Hollywood

WGA, Hollywood Studios Close to a Deal on Ending Writers’ Strike, Sources Say

September 25, 2023 By Meg James Leave a Comment

The Writers Guild of America and the major Hollywood studios are closing in on a deal that would end a 145-day strike that has roiled the film and TV business and caused thousands of job losses.

Lawyers for the two sides were haggling over the details of a possible agreement on Saturday during a meeting that began mid-morning, according to people close to the discussions who were not authorized to comment.

However, the union and studio alliance had not announced a deal as of early Saturday evening.

In a joint statement, the WGA and the studios said they would meet again Sunday.Studio sources told The Times the two sides hoped to finalize a deal then.

“Thank you for your continued encouragement as we press ahead to secure the best deal we can for writers,” the WGA’s negotiating committee said in an email to members Saturday night.

Saturday marked the fourth straight day of talks, which kicked off Wednesday with the heads of four major studios participating directly.

Should the companies reach a pact this weekend, they won’t immediately restart productions. The entertainment company leaders still must turn their attention to the 160,000-member performers union, SAG-AFTRA, to accelerate those stalled talks in an effort to get the industry back to work.

The thorniest issues in the long-running labor dispute have included language governing the use of artificial intelligence, minimum staffing in writers rooms and the establishment of residuals to reward scribes based on viewership of streaming series.

The work stoppage began in early May and gained momentum as actors led by SAG-AFTRA joined writers on the picket line in mid-July, further shutting down film and scripted television productions and hobbling studios’ ability to promote would-be blockbuster movies.

Any agreement on a new three-year film and TV contract would have to be ratified by a vote of the WGA’s 11,500 members, who have strongly supported the walkout and have enjoyed unusual levels of solidarity from fellow unions amid the nation’s “hot labor summer.”

There has been significant pressure on both sides to reach an agreement in recent weeks. Many Hollywood industry workers have struggled to pay their rent and bills, with some moving out of state to make ends meet. Studios have also felt the financial pain, modifying their film slates and leaning on live sports and unscripted television.

WGA negotiators met with studio representatives Wednesday for the first time since a disastrous meeting in late August. This week, top executives joined the proceedings: Walt Disney Co.’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley.

Friday’s marathon session started at 11 a.m. at the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — which represents the big entertainment companies — in Sherman Oaks. The meeting ended at about 8:30 p.m., amid growing hopes that the sides would be able to reach an accord before the Yom Kippur holiday.

The apparent progress marked a stark contrast with the last round of talks, which started in August after three months of striking.

Negotiations fell apart after an Aug. 22 meeting with the four leading CEOs — Iger, Zaslav, Langley and Sarandos — which writers’ representatives described as a “lecture” and a browbeating session in which they were pressured to accept an Aug. 11 proposal from the AMPTP.

After the meeting, the alliance released a summary of its proposal, causing an uproar among writers who saw it as a tactic to go around the WGA’s negotiating committee. The effort deepened the mistrust between the two sides.

Studio brass thought the move would allow writers and the larger community to see that the AMPTP had given substantial ground in an effort to reach a deal.

The studio’s proposal offered wage increases and signaled a willingness from the alliance to negotiate on topics it previously considered off the table, such as sharing of viewership data with the WGA and staffing in writers rooms.

But the WGA’s negotiating committee felt the proposal did not go far enough. Writers on the picket lines were not impressed, calling the studios’ proposals “half-measures.”

Frustration among workers, including film crew workers, continued to build as the strikes stretched beyond Labor Day.

Political leaders including Gov. Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and state Treasurer Fiona Ma also weighed in, urging the parties to settle the dispute.

For weeks, the two sides remained at a standstill, arguing over whose turn it was to make a counteroffer. The WGA’s negotiating committee even suggested that some studios might be willing to break from the alliance and negotiate separately with the guild, exploiting potential fractures in the alliance. The AMPTP rejected that notion.

