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Committee approves streamlined 'managed pipeline' to speed affordable housing approvals
Summary
The committee adopted a Los Angeles Housing Department plan to simplify the city's "managed pipeline" for affordable housing, authorizing LAHD to make administrative project changes without repeated council approvals and asking the city attorney to review administrative-code limits on delegations.
The Los Angeles City Council Housing and Homelessness Committee voted to adopt a revised affordable-housing "managed pipeline" process on March 3, a set of changes Los Angeles Housing Department staff said would shorten delays in bringing affordable and permanent-supportive housing projects from award to construction.
LAHD Director of Development and Finance Elizabeth Selby told the committee the managed pipeline pools multiple sources of city, state and federal funds and that returning to council for repeated administrative changes can add months to a project's schedule. The department proposed a streamlined process that would keep major competitive criteria under council oversight but allow LAHD to approve administrative changes that do not affect a project's competitiveness.
Selby described the department's requested amendments in detail, including wording changes to allow post-award administrative adjustments so long as they remain "consistent with approval, NOFA guidelines and regulations, including financial terms, distribution and number of units, income targeting and technical corrections to project addresses, name of project sponsor, and other administrative amendments that comply with the requirements of the funding program." She and staff said the current process can require multiple returns to council — sometimes eight or more — and each return can add roughly three months of delay to a project.
Council members said they supported streamlining but insisted on safeguards and quarterly oversight. "I want to make a commitment to my fellow committee members that we're gonna figure out how to do oversight in this committee, like true oversight and not just procedural oversight that doesn't actually get us to a true understanding of how we're spending our dollars," said Council member Grama. The committee added an amendment asking the city attorney to review Los Angeles Administrative Code Section 10.5 to clarify whether loan and funding agreements executed by LAHD are subject to council approval thresholds and to identify possible code changes needed to allow delegated approval for loans under specified amounts.
The committee voted to approve the amended recommendations; the roll call recorded Council member Grama, Council member Gerardo and Council member Blumenfield voting yes, with two members absent. Committee members said the changes should reduce repetitive paperwork and speed projects to construction while they will continue to seek a regular reporting cadence so council offices maintain oversight.
LAHD and committee members said the change is intended to work with existing funding sources including Proposition HHH, potential ULA and Measure A allocations and Project Homekey projects, and to create a "super NOFA" approach that sets program parameters at the start of a fiscal year and reduces repeated council actions for post-award administrative changes.
