July 29, 2025
Dear Mayor Bass,
There never seems to be a time when any of us can sit back and relax. We are writing to you as founders of United Neighbors, a coalition of hundreds of neighborhood groups throughout LA who support LA’s Housing Element and oppose SB79.
We spent a year and a half on the Housing Element, creating maps with our high-resource community partners showing how much zoning was still available to add housing, to incentivize more affordable units and to create new starter homes for young families without upzoning existing neighborhoods. In trying to balance how we add more housing while protecting our communities we have realized that pro-development, special interest groups like Abundant Housing and Streets for All have a special place in the heart of our city electeds.
But they also have a special place with Sacramento leadership that support this bill sponsored by these special interest groups. SB 79 is getting a lot of opposition from cities but none from you or our City Council. This is a bill that is not applied equitably statewide even though it claims to address a statewide housing concern. Major areas are being exempt while Southern California will be hammered by this bill and none of you are standing up for our City and its residents.
In case you are unfamiliar with SB 79, it generates a 1/2 mile radius around qualifying bus stops or rail stops and will allow 5-6 story apartments with a density of 80-100 units per acre. Each circle has 503 acres that means 42,000 units of housing will be allowed from one bus stop, impacting everything in that circle, mainly neighborhoods. Our city qualifies for many of these circles and South LA, Westside, Valley, and East LA all get badly impacted. These are “by-right” projects making our Housing Element meaningless. One LA community can generate more housing capacity than the RHNA requirement for all of LA.
There is a resolution CF#25-0002-S19 that opposes SB 79 unless it exempts cities with a certified Housing Element and yet Council President Harris-Dawson does not move it forward for a vote. And while you have always said communities should have skin-in-the-game in determining housing, you are also silent about this bill. The resolution simply supports a Housing Element the City Council unanimously approved just months ago.
We know the politics of the day often make it difficult to speak out, but you do speak out on homelessness and deportations, but you don’t stand up for all of us who have invested in LA and make up a large middle and working class coalition of voters. We hope you speak up and support all of us, who are willing to fight for solutions to housing but are not willing to reward investors by handing over our neighborhoods needlessly.
If you won’t take a stand against SB 79, at least warn all your constituents about SB 79 and ask them to speak up because they will lose their right to live in low density multi-family, historic districts, working-class and middle-class neighborhoods. Outreach on this issue matters.
We hope to hear from you and relay your message to our coalition,
Respectfully,
Maria Pavlou Kalban- United Neighbors, Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assoc
Cindy Chvatal Keane- United Neighbors, President Hancock Park Homeowners Assoc
Jeff Kalban- United Neighbors
Marc Verville- United Neighbors