and parks, and housing that everyone can afford? Public Counsel is using its legal muscle to help create a future for LA that is greener, more prosperous, and more livable. For the past few years, we have been focusing on ensuring that plans for the city’s public transit system include affordable housing, so that low-income residents can benefit as public transit reshapes the regional landscape. With an unprecedented influx in transit investment taking place in LA, the key question facing our communities is: how can development happen so that everyone benefits, and nobody is left behind? Transit corridor and transit-oriented development (TOD) is an increasingly popular strategy to improve our built environment while reducing carbon emissions. Thanks to the passage of three critical pieces of legislation—Assembly Bill 32, Senate Bill 375, and LA County Measure R—TOD is becoming a reality in LA. City planners estimate that 80% of new development in the city will be transit-adjacent, and the Mayor has appointed a Transit Corridors Cabinet to plan for dense, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods near transit. But with transit development comes both opportunity and risk, especially for existing low-income residents of transit areas. Mounting evidence shows that TOD can actually work against many of its stated goals, resulting in rising land value and housing costs, displacement of lower-income residents by higher-income residents with higher rates of vehicle ownership, and therefore—paradoxically—declining transit ridership. The need for affordable housing near transit is especially urgent in Los Angeles. LA is the most economically segregated metropolitan area in the country. Residents in the city’s existing station areas have median household incomes of less than $30,000 a year, significantly lower than the regional median. Nearly three-quarters of station area residents are renters and more vulnerable to displacement. Another reason for the urgency of equitable TOD in LA is the dissolution of California’s redevelopment agencies in 2012, which resulted in the loss of $64 million in annual economic development in LA alone. Public Counsel demonstrated the power of legal strategies to effect systemic change when it recently challenged the State’s attempt to take redevelopment funds targeted for affordable housing in eastern LA County. At a hearing, the judge asked Public Counsel’s pro bono attorney how losing such funding would cause immediate harm. The attorney provided sworn declarations showing, for example, that without funding for affordable housing, many families will be on the street or forced to remain in transitional shelters for a year or longer. One mother of three described how her family is packed into a single room where they have trouble sleeping, the kitchen is too small to cook an adequate meal, her 5-year-old daughter has to attend an unfamiliar school, and she lacks the permanent address she needs to find a job. At the end of the hearing, the judge granted a preliminary injunction protecting $38 million in affordable housing funds. Against the backdrop of this crisis in redevelopment funding, TOD is being touted as “Redevelopment 2.0.” But TOD can only help redevelop low-income neighborhoods to the benefit of existing residents if we put policies in place to make that happen, and ensure that those policies are effectively implemented. That’s where Public Counsel’s legal muscle comes in. Too often, resident and community voices are left out of major decisions affecting the build out of their neighborhoods. Too often, plans are made but not implemented. We have used our legal expertise in the past to ensure an open and accessible public process, and we have worked with our nonprofit clients to develop innovative policies that advance the interests of local residents. Building on our prior successes in South LA, the Cornfield Arroyo Seco specific plan area north of downtown, the 15 mile radius surrounding the City of Industry, and the southeast cities, Public Counsel will: (1) Advocate for the development and preservation of affordable housing and anti-displacement policies near transit; (2) Advance land use plans that represent the needs of vulnerable residents; and (3) Provide in-depth, one-on-one legal and policy assistance to nonprofit affordable housing developers, and to community-based organizations representing low-income residents, to help them participate in community planning processes. Working together, Public Counsel and our partners can ensure that transit-oriented development works for low-income communities, for the smart growth goals of the city, and for the environmental aspirations California shares with so many people throughout the world.