This week, though, talks got serious.

Studios wanted to get a deal done by early October to salvage their 2024 film slates, which would require them to be back in production soon. They’re also hoping to salvage what they can of the 2023-24 television season.

Click here to read the full article in LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Hollywood, Hollywood Strike, unions

Newsom and Lawmakers Cut a Grand Deal for Hollywood: Refundable Tax Credit and New Set Safety Rules

June 26, 2023 By Lauren Rosenthall 1 Comment

SACRAMENTO — Hollywood studios will get a lucrative tax benefit they have long sought and workers on film productions will get new safety protocols they’ve wanted since the deadly “Rust” shooting under new legislation that Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign into law by the end of this week.

It reflects a grand deal between the governor and state lawmakers to tackle Hollywood’s thorniest political fights in Sacramento in one sweeping bill that was made public Saturday as lawmakers race to finalize the state budget.

The legislation will extend California’s film and television tax credit for five more years with a new “refundable” feature allowing studios to receive cash payments from the state if their credits are larger than their tax bills — a perk studios have lobbied for in California for several years in the face of competition from other states.

It weaves in the set safety issue by requiring that productions receiving the tax credit follow new safety rules including hiring a safety advisor to perform a risk assessment and be on set during filming. For all productions, it will require that prop masters and armorers handling weapons have firearms training and a special state permit.

And it adds new diversity requirements that were a priority for Democratic lawmakers who have been frustrated that Hollywood workers do not reflect California’s ethnic and gender diversity. A portion of the tax credits that productions will receive will depend on meeting diversity targets. A larger slice of the tax credits will go to job training programs in community colleges that predominantly serve students of color. And the legislation requires adding a new member to the state film commission who has expertise in diversity, equity and inclusion.

“It’s the art of compromising and negotiating, finding a solution that works for everyone,” said Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), who played a key role in crafting the bill.

“The studios want refundability and have been wanting to have more access to these dollars. The unions have been advocating for set safety supervision, given what happened on the ‘Rust’ set. … On both ends, this was an agreeable compromise to see if it works.”

Attempts to pass set safety legislation last year stalled amid disagreements between the Motion Picture Assn. and the IATSE union that represents entertainment industry workers. They continued negotiating this year and had come to agreement on the terms in Senate Bill 735, which has been folded into the new film tax credit bill.

The author of that legislation, Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José), said that some version of the bill for greater safety and firearms protections on film sets has been in the works since the week after the “Rust” shooting in 2021.

He recalled contacting Cal/OSHA and the Department of Industrial Relations after the fatal shooting and asking what laws were on the books to prevent that from occurring in California.

“I thought there’d be all kinds of bill history,” he said. “But there was nothing.”

This year, Cortese said, after he facilitated negotiations with the Motion Picture Assn. and IATSE units to put together SB 735, a conversation began to happen among the governor’s office, the Motion Picture Assn. and labor groups about including the film safety bill in the budget bill.

“There’s a certain efficiency and expediency in getting it done now,” he said.

Cortese said that he visited Universal and Warner Bros. sets during the drafting of the bill to see how they worked and that the firearms component of the bill is meant to codify into law what those top studios are already doing.

“Just because they do it doesn’t mean it trickles down to the rest of the industry,” he said. “We wanted it to be law so it applied to everyone, top to bottom.”

The legislation incorporates much of Newsom’s proposal earlier this year to make $330 million in film tax credits available per year from 2025 to 2030. By making the credit refundable, Carrillo said more companies will be able to take advantage of it, which should bring more productions to the Golden State.

Currently, she said, only Disney and Universal Studios benefit from the tax credit because they have larger tax bills in California due to their theme parks. Making it refundable will allow Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony and Paramount to benefit from the program too, Carrillo said. Even if their California tax bills are smaller than the tax credit they qualify for, the new program will allow them to get a portion of the credit paid in cash.

