Un-Jam L.A. Traffic: The “Walking In L.A.” Initiatives
By Walter Moore, Attorney And Real Estate Broker
Fill in the blank: "Traffic in L.A. is __________."
If you're like most people, your answer included profanity, a synonym for "slow," and the word "nightmare."
What's the solution?
One proposal is to spend billions of your dollars to build a subway under Wilshire Boulevard. Hydrocarbons, earthquakes, and no money left for any other mass transit -- it's not a pretty sight.
Another proposal is to eliminate L.A.'s distinctive low-rise skyline by building skyscrapers along every major street, and calling them "urban villages" so they'll seem smaller and friendlier. So much for enjoying the sunshine!
Here are three other, simpler "walk-to-work" initiatives to un-jam traffic by getting people to move closer to their jobs:
1. Pedestrian Property Tax Cap
Property taxes currently penalize homeowners who move closer to work: their taxes can skyrocket even if the new home is smaller than the old. To fix this, we need to make Proposition 13 "portable" for anyone who is moving to a home within a mile of his or her job. This will get those people off the streets, as it were, without reducing the taxes they pay.
But let's not stop there.
Someone who does not currently own a house or condo, but wants to buy one within a mile of his or her job should get a similar deal: let them pay the same taxes as the current owners. That would make it easier for them to move, without reducing taxes the property generates.
2. Rearrange The Renters
Rent control laws also aggravate the traffic problem. If a desirable apartment close to a long-distance commuter's job is subject to rent control, the commuter's never getting into that apartment. The only way the current tenant will leave is "feet first" -- even if that tenant himself has a long commute -- because he is not paying what the apartment is really worth.
To end this traffic-jamming distortion of a free market economy, we should allow landlords to evict a current tenant from a rent-controlled apartment, and to charge a market rent, provided the new tenant has a job within a mile of the apartment and the old tenant does not.
Obviously, the people who lose their rent-controlled apartments will raise a ruckus about this proposal. After all, they have a great deal -- courtesy of the government, at their landlord's expense.
However, if those tenants are healthy, able-bodied people, perhaps it's time for them to work as hard and spend as much as all the people living in non-rent-controlled apartments. And if they are elderly or handicapped, then the government, not landlords, should bear the burden of giving them aid. There are a wide variety of programs to help low-income people pay their rent (e.g., Section 8).
If you want to give the evicted tenants a consolation prize, you could give them a cut of the increased rent for a while. We must, however, do something about the traffic, and it makes no sense to let rent control stop people from living closer to their jobs.
3. Mixed-Use In A Minute
If you've been to Europe, you know people can and do live above shops. Zoning laws here discourage that by declaring an entire building to be "residential" or "commercial."
We can and should fix that by letting owners of commercial, retail and office buildings convert the upper floors to residential, provided that, for the first five years at least, they sell or rent only to people who work within a mile of the building.
This instant mixed-use zoning would get people out of the daily car clog, and could generate more income for the owners of the buildings and local businesses.
* * *
These three "walk-to-work" initiatives could significantly lessen the number of cars on our roads at any given moment. They could, moreover, significantly improve the quality of those commuters' lives. Imagine what you could do with all the time you currently spend stuck in traffic.
If you're like most people, your answer included profanity, a synonym for "slow," and the word "nightmare."
What's the solution?
One proposal is to spend billions of your dollars to build a subway under Wilshire Boulevard. Hydrocarbons, earthquakes, and no money left for any other mass transit -- it's not a pretty sight.
Another proposal is to eliminate L.A.'s distinctive low-rise skyline by building skyscrapers along every major street, and calling them "urban villages" so they'll seem smaller and friendlier. So much for enjoying the sunshine!
Here are three other, simpler "walk-to-work" initiatives to un-jam traffic by getting people to move closer to their jobs:
1. Pedestrian Property Tax Cap
Property taxes currently penalize homeowners who move closer to work: their taxes can skyrocket even if the new home is smaller than the old. To fix this, we need to make Proposition 13 "portable" for anyone who is moving to a home within a mile of his or her job. This will get those people off the streets, as it were, without reducing the taxes they pay.
But let's not stop there.
Someone who does not currently own a house or condo, but wants to buy one within a mile of his or her job should get a similar deal: let them pay the same taxes as the current owners. That would make it easier for them to move, without reducing taxes the property generates.
2. Rearrange The Renters
Rent control laws also aggravate the traffic problem. If a desirable apartment close to a long-distance commuter's job is subject to rent control, the commuter's never getting into that apartment. The only way the current tenant will leave is "feet first" -- even if that tenant himself has a long commute -- because he is not paying what the apartment is really worth.
To end this traffic-jamming distortion of a free market economy, we should allow landlords to evict a current tenant from a rent-controlled apartment, and to charge a market rent, provided the new tenant has a job within a mile of the apartment and the old tenant does not.
Obviously, the people who lose their rent-controlled apartments will raise a ruckus about this proposal. After all, they have a great deal -- courtesy of the government, at their landlord's expense.
However, if those tenants are healthy, able-bodied people, perhaps it's time for them to work as hard and spend as much as all the people living in non-rent-controlled apartments. And if they are elderly or handicapped, then the government, not landlords, should bear the burden of giving them aid. There are a wide variety of programs to help low-income people pay their rent (e.g., Section 8).
If you want to give the evicted tenants a consolation prize, you could give them a cut of the increased rent for a while. We must, however, do something about the traffic, and it makes no sense to let rent control stop people from living closer to their jobs.
3. Mixed-Use In A Minute
If you've been to Europe, you know people can and do live above shops. Zoning laws here discourage that by declaring an entire building to be "residential" or "commercial."
We can and should fix that by letting owners of commercial, retail and office buildings convert the upper floors to residential, provided that, for the first five years at least, they sell or rent only to people who work within a mile of the building.
This instant mixed-use zoning would get people out of the daily car clog, and could generate more income for the owners of the buildings and local businesses.
* * *
These three "walk-to-work" initiatives could significantly lessen the number of cars on our roads at any given moment. They could, moreover, significantly improve the quality of those commuters' lives. Imagine what you could do with all the time you currently spend stuck in traffic.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Walter Moore’s Blog
MooreIsBetter.com
