It’s the home of Taylor Swift, Adele, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeff Bezos and any number of other celebrity grandees whose elaborate mansions, replete with helipads and cascading swimming pools, perch on some of the highest-value real estate in the world.
But just having the cash to splash in Beverly Hills may no longer be enough to get yourself the latest spa basement or indoor basketball court, after a judge banned all new luxury permits for home renovations until the city first builds more affordable housing.
Officials are now appealing the late-December ruling by the Los Angeles superior court judge Curtis A Kin, reported by the Los Angeles Times, in which the judge alleged the city had failed to sign off on a plan for affordable housing that addressed its real need. He said all new permit approvals should be stopped, except for the construction of new residential units.
Over the last eight years, Beverly Hills has managed to add only about 20 affordable housing units. Defenders of the city’s actions essentially argue that Beverly Hills is full and new units would hurt its distinctive character.
“We have intentionally created a desirable environment by deliberately avoiding overdevelopment and over-densification,” said Thomas White, chair of the Municipal League of Beverly Hills, told the Los Angeles Times.
However, the city has a wide variety of housing styles, including condos and apartments, as well as bustling commercial districts and a high proportion of renters.
Yet the Times reported that even while the population of the US and of California itself has shot up, in Beverly Hills numbers have remained stagnant, in fact shrinking slightly from 33,400 residents in 1970 to 32,400 today.
The state of California has made efforts to encourage new housing in some of its wealthier communities, arguing that zoning for low-density housing is discriminatory. It is one of the richest municipalities in the US and is less than 2% Black.
A lawsuit filed in 2021 alleged that 105 of the 106 people arrested by a Beverly Hills police “safe streets” taskforce were Black, and stopped for innocuous activities such as roller-skating, scootering, driving and jaywalking.
Before the judge’s latest decision, the state had rejected four previous blueprints from Beverly Hills to meet its goal of just more than 3,000 mostly affordable new homes.
