Nithya Raman

I think that's a key change that we need to make.

We need to get the city out of the way.

We have enormous red tape standing between an application for a new housing unit coming in and when it is actually approved.

And our timelines for approving housing are double, even triple what other jurisdictions are, which leads to significantly less housing being produced.

And by the way,

More expensive housing being produced because the longer you have to sit and wait for your permits to come, the more expensive that housing becomes ultimately.

Yeah, I also wanted to say that we really have a culture in City Hall where delay and denial exist.

are kind of rewarded.

And saying yes is not.

And I think we have to completely flip that around.

We have to build a city where saying yes is the goal of our housing processes, not the opposite.

And that is a culture shift that has to happen at every level of the bureaucracy.

It has to be enabled and undergirded by technology that allows cooperation between departments.

And it has to be rewarded at the highest levels of government.

And that's really what I think needs to happen.

Well, I think it is leadership.

I think it is a... I think the mayor here in the city of Los Angeles has, while it is a weaker mayor system than in other places...

The mayor has the capacity to hire and fire every department head.

And that means that the mayor has the capacity to determine the priorities of every department.

They're getting motions and legislative efforts from the council members to push them in a thousand different directions.