Mayor Bass Directs Permitting Reforms to Streamline Housing and Business Development Across Los Angeles

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LOS ANGELES - Today, Mayor Karen Bass announced a sweeping set of changes designed to make it faster and easier to build housing and open businesses in Los Angeles. The reforms will reduce delays in City approval processes, simplify permitting, and speed up the creation of new homes across the city. Speaking outside the Department of Water and Power (LADWP), one of several city departments impacted by the measures, Mayor Bass outlined the next phase of her housing strategy before signing the reforms into effect through an executive directive.

"When I came into office, I inherited one of the worst housing shortages in the country and a city where more than half of renters struggle to pay their bills," said Mayor Karen Bass. "I've also heard from too many Angelenos about how hard the City can make it to open a business. We've made real progress in delivering relief, and today represents a leap forward. We're not going to fix this by doing things the old way. It takes real, structural change in how housing and businesses are approved and built across Los Angeles-and that's exactly what these reforms deliver."

Speaking alongside Mary Leslie, President of the Los Angeles Business Council, and local business leaders, Mayor Bass outlined how she will use her mayoral authority to improve housing delivery and support business growth in Los Angeles. She highlighted three key areas of reform in improving the City's permitting processes: deploying smart technology, cutting red tape, and improving communication between the City and permit applicants. Her executive directive take several actions, including:

• Launching the first citywide single-family home standard plan program with an easy-to-use portal with pre-approved building plans.
• Directing the LADWP to remove bottlenecks in connecting power to new buildings and to create a user-friendly project tracking portal.
• Bringing Los Angeles into the modern era by advancing the use of AI tools to speed up permitting.
• Connecting all city departments involved in development to a single digital system so permit approvals can be reviewed at the same time instead of one after another.
• Expanding online self-certification permitting for certain commercial renovations citywide.

As Mayor Bass noted, many of the reforms announced today are informed by lessons learned from the Palisades recovery effort, where new and innovative approaches significantly accelerated the permitting process. These innovations are now being expanded to projects across the city.

"Fifteen months ago, the Palisades and Eaton Fires devastated our communities, leaving thousands of families without homes," said Steven Somers, CEO of land use and permit expediting firm Crest Real Estate, who spoke alongside Mayor Bass. "In the aftermath, the question was how quickly we could help them return. That urgency brought my team at Crest together with the Mayor's office, and we've since worked closely with Mayor Bass and her staff to craft emergency orders that cut red tape so Angelenos can rebuild without fighting City Hall. By improving coordination, setting clear timelines, and empowering staff to find the path to yes, permitting timelines for fire rebuilds have been reduced up to 80 percent-helping families return home months, even years, sooner."

During her remarks, Mayor Bass also reflected on the extent of City Hall's housing dysfunction when she took office. Mayor Bass has spent the last three years focused on cutting red tape and accelerating building across the city, including:

• Signing an executive directive to speed up 100% affordable housing, with 42,000+ units in the pipeline and 6,000+ currently under construction.
• Expanding efforts beyond 100% affordable housing to also support housing for working families, middle-income Angelenos, and first-time homebuyers.
• Advancing the Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP) to open more of the city to housing-along major corridors, near transit, and in neighborhoods where people already live and work-with nearly 29,000 units already proposed.
• Expanding the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance citywide to convert vacant office buildings and parking lots into housing, with current estimates showing it could create more than 43,000 new homes across the city.

Mayor Bass' efforts to accelerate housing development have played a key role in reducing homelessness in the city. For the first time in Los Angeles history, homelessness has declined for two consecutive years. Under her leadership, street homelessness in Los Angeles has dropped by nearly 18%, even as it has increased by a similar percentage nationwide.

Read the full Executive Directive here.