“We are in a very competitive fight to ensure that these jobs stay in California, and they are jobs that primarily impact Los Angeles County and the city of L.A.,” Carrillo said.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Gavin Newsom, Hollywood

Chris Rock vs. Will Smith: Who Won the Oscars?

March 29, 2022 By Kyle Smith 6 Comments

Hey, I said they should hire Chris Rock to host again. Am I ever wrong? The guy was on stage for 30 seconds and he single-handedly turned a weird, dull Oscar ceremony into one for the ages. The GIF shall be immortal.

Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s buzz cut: “Jada, I love you, G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it!” Except Mrs. Smith has a medical condition that causes hair loss. Did Rock know this? I didn’t. Will Smith laughed at the joke initially, then looked over at his unhappy wife and reversed gears. Hard. Suddenly Mr. Nice Guy wasn’t so nice. One of the biggest movie stars alive marched right up on stage and slapped Chris Rock on the left jaw, though to his discredit Smith neglected to say, “Welcome to Earth.”

Wouldn’t you know it? They hire three women to host, and the boys steal the show by having a fight.

“Oho, wow! Will Smith just smacked the sh** out of me! That was the . . . greatest night in the history of television,” Rock said, not overstating facts. The guy must have worked a lot of rowdy rooms in Laff Lounges and Ha-Ha Halls on the way up, but I’m guessing he never got slapped in the face by a movie star before. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Rock! Not only should he host the Oscars every year, he should be the next secretary of state. Talk about grace under pressure. When was the last time you got slapped in the face by a large man? I annoy people for a living, and it hasn’t happened to me lately. If it had been you or me up there, we would at least have been caught off guard to get smacked while presenting an Oscar. Rock just moved on. He took it as though he’d rehearsed it for a month.

Oh yeah, and the Oscar was won by the biggest corporation on earth. Hurrah for the little guy! Apple TV+ sneakily won Best Picture as the suits from its archrival Netflix looked around for marketing people to treat the way Smith treated Rock. Netflix has been trying to win itself the top Oscar for about ten years, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this project, and it’s still got zilch. Instead, Apple TV+, which launched just two years ago, won with CODA, a feel-good dramedy about a lovable family of deaf people and their lovely daughter. It was the first movie debuting on a streaming service and the first movie premiering at the Sundance Film Festival ever to win Best Picture. It also won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, for the previously unknown Troy Kotsur, who, as a deaf man taking home an Oscar for acting, notched another first. Meanwhile, Netflix sweatily pursued the Oscars with its can’t-miss message-movie-of-the-week The Power of the Dog, “a dazzling evisceration of one of the country’s foundational myths,” according to the New York Times (i.e., it’s about a closeted homosexual cowboy). It proved one of the biggest disappointments in Academy history. Riding in with twelve nominations, it won only a single award — Best Director for Jane Campion, who could hardly lose after everyone pointed out that only two women had ever won in the category before.

Click here to read the full article at the National Review

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Chris Rock, Hollywood, Will Smith

A Big Week for the Stupid and the Ugly

March 8, 2017 By Bill Saracino 8 Comments

There’s an old saying that Hollywood is Washington, D.C., for stupid people and Washington, D.C., is Hollywood for ugly people. The truth of that adage was on full display last week, first with the Academy Awards and then with the Democrat reaction to President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress.

First up were the stupid, with Hollywood’s annual orgy of self-love and awards for movies nobody wants to see. Best picture winner “Moonlight” earned a place on the Oscar honor roll, but like so much of modern Hollywood is there because of its political message not its quality. “La La Land” was favored to win as it is the stereotype of films Hollywood likes – those that glorify Hollywood and make it look noble.

Sadly for “La La” boosters it was in competition with the one genre that trumps (pun intended) Hollywood egomania – political correctness – in a movie about a young black homosexual. Had the producers of “Moonlight” added being a one legged, illegal immigrant hunchback to the character the movie might have been a unanimous choice for best picture.

