Say you’re a local restaurant, a “community institution” even, and you realize that you’re on the verge of shuttering (all before COVID came along). You know that you’re not long from having to lay off all your staff and closing permanently. (/thread)
Say your business sits on an acre+ of land, in the heart of one of LA’s most walkable, bikeable, and transit-accessible communities (and maybe you care about the climate). Say over 2/3 of your property is just asphalt, for car storage, used at lunch and dinner hours only. (/2)
Say you’re sitting on this property in a community whose median home prices have nearly TRIPLED in the past decade. Say you’re concerned about people’s ability to remain in your community, and some of them may even work for you. (/3)
Say you’re also concerned about displacement, because new housing is sometimes getting built at the expense of existing homes, and you wish that new homes could get built in your neighborhood without kicking others out of theirs. (/4)
Now say you found a way to (a) provide new housing without displacing a single person, (b) save your business and the many jobs it provides, and (c) create affordable housing for dozens of people where right now is just asphalt. And you think who could oppose that, right? (/5)
Imagine charting a path forward that accomplishes all those things… and then you are met with community opposition. Why? Because people don’t want you to tear down the building you’re in now... the same building that would put you out of business. (/6)
Reactions range from “this will ruin parking” to “ugly as a turd” to this will “sterilize” the neighborhood. Imagine hearing that the affordable housing, to be built without a dime of public money, is a “developer giveaway” because the project has market-rate housing too. (/7)
Imagine hearing the complaints about market-rate housing even as housing prices have nearly tripled in your community, making it increasingly difficult to retain staff. Imagine this opposition could portend 12-24 months of added delays through local processes. (/8)
Y’all, what gives with the opposition to the Taix project? Here we have an example of how to create 170 new homes -with a couple dozen set aside for low-income households- in a walkable community, all while saving a revered community institution and the jobs it provides. (/9)
If this project gets held up 12-24 months because of aesthetics, the added costs could shutter Taix’s doors anyway, and the cost of existing housing in Echo Park will have likely notched up another 5-10% in the meantime (COVID notwithstanding, which is harming many people). (/10)
If there are opportunities to work with the project developer to preserve and/or emulate the current faux Swiss chalet style, then great.

And also we're in a housing (and public health/economic) crisis in which new housing is vitally important. (/11)
If we’re to address the housing crisis, we have to be able to put others’ ability to have a home before our own perceived (in)conveniences.

The Taix project offers one way to save a local business and provide needed housing while not displacing a single person. (/end)
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