Bass vs. Raman: Who can make housing more affordable?

As election season draws to a close, Los Angeles is stuck in a housing market where no one seems to be winning.

Developers aren’t building new apartments. Many tenants can’t afford rent, even though prices have largely been frozen for the last four years and home values are dropping.

L.A. is one of the most expensive cities in the country, so a key question in the race for mayor is which candidate can make living here a bit cheaper.

Both Mayor Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman champion the cause of housing affordability. Bass signed a handful of directives during her first term that fast-tracked affordable housing projects and created incentives to build new apartments, while Raman has spearheaded strong tenant protections during her time on the City Council.

The two have spent much of the last few years working in political parallel — Raman even endorsed Bass before joining the race herself. Now that they’re running against each other, the candidates are laying out similar visions for housing, but with subtle differences that could affect affordability.

Raman has embraced YIMBYism — the “yes in my backyard” movement — while Bass has been hesitant to label herself either YIMBY or Not In My Backyard. L.A. has long suffered an identity crisis, caught between the single-family homes of its past and the multifamily developments that density advocates say are needed for its future. The question of what and where to build is key to affordability and what the city will look like.

In a debate earlier this week, Bass highlighted her accomplishments in paving the way for new affordable housing, while Raman asserted that housing production is still lagging and Bass isn’t doing enough.

Both candidates brought up housing in their opening statements and continued to reference the issue over the course of the hourlong debate.

“I do think we have to embrace density housing, but the question is how,” Bass said, later adding that more affordable housing was built during the four years of her administration than in many prior years.

Raman responded by saying that the city hasn’t done nearly enough.

“We desperately need to address the cost of housing. It is the single biggest driver of the cost of living here in L.A.,” she said. “The mayor has paid lip service to that, but L.A. is still one of the most expensive and longest places to build in the country.”

Measure ULA, the so-called “mansion tax” that levies a 4% or 5.5% tax on L.A. property sales above $5.4 million, also came up in the debate. Not only mansions but also apartment buildings are subject to the tax, which developers say makes new projects financially unfeasible and has slowed down apartment construction.

The two candidates have been somewhat aligned in trying to tweak the tax. Bass pushed for a bill in the state Legislature that would have reduced taxes on apartment buildings but ended up withdrawing it. Raman tried to exempt newly built apartment complexes, but her proposal fizzled out in the City Council.

Raman was initially one of the loudest supporters of Measure ULA when it came before city voters in 2022. She has since switched her stance, which she explained at the debate.

“The data suggested before the measure was passed that it would not impact new housing construction. When the results of the measure started to come in, I looked at the data again and said we need to reform it,” she said, adding that her switch angered many of her allies and endorsers. “It still needs reform, and I’ll fight for that reform as mayor.”

Bass pointed to her effort to change the measure at the state level.

“Anything that is going to inhibit housing needs to be examined,” she said.

Blanca Ruiz, shown in December 2023, was told to move because her home was slated to be demolished for an affordable housing project.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Perhaps Bass’ biggest housing accomplishment during her first term was Executive Directive 1, which she signed her first week in office, requiring the city to fast-track approval of 100% affordable housing projects with below-market rents. Under the now-permanent directive, more than 47,000 units of affordable housing are in the pipeline, with 7,728 of them under construction, according to the mayor’s campaign.

However, Bass later rolled back the directive in some areas, including single-family parcels, historic districts and very high fire severity zones.

Bass has also used the Mayor’s Fund, a charity fund that the mayor can use to tackle issues around the city, to address homelessness and eviction protection. And in February, she signed the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, making it easier for property owners to convert commercial spaces into apartments.

In a statement, Bass told The Times that Executive Directive 1 was a great test case, and she will focus in her second term on getting projects financed and completed while looking for ways to broaden its successes.

“My Administration led the largest rezoning effort in modern history to facilitate new housing construction and bring down the high costs Angelenos face,” Bass said, adding that more than 10,000 affordable housing units were built in L.A. during her first term.

