REAL ESTATE NEWS
Are luxury apartments sitting empty in LA? Are they contributing to homelessness? It’s common for cities to have vacant units, but in LA, the market is relatively tight, according to LACurbed. #vacant #losangeles #homeless | Blog Video
Recently, a group of citizens marched through Downtown streets to protest new high-end apartment buildings. “Shame!’ they yelled in front of the Griffin on Spring and 825 South Hill, where prices for one-bedroom apartments start at $2,700. Some claim that the vacant apartments are contributing to the homelessness problem.
The fact is that these apartment buildings are actually quite new, and it takes time to fill them up. These apartments are private businesses. Forcing luxury apartment owners to take homeless in at cheap prices or free would cause them to go out of business. Governments cannot force private businesses to radically change the way they operate. Such extreme ideas have been tried for hundreds of years in the old Soviet Union, the old Communist China, Cuba. Those who want to see a major vacancy problem may check out the failed example of modern socialism, Venezuela.
Los Angeles really has relatively low vacancy compared to many major cities. All newly constructed apartments are vacant until they are filled up.
The real problem with the Los Angeles homeless and tent cities are the billions of dollars of incentives that attract homeless here, exacerbated by a city hall and police department that have stopped enforcing basic laws such as illegal camping, drug use, petty theft and other crimes routinely ignored by the LAPD. Homeless are being drawn to L.A., then not receiving the services that they need, including law enforcement and mental health services. Angelenos are tolerating an unlawful sacrifice of sidewalks, cleanliness and safety. In addition to costing billions more in lost business revenue and damage to the city’s international reputation, the cost in damage to health is too great. Women and children need to be able to walk on sidewalks to go to school, shopping and other necessary activities. Allowing the sidewalks to be used for illegal camping and drugs is an untenable situation. Regardless of who is to blame or who is not to blame, the sidewalk tent cities must stop immediately. The law must be enforced equally for rich, poor and middle class.
Researchers have also pointed out that LA’s zoning regulations make it difficult or impossible for developers to build smaller buildings that would be cheaper to build and cheaper to live in. This obstacle is being addressed by new state laws allowing Accessory Dwelling Units, but city ordinances still make it prohibitively expensive to build.
‘Empty homes penalty’
One of the reasons vacancy is the talk of the town right now is because Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin is pushing for a vacancy tax—also called the “empty homes penalty”. Unfortunately, Bonin’s bogus idea would cause fewer homes to be built, and would require government officials to constantly inspect private homes, which is unconstitutional and impossible.
Taxes and fines for vacancies is unnecessary, impractical and impossible. The bottom line: owners are already paying a stiff penalty when they are not receiving rent for a property, so the incentive already exists to keep vacancies to an absolute minimum.
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