Increase housing density and limit urban sprawl

Many of our most celebrated neighborhoods have buildings and a mix of land uses that would be impossible to recreate under today's zoning codes. Modern zoning rules largely promote single-family homes strictly separated from commercial districts and a transportation system centered around cars. Rethinking this type of zoning and targeting strategic growth in our developed areas will efficiently use our existing infrastructure. We will have new homes in urban areas that are well-connected to transit, jobs, and services. This type of growth reduces environmental impacts while creating a more sustainable economy.

The County of Los Angeles will invest in existing communities by promoting increased urban density to efficiently use existing infrastructure, by remediating and reusing urban properties so that they can support new development, and by working to protect agricultural and working lands from the threats of sprawl.

Urban and exurban sprawl development, in which new large communities are built on the urban periphery or in even more distant outlying areas, can create significant air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as well as destroy our remaining natural and working lands and threaten our traditionally rural towns. These types of large, new low-density areas generate more vehicle miles traveled as residents drive to distant jobs, commercial areas, educational opportunities, or other important destinations. This sprawl requires extending roadways and utility infrastructure to serve these more remote and sparse populations.