Los Angeles County’s new Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, better known as LACAHSA, just put real money on the table. The fledgling agency signed off on a bit more than $100 million to finance 10 affordable housing projects across the county, its first major production round using Measure A dollars.
The cash will back a mix of new construction, adaptive reuse, and extensions of existing deed restrictions. By pulling construction loans, permanent financing, and rental subsidies into one centralized shop, the county is betting it can speed up deals and cut the legal and holding costs that often drag projects into the slow lane.
Board Signs Off On First Big Round
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the LACAHSA board voted Wednesday to approve just over $100 million for 10 developments that together are expected to create about 554 below-market units. According to the Times, the agency is already gearing up for another round of awards in May.
How The One-Stop Model Is Set Up
The agency’s inaugural notice of funding availability, or NOFA, made more than $200 million available and spells out tools running from predevelopment loans to operating subsidies, according to LACAHSA. The agency’s materials state that this first selection round prioritized projects that can break ground within 12 months and that show specific strategies to drive down costs.
Centralization Targets Delays And Extra Costs
A UC Berkeley Terner Center analysis found that each additional public funding source typically tacks on roughly four months to a project’s schedule and about $20,460 in per-unit development costs, the kind of drag that LACAHSA is trying to avoid. Those extra months mean more legal work, more staff time and higher holding costs that developers say can turn otherwise workable projects into nonstarters.
Developers Say Reuse Starts To Pencil Out
Michael Miller, president of Bold Communities, has used a LACAHSA-style approach to convert extended-stay hotels in Harbor Gateway and Stevenson Ranch into low-income senior housing. He told the Los Angeles Times he could cut total development costs by roughly 5% to 10% by avoiding multiple stacks of public funding. Miller said that if current schedules hold, those hotel conversions could be occupied by new residents by the end of next year.
Developers Line Up, Money Comes Up Short
The appetite for funding far outpaced what LACAHSA put on offer. Developers filed 127 applications seeking roughly $1.5 billion to build about 11,625 units, a total that dwarfed the money available, according to The Real Deal. LACAHSA’s NOFA required that projects be ready to break ground within 12 months and emphasized clear cost-reduction steps, according to the agency’s published guidelines.
Next Test: Can Approvals Become Actual Buildings
County officials say this first batch of awards will show whether a centralized financing hub can turn approvals into shovels in the ground instead of letting projects get bogged down in a thicket of stacked applications. If LACAHSA manages faster groundbreakings and even modest per-unit savings, officials say the model has the potential to reshape how affordable housing is financed across Los Angeles County.