As it is, “Moonlight” will get a brief box-office bump and then disappear like so many of its predecessors. Doubt me? Quick – what is the name of last year’s best picture winner? No fair Googling. It was “Spotlight.” How bout 2014’s winner? It was “Birdman,” which at least had the virtue of a subtitle exquisitely appropriate for the Hollywood glitterati, “The unexpected virtue of ignorance.”

All this folds in nicely with Hollywood’s contempt for average Americans as evidenced by their deranged hatred of President Trump. While there were no Meryl Streep-ish long-winded “Trump is either Hitler’s grandson or Satan’s spawn” diatribes, you weren’t really an A-lister if you didn’t include some anti-Trump snark in your remarks. The basket of deplorables has taken notice however, and it is extracting its revenge where it will hurt most, at the box office. Ticket sales slumped last year for the third year in a row and the seventh out of the last 10. This year’s Oscar ceremony was the third least-watched in the last 20 years.

Anyone familiar with Ronald Reagan’s movie career knows that the anti-American left has deep roots in the entertainment industry. Reagan himself credited his strong anti-Communism with his experience of watching the Reds operate in Hollywood. A vignette on this even closer to home involves my father, who in the mid-1930s was endeavoring to become a music editor at MGM. A prerequisite for that position was membership in the craft union, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. He was told by his immediate superior that he would have his IATSE card the day after he showed his membership card in the Communist Part USA. My father went around his boss, who soon after found himself exiled from the MGM lot, very likely thanks to the personal intervention of L.B. Mayer or Irving Thalberg, both strong conservatives. My father became a successful music editor and for 15 years or so an Academy member. He had no interest in attending the actual ceremony, commenting that “the only thing emptier than the words on the stage are the heads in the audience.” True that. Hollywood the stupid has hated America for a long time.

Two days after the stupid had their moment in the sun, the ugly took center stage for President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress. In what must fairly be ranked as one of the 10 best speeches ever given from that podium, President Trump hit a grand slam home run. Every network’s polling after the speech showed majorities between 65 percent and 75 percent approving of the speech.

What equally large majorities most definitely did not approve of was the open disrespect shown Carryn Owens, the widow of Navy Seal Ryan Owens or the white-out stunt of female Democrats. It was ugly. Prominent Democrats including Elizabeth Warren, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Keith Ellison apparently think that refusing to stand and applaud the recently widowed wife of a Navy Seal is the path back to relevance for Middle America. If ignorance is bliss these folks must be ecstatic.

Providing unintended humor was the all-white attire of several dozen women Democrats. When I first noticed the bloc on television I assumed a convention of ice cream salespeople had been let into the House Chamber. After a close-up of Nancy Pelosi it became clear that it was the winners division of the Nurse Ratched look-a-like contest.

Disrespecting the widow of a military hero, having the girls play “dress-up,” refusing the shake the president’s hand, etc. showed the Democrats in D.C. can one-up their soulmates in Hollywood. They can be both ugly and stupid.

These antics can be infuriating but should not be discouraging or frustrating. Every day the ugly and stupid don’t wise up is another day of alienating average Americans and another day toward success for President Trump and the Republicans. So keep this under your hats.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Bill Saracino, D.C., Donald Trump, Hollywood, Washington

What would California be like as an independent nation?

November 29, 2016 By Jon Coupal 16 Comments

California breaking off into the ocean as a result of the “Big One” is science fiction fantasy to Hollywood, credible urban legend to citizens of Los Angeles and San Francisco and, perhaps, the secret hope of many Americans residing on the other side of the Sierras. However, backers of a just filed initiative, “Calexit: The California Independence Plebiscite of 2019,” want a different sort of California breakaway. They envision the state as a “free, sovereign and independent country.” Although the effort began several years ago, secessionists have been bolstered by those suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome – a condition where “alt-left” adherents lose their minds over the thought of a Trump presidency.

