Making it Easier to Build in LA: Mayor Bass, Rick Caruso Highlight Progress in Work to Lower Costs for Housing and Commercial Projects

LOS ANGELES - Mayor Bass and business leader and Founder and Chairman of Steadfast LA Rick Caruso announced progress on Mayor Bass' Executive Directive 19 to make it easier to build in L.A., including a new program to transform how LADWP delivers utility services to commercial and residential projects. Mayor Bass worked with Rick Caruso, Palisades residents, and developers citywide to shape Executive Directive 19. The announcement took place at the Palisades Village. Photos available here.

"For decades, our City struggled with a development permitting process that was fragmented, unpredictable, and uncoordinated across departments," said Mayor Bass. "When I took office, I took immediate action to change that, and through our collaboration with business leaders like Rick Caruso and Palisades residents, we have changed that citywide. We're making utility connections more predictable, improving customer service, modernizing outdated processes, and giving developers the tools and support that they need to move projects forward. Together, we are making it easier to build in L.A."

"We haven't agreed on policy but I know what I've seen in the last year and a half: real partnership from Mayor Bass in rebuilding the Palisades. And now City Hall is taking that progress citywide," said Rick Caruso. "My love for the city transcends politics. That's why I'm standing here today and will always stand with leaders who do the right thing for the people who need it the most."

"These achievements reflect our commitment to mobilize quickly to create necessary, lasting change in our New Business processes and are just the most recent in a list of accomplishments from the first six months of ED 19," said LADWP Interim General Manager David W. Hanson."But we're not stopping here. We know there is still more work to be done, and we are committed to seeing this through to create an efficient, modern process that best benefits our customers in the building and development communities and Los Angeles as a whole."

Mayor Bass launched Executive Directive 19 in April to make it faster and easier to build housing and open businesses in Los Angeles. The reforms aim to reduce delays in City approval processes, simplify permitting, and speed up the creation of new homes across the city. Key actions taken since then include:

• The Department of Building and Safety has expanded self-certification for eligible commercial tenant improvement projects citywide, helping small businesses move projects forward.

• Pre-approved standard plans for single-family homes that were first introduced to support rebuilding in the Palisades and being made available citywide, helping streamline the building process.

• LADWP is launching Power Ready LA to lower upfront costs for eligible housing and commercial projects.

Since taking office, Mayor Bass has used her executive power to cut red tape and eliminate the bureaucratic barriers that have slowed development in Los Angeles for decades, including:

• Signing Executive Directive 1 during her first week in office to slash red tape and streamline the approval of 100% affordable housing. In December 2025, the City Council voted unanimously in favor of making the directive a permanent city ordinance. Currently, nearly 50,000 units of affordable housing are in the pipeline.

• Implementing the Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP), the largest local rezoning program in modern history, that creates the capacity for half a million new homes and opens up more of the city to housing - along major corridors, near transit, and in neighborhoods where people already live and work.

• Signing into law the first update to Los Angeles' Rent Stabilization Ordinance in 40 years.

• Expanding the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance citywide to convert vacant office buildings and parking lots into housing, which could create more than 43,000 new homes.

• Implementing a research-proven eviction and homelessness prevention program through the Mayor's Fund.

• Helping more than 1,000 veterans and their families secure permanent housing through her House Our Vets initiative.