Bass said that Raman’s plans, which include cutting red tape at City Hall, lack nuance and pointed out that just 1.3% of the affordable units built in the last four years were in Raman’s council district.

“It’s just another example of her talking a big game while her actual record falls flat,” Bass said.

At this week’s debate, Raman said it’s difficult to build affordable housing in her district, which is primarily zoned for single-family homes. But she said that she has still pushed for it, and that affordable housing construction in her district has grown by sixteen times under her leadership.

Councilmember Nithya Raman has been a strong proponent of tenant protections.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Raman, whose campaign did not respond to an interview request, served until recently as chair of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, where she championed tenant rights. In 2023, she helped establish “just cause” eviction protections and timelines for tenants to repay rent after falling behind.

Last year, she led a push to strengthen rent stabilization for the first time in 40 years, setting a 4% cap on annual rent increases for nearly half of the city’s residents. Bass signed the ordinance into law.

In L.A.’s housing market, affordability means different things to different people. For tenants, affordability is cheaper rent — and perhaps the option to buy their own home. For homeowners, affordability can be the flexibility to generate income from their property — a topic on which Bass and Raman have disagreed.

For example, Bass has pushed for short-term rental restrictions to be lifted during the 2028 Olympics, allowing homeowners to rent out second homes on platforms such as Airbnb for extra income. However, Raman has criticized the plan, saying short-term rentals contribute to L.A.’s housing shortage.

With Raman focused on tenant rights and Bass focused on streamlining permitting while maintaining single-family neighborhoods, there’s a stark contrast in their endorsements.

Raman is endorsed by YIMBY groups and tenant rights coalitions, while Bass has endorsements from trade and construction groups as well as support from some private developers.

Ernesto Medrano, executive secretary of the Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, which has endorsed Bass, said the mayor has a record of delivering for working people. He echoed Bass’ argument that there hasn’t been much affordable housing built in Raman’s district.

“Nithya lacks results in her own district, so why should anyone believe she’ll get it done as mayor?” Medrano said in a statement.

Developer Paul Schon said that neither candidate has figured out how to make L.A. affordable, but he’s leaning toward Bass because he thinks she’s more pro-development. Raman’s tenant regulations have made owning rental properties harder, he said, while Bass has shown more awareness that housing providers have to stay solvent too.

“If the city wants more housing, it has to make building and owning housing viable,” he said. “Right now, L.A. is focused on the first half and ignoring the second.”

Zachary Pitts, L.A. director at YIMBY Action, which endorsed Raman, said L.A. has perhaps the most severe housing shortage in the country and needs policy changes that dramatically increase the number of homes built.

“Raman has consistently and with conviction put housing first,” Pitts said in a statement. “Los Angeles has made it difficult to build housing at every level of government, and Raman has shown an inclination to address this step by step to make the process faster, easier and cheaper.”

Jesse Zwick, Southern California director for the Housing Action Coalition, said his group endorsed Raman because she’s the only candidate who accurately understands the housing crisis as a shortage of homes for people at all income levels. He pointed to her advocacy to expand Executive Directive 1 to fast-track mixed-income housing in addition to affordable housing.

“Mayor Bass has strongly opposed efforts to improve housing affordability,” Zwick, a former Raman staffer who serves on the Santa Monica City Council, said in a statement. “She even ended up undermining her own best efforts: when her signature affordable housing project, Executive Directive 1, riled single-family homeowners, her response was to water it down instead of fighting for the affordable housing we desperately need.”

As the housing crisis worsens, each candidate argues that her opponent doesn’t have what it takes to address affordability — or any of L.A.’s problems.

“We have a mayor who has been M.I.A.,” Raman said at this week’s debate. “And that is unacceptable.”

“My opponent … has been in Los Angeles for 13 years and has served on City Council for half that time. In this time, she has produced very little,” Bass shot back.