The vacancy rate for rental housing in Los Angeles is now under 3 percent, fourth-lowest in the nation and a major contributor to rapidly rising rents. Higher vacancy rates mean landlords must compete for potential tenants; under about 5 percent, landlords hold the leverage as potential renters are forced to compete for a very limited supply of housing. We’ve been under 5 percent vacancy since 2011, and Measure S will guarantee that we stay there for the foreseeable future. That's good news for property owners, and bad news for the two-thirds of LA residents who rent their homes, and for anyone who cares about equity or affordability.

The pro-initiative folks will tell you that this is all irrelevant, since the new housing is all targeted at rich people anyway. Putting aside the fact that those luxury units are often accompanied by on-site affordable housing, they’re still wrong. Going back all the way to the bungalow era, new housing has almost always been targeted at higher-income residents. Over time these new units age, better options become available, and the older ones “filter” down to moderate and lower income households. We understand this intuitively when it comes to cars—we would be surprised if we learned that a friend of modest means had purchased a 2016 Honda Civic, but not a 2008 model—but fail to apply the same logic to housing. In one paper, author Stuart Rosenthal found that residents living in 20-year-old housing earned about half as much as residents in new units. Unfortunately, Los Angeles has very little 20- and 30-year old housing thanks to decades of anti-development sentiment. The NII would guarantee that we're in the same position 20 more years in the future.

Other recent research has shown that Bay Area communities that built a lot of housing experienced about half as much displacement as communities that built very little. San Francisco is one of the few cities in the U.S. that has taken a stronger anti-development posture and has spent more on affordable housing (per capita) than Los Angeles. Despite this principled stand, San Francisco is now dramatically more unaffordable than LA, and it is doomed. How will adopting more SF-like policies lead to a more affordable city? The initiative’s backers have no legitimate response, and that should scare you.

They would love for you to believe that by supporting Measure S you will stop evictions and house-flipping—that you will "Save Our Neighborhoods." The bare fact, though, is that stopping new development will only make matters worse. New residents are moving here whether or not we build homes for them, as they have for decades; the question is whether investors are allowed to use their capital to build new units to house them, or they're forced by the NII's restrictions to spend their money elsewhere, upgrading existing homes, ultimately increasing evictions like those seen at the Westwood Senior Center and further supplementing the wealth of those lucky enough to own property in Los Angeles. Measure S does absolutely nothing to prevent this kind of investment, and by blocking new development it will only accelerate the impacts on our existing housing stock.

3. IT'S DISINGENUOUS.

As you've already read, there's a lot about this initiative that's rooted in false promises.

Perhaps the most disingenuous aspect of this proposal, though, is the apparent motivation behind it. Michael Weinstein, head of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has been the driving force behind Measure S, and was driven to action by a two-tower project adjacent to his Hollywood offices. He and his team have said that the project is out of scale with the neighborhood, but that claim rings hollow when the office of Weinstein himself is next door, on the 22nd floor of the Sunset Media Tower.

Given that this is just a few feet shorter than the proposed Palladium residences, one is inclined to ask: If a Hollywood tower was good enough for you and your organization to call home, what’s so horrible about a few more springing up nearby, giving people new places to live and work just a few blocks from a Red Line subway station? Wouldn’t that help create a more cohesive community character? Maybe, just maybe, it has more to do with the loss of a beautiful view and a cheap parking spot than anything as principled as “the future of the city.” Just a thought.