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Council Approves Contracts for Housing‑policy Studies, City Says It Needs Outside Technical Help
Summary
The council authorized roughly $399,000 for consultant contracts to develop relocation policy, preservation programs and other housing program tools after staff said the city lacks internal capacity to complete the program development work in house.
The Los Angeles City Council on May 9 approved a set of consultant contracts to help the Housing Department develop several housing policy and program proposals, including a citywide relocation policy, preservation programs for restricted affordable units, best practices and incentives for housing production, and a pilot receivership legal program. The council approved the item 12‑0.
Housing Department staff told councilmembers the city lacks the in‑house staffing and existing databases needed to develop these new programs and that many of the proposals are implementation‑focused rather than purely academic studies. Sally Richmond, manager of policy and planning for the Los Angeles Housing Department, said the relocation work followed recent emergencies in which tenants needed rapid rehousing after building closures and that no citywide relocation procedures exist for those events.
Councilmembers raised why the department was contracting rather than using existing state or national best practices. Richmond said contractors will help tailor and implement programs specific to Los Angeles’s size and the volume of at‑risk units; some contractors already maintain databases that would be costly to replicate in‑house. The Housing Department estimated the multi‑contract package at roughly $399,000.
Councilmember Wax expressed concerns about the city’s limited housing resources and asked whether approving these contracts would reduce funds reserved for construction and other redevelopment priorities; staff said the money was set aside from project budgets where applicable and that the contracts are intended to accelerate program development so the city can deploy tools more quickly.
The contracts will fund work on relocation policy, preservation of restricted units, incentives for development, debt/bonus analysis, a pilot receivership legal framework and a comprehensive housing policy draft, and will be administered by the Housing Department with consultant teams.