A spokesman for the movement cites California’s different culture, different set of priorities and different plans for the future as a justification for breaking away from the rest of the country.

While efforts to establish California as a separate country may be a farfetched idea – the issue of state secession was settled in the small town of Appomattox, Virginia when General Lee surrendered to General Grant, 1865 – it is an interesting mental exercise. What would California be like as an independent nation? Who would govern and what would be the impact on taxpayers? And if California could establish independence, would the break-up end there? Drive anywhere in the Sierra foothills or north of Sacramento and “State of Jefferson” signs are ubiquitous.

If California were an independent country, the precedent would be set for further fracturing, with other regions, where dissatisfaction with the established order is intense, seeking to break away.

Today, California’s political direction is dictated by the upper income elites living in coastal enclaves and Hollywood. Here, the Starbucks generation is consumed with issues like climate change and bathroom access and they are not shy about telling others how to live. This explains why Sacramento seems to be constantly making war on those not part of the coastal, protected class. But travel just 25 miles from the coast and you’ll find a different world. Here, people are concerned about finding a job or keeping the job they have.

After speaking to a group of politically active Californians a few years ago, pollster Scott Rasmussen responded to a question about the size of government saying, the average person does not walk down the street thinking about limited government, they are thinking about how they are going to support their families.

Outside of Malibu, Santa Barbara and the Bay Area, most people are still searching for the answer to the question of how to feed, shelter and clothe their families. If given the option of breaking away from the Prius driving, chardonnay sipping, kale chip nibbling elite, they would likely vote yes.

California will not become an independent nation, but the divide between the coastal and inland areas is real and we are about to experience another clash of these cultures played out on the Sacramento stage.

A special session on transportation, called by Gov. Brown last year, has just concluded without lawmakers imposing new taxes. But when the new Legislature convenes, one with even more pro-tax members elected in November, the top priority will be a significant increase in the gas tax and other auto-related charges. Once again, inland residents who need their cars for work will find themselves pitted against the “Let them drive Teslas” coastal elite.

If the price of fuel heads even higher than it is now, we are bound to see a multitude of working class Californians filling their tanks one last time as they leave the state for a foreign land called America.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association — California’s largest grass-roots taxpayer organization dedicated to the protection of Proposition 13 and the advancement of taxpayers’ rights.

This piece was originally published by HJTA.org

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Calexit, HJTA, Hollywood, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Jon Coupal, san francisco, State of Jefferson

Why #CalExit Will Never Happen

November 14, 2016 By Tim Donnelly 6 Comments

California will never leave the United States.

Neither will most of these Hollywood actors who swore to flee America if Trump became the president.

They don’t need to. They’ve created their own country already, which is heavily dependent on foreign aid (i.e. your tax dollars) from Washington, D.C.

But that didn’t stop California leftist elites from expressing how horrified they are at the election of Donald J. Trump as America’s 45th President.

So much so that the Marxist Progressives who control California’s Legislature issued a joint statement on how much they fear our newly-elected president, Donald J. Trump (emphasis added):

California will defend its people and our progress. We are not going to allow one election to reverse generations of progress at the height of our historic diversity, scientific advancement, economic output, and sense of global responsibility.

We will be reaching out to federal, state and local officials to evaluate how a Trump Presidency will potentially impact federal funding of ongoing state programs, job-creating investments reliant on foreign trade, and federal enforcement of laws affecting the rights of people living in our state. We will maximize the time during the presidential transition to defend our accomplishments using every tool at our disposal.

While Donald Trump may have won the presidency, he hasn’t changed our values. America is greater than any one man or party. We will not be dragged back into the past. We will lead the resistance to any effort that would shred our social fabric or our Constitution.

California was not a part of this nation when its history began, but we are clearly now the keeper of its future.

They might do well to heed a warning from FDR: “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.“

Or, more accurately — when you read the implied threats — they have become the very thing they claim to fear.

