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Planning department: Los Angeles produced 17,195 permits in 2024 but remains far below RHNA targets
Summary
City Planning presented the 2024 Annual Progress Report: 17,195 permits issued in 2024, strong affordable housing production compared with a decade earlier, and early signs from the new CHIP incentive program—about 8,500 proposed units in four months—though the city remains well short of its Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) target.
The Department of City Planning told the Housing and Homelessness Committee on March 31 that Los Angeles issued 17,195 building permits in 2024 and recorded strong affordable housing production, but remains far short of its RHNA target.
Planning staff said the city’s RHNA target over the housing element period is approximately 456,000 units and that the current pace—roughly 20,000–33,00 units per year in recent years—falls well short of the pace required. The department reported 17,195 permits in 2024 (an 8% decline from the prior year) and emphasized that to meet RHNA the city would need to build roughly 57,000 units per year.
The presentation highlighted that ADUs and multifamily construction are major drivers of recent production and that 2024 included the highest number of affordable units on record for the city. Planning staff said affordable production is roughly triple the rate about a decade ago. The department also presented early results for the Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP): in approximately four months CHIP produced about 8,500 proposed units in pre‑applications and formal applications, including more than 1,000 units that had already filed for Building & Safety review. Planning staff said roughly 60% of CHIP‑proposed units are in high‑opportunity areas.
Why it matters: The Annual Progress Report is the city’s required filing to the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and informs eligibility for state streamlining and some grants. The committee heard that falling short of RHNA mid‑cycle could trigger changes to streamlining and qualify some projects for different state rules.
Committee exchange and questions: Members asked about the difference between entitlements and permits (entitlements are planning approvals; permits indicate readiness to build and require financing), whether ADUs are occupied as housing or used as accessory spaces (planning staff said the department does not track actual use), and why entitlements are increasing while permits are falling (staff attributed the discrepancy to lagging construction financing, macroeconomic headwinds, and developers holding entitlements while awaiting more favorable market conditions).
The department said completions in recent years remain high and entitlements activity is an encouraging sign of future production, but that the city must address post‑entitlement permitting delays. Planning staff noted BuildLA and other streamlining tools as part of ongoing work to shorten the entitlement‑to‑permit pipeline.
Next steps: Committee received and filed the Annual Progress Report and asked Planning staff to return with more detail on CHIP project types, unit mixes (including family‑sized units) and outcomes for entitlement‑to‑permit conversion.
