Opinion: Next up: inclusionar--er, mixed-income housing

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The Los Angeles City Council this week finally signed off on an ordinance, required under state law, to give developers incentives to build more apartments and condos to be rented or sold at below market rate. Next up in the fight over the shape of the city’s landscape: The Mixed-Income Housing Ordinance. For now it’s more of a concept than a draft ordinance; backers hope the new name will de-fang some of the opposition that built under the plan’s old name: inclusionary zoning. Unlike the SB 1818 implementing law, which encourages developers to build mixed-income housing, IZ would mandate it.

Councilman Herb Wesson, who chairs the housing committee, told the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum lunch on Thursday that the mixed-income housing plan would be coming soon.

Wesson, a former state Assembly speaker, also deflected an attempt by Jim Hilfenhaus of Laborers Local 300 to pin him down on a position on the controversial Las Lomas proposed development. Wesson said he still has more to learn before reaching a decision on whether to support the project.

The councilman devoted the bulk of his lively and entertaining lunchtime talk to the presidential race, and the enthusiasm surrounding the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama matchup. But the most interesting comments had to do with his own decision -- contrary to predictions by some snarky reporters back when he first ran for the City Council -- to stay in City Hall rather than run for the Board of Supervisors to succeed his former boss, Yvonne Burke.

‘The term limits change made a difference,’ Wesson said, referring to last year’s Proposition R ballot measure that gives council members three terms instead of two. Wesson said he looked forward to 12 years in the job, although in fact he could get 14 because his first mini-term completed his predecessor’s tenure and won’t be counted against him.

If he had wanted Burke’s job, Wesson said, he was pretty sure he could have had it -- without opposition.

And one more thing -- he just might want to stay in City Hall but leave its Fourth Floor, where council members have their offices. I don’t think he meant he wants to run for city attorney.