It’s not Trump supporters that are issuing death threats via Twitter. (Last time I checked, that was illegal, but don’t expect Obama’s Secret Service or FBI to do anything about it.)

It’s not Trump supporters that have worked themselves up into a frenzy in the streets over the peaceful transition of power from one president to another.

It’s not Trump supporters advocating violence all over social media and in the streets.

We’re all at work — working to pay taxes so these loafers can spend the day advocating our murder.

Someone needs to tell them.

No one died.

No one was deported overnight.

No one lost the right to pay for their own birth control.

If you read the fear-laden headlines about women stocking up on IUDs and you don’t read the entire article, you might think Trump was going to ban all birth control, and shut down all the Rite-Aids and Walgreens nationwide.

When the reality is that it’s not Trump’s election that upsets them.

It’s that the election was clearly a referendum on the socialist direction of the past eight years under Obama — and as the beneficiaries of all the “free stuff,” they’re just mad that the party is over.

So like spoiled children, they’re throwing a tantrum.

I guess it’s a good thing that all the angry protestors live in “gun-free” blue sectors of the country, where they can’t easily get “access” to guns because they seem to lack any self-control.

Maybe that’s why they hate guns so much — because they don’t trust themselves.

Maybe it’s a good thing they’re terrified of guns.

Because when they compare those of us who believe a country should have borders to restrict access, and a Constitution to restrict government, to Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, calling us fascists and Nazis, what they’re really doing is dehumanizing their “enemy.”

It’s a classic Alinsky tactic. You don’t debate your “opponent”; you destroy your enemy. The enemy isn’t wrong, they’re evil.

They’re so brainwashed, they don’t realize that they and their leftist idols are the incarnation of all the very things they claim to fear.

Why #CalExit will Never Happen?

The weather’s great, the water’s warm, and these protestors love their Marxist Progressive Utopia

With Donald J. Trump in the White House, maybe it’s possible to take back California for Americans. Now, there’s something worth discussing.

Tim Donnelly a former California Assemblyman.

This piece was originally published by Breitbart.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Calexit, Donald Trump, Hollywood

New Bill Takes Aim at Hollywood Ageism

August 28, 2016 By Daniel Nussbaum 2 Comments

A bill approved by the California legislature this week would allow actors to request that their ages be scrubbed from casting websites, in what supporters hope will be an important step in combating ageism in Hollywood.

AB 1687, authored by Assemblyman Ian Calderon (D-Los Angeles), was approved earlier this week by the state Assembly.

The bill’s supporters — including SAG-AFTRA president and former Beverly Hills 90210 actress Gabrielle Carteris — argue that the law is necessary to keep Hollywood casting agents from discriminating based on age.

“My role on Beverly Hills, 90210 could not have happened for me today, plain and simple. I would never have been called to audition for the part of 16-year-old Andrea Zuckerman if they had known I was 29,” Carteris wrote in an essay for the Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday. “Electronic casting sites did not exist in 1990; today, they are prevalent and influential. And they affect casting decisions even when casting personnel don’t recognize their unconscious bias.

Carteris charged that Hollywood actors face “blatant age discrimination every day” as industry websites like the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and StudioSystem “force” casting agents to consider their ages when making decisions, whether they realize it or not.

The issue of ageism has long been a topic of discussion in Hollywood, with several big-name stars including Anne Hathaway, Rachel Weisz and Liv Tyler all speaking out on the issue in recent years.

Just this week, actress Renée Zellweger expressed disappointment about Hollywood’s attitudes toward older women in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

“I’ve never seen the maturation of a woman as a negative thing,” the Bridget Jones’s Babystar told the outlet. “I’ve never seen a woman stepping into her more powerful self as a negative.”

Despite the bill’s approval in the Legislature, some California Republicans say it will do little to curb actual age discrimination in the industry.

“I don’t know what’s so sacred about celebrity birth dates,” Republican state Senator Jim Nielsen told the Los Angeles Times. “[Lawmakers] birth dates are everywhere. These celebrities are public figures just like most of us.”

The bill next heads to the Office of Engrossing and Enrolling for proofreading and then to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk.

This piece was originally published by Breitbart California

Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Ageism, Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Ian Calderon, SAG-AFTRA

LA Renters: How Do They Do It?

December 19, 2015 By Beth Cone Kramer 2 Comments

Photo courtesy of channone, flickr

A scroll through rental sites like Trulia or Apartments.com brings up a one-bedroom/one bath in Westwood at $3,100 per month and a studio in Miracle Mile at $2,295. Conventional financial advice is to spend no more than 30 percent of gross monthly income on rent, which translated into real terms, would mean an income of $97,160 to comfortably afford average rent in Los Angeles, according to a December 2014 analysis by Zillow.

The rental situation results from a perfect storm of single-digit vacancies, median home prices at $554,100 per Zillow, and wages that have not caught up with the rental market. Rental pricing is a function of supply demand. If few units are available, rents will rise to what the market will bear, barring rent control or other regulations.

Just how significant is the problem? A nationwide study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University concluded that close to 60 percent of renters in the LA/OC metro area are “burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, leaving less in the pot for other expenses like food and healthcare, not to mention savings and disposable income, hurting the economy and dashing hopes to eventually become a home owner.

About a third of renters (32.8 percent) are “severely burdened,” meaning they spend more than half of their income for rent and utilities, a percentage that has increased by less than half a percent this year but still reflects a growing problem.

Although rent in San Francisco/Silicon Valley and New York outpace Los Angeles, the wage gap in Los Angeles is what makes rent affordability a troubling issue in the City of Angels. Nearly 91 percent of those earning $15,000 to $30,000 need to pay 70 percent of their monthly paychecks towards housing. Among moderate earners ($30,000 to $45,000), 78 percent pay rents that exceed the 30 percent threshold. Slightly over one in four who earn over $45,000 are rent-burdened.

A study by the NYU Furman Center and Capital One concluded that L.A. has the biggest gap between rising rents and falling wages of any U.S. city. The average paycheck in the L.A. Metro area has decreased by 4 percent between 2006 and 2013, while rents increased by 11 percent.

As the price of single-family home ownership continues to increase, rising 5.2 percent during 2015, median incomes in L.A. increased by only 2.9 percent, just above the national average. Housing forecasts indicate that many Angelenos are destined to be lifelong renters, which, you’ve got it, increases demand and decreases supply. With a nod to your high school economics teachers, that means rent is bound to continue escalating.

The increasing rental market is bringing construction but vacancy rates have dropped to just 2.7 percent in hot neighborhoods like downtown. Over half of the new 5,200 rentals listed online are located downtown. Keeping in line with Mayor Garcetti’s ambitious proposal to increase units by 17,000 by 2017, more than 15,000 units are under construction all over LA.

Despite the increase in units, a third quarter rental market report by Marcus & Millichap concludes that rents are continuing to spiral upward. Rents throughout the city were up by 7.8 percent and are expected to continue the climb by more than double the rate of inflation.

Even in the (818), where renters traded in shorter commutes for affordable housing, rents are up by 7.4 percent, the highest rent increase in the Northeast Valley, where rents are up 15.1 percent. The increase in rents in the Valley may be in part due to the cooldown in construction, though 3,100 units are expected to be added to the market next year.

Central L.A. rents have outpaced the rest of the city in rents, increasing an average of 6.2 percent, with the biggest increases in Hollywood where average rents rose by 7.2 percent to $2,209 per month. Mid-Wilshire rents increased by 6.4 percent.

Downtown, rents increased by 5.3 percent, likely because of an upswing in development. Of the 2,800 units built in Central L.A., 1,900 were located downtown. The vacancy rate downtown hovers around 3.7 percent, lower than in other areas and about ten percent of apartment units offer concessions to attract renters to sign a lease.

Rents on the Westside are up 6.8 percent with Palms/Mar Vista seeing an upsurge of 10.5 percent. Average rents in Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey are now over $3,000 per month, higher than Brentwood/Westwood/Beverly Hills, where the average rent is now $2,891 per month, up by 9.3 percent since last year. About half of the new units built on the Westside are in and around Santa Monica. In 2016, over 1,000 new rental units are expected to be built, more than 700 in Santa Monica and Marina Del Rey.

Is Los Angeles destined to remain unaffordable to low- to moderate-income residents? The mayor’s ambitious proposal includes step increases of units to 150,000 units by 2025. He also hopes to increase affordable housing units close to mass transit.

Any solution to the affordable housing problem must address wages and enticements to developers and investors to develop units that are within the budget for more Angelenos, as well as zoning restrictions to curb the building of expensive housing.

This piece was originally published by CityWatchLA.com

Beth Cone Kramer is a Los Angeles-based writer and CityWatch contributor. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Eric Garcetti, Hollywood, Housing, Los Angeles

Los Angeles NIMBYs Fight to Halt Development in City

November 20, 2015 By Jeff Wattenhofer 2 Comments

Los Angeles is in the midst of a housing crisis, plain and simple. The stock of available dwellings can’t sustain a growing population, people are paying a wildly disproportionate amount of their salaries on rent, and building new affordable housing is seen by some developers as a nuisance to be avoided at all costs.

The city’s approach to the problem has often been to give developers carte blanche, lifting restrictions and amending city codes to facilitate construction of LA’s new iconic structure: the mid-rise mixed-user.

Opposing this development bonanza are longtime residents, the NIMBYs, who decry the new focus on density as a shift in the fundamental values of a city seeking to find its identity and place in the Twenty-First Century.

The battle now looks to be headed to a showdown at the voter’s booth as one anti-development group has turned to a classic California method of change, the ballot measure.

According to the LA Times, the Coalition to Preserve LA has announced plans to push forward the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative ballot measure in an effort to thwart the spread of new developments in Los Angeles.

The CPLA cites Hollywood as a “microcosm” of unrestrained development in Los Angeles. They believe “unlawful favoritism” is being shown to many Hollywood developments seeking amendments to the city’s General Plan in order to skirt zoning restrictions on height, parking, and density.

The upcoming Palladium project in particular is called out as one of the 69 major projects brewing in the Hollywood area whose “piecemeal” amendments to the city code begin to add up and create the “Manhattanization of Hollywood.”

(One backer decries the loss of the parking lot where the project would rise: “Palladium developers are asking the City to amend the General Plan in order to rezone its back asphalt parking lot from industrial land use to commercial use. The City’s General Plan is supposed to preserve the distinct character of neighborhoods and to prevent infrastructure overload.”)

The CPLA wants Los Angeles to stick more strictly to the established city planning guidelines, which in many cases are decades out of date. When the city tried to pass new, more modern planning guidelines in Hollywood, anti-development groups successfully sued to stop the plan.

According to the CPLA press release, the ballot measure would change development rules in four key areas:

(1) Direct officials to halt amendment of the City’s General Plan in small bits and pieces for individual real estate developer projects, and

(2) Require the City Planning Commission to systematically review and update the City’s community plans and make all zoning code provisions and projects consistent with the City’s General Plan, and

(3) Place City employees directly in charge of preparation of environmental review of major development projects, and

(4) For a limited time, impose a construction moratorium for projects approved by the City that increased some types of density until officials can complete review and update of community plans or 24 months, whichever occurs first.

Los Angeles Times Architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne took to Twitter to eloquently contextualize this unique period of Los Angeles history and challenge both sides of the development argument to bring more to the table.

(Jeff Wattenhofer writes for Curbed LA … where this perspective was first posted.)

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: CPLA, Development, Hollywood, Housing, Los Angeles, NIMBY