Live Local and ED-1: How Does Policy Drive Development?
A close-up look at Florida and L.A. initiatives that take distinct approaches to expanding affordable and workforce housing.
In the quest to solve the housing crisis, municipalities and states across the country are charting different paths to increasing access to affordable and workforce-oriented housing. From tax breaks to regulatory shortcuts, there are many different approaches to breaking down barriers to construction.
On opposite sides of the U.S., two policies in particular have received attention for their alternative methods and impacts: Florida’s Live Local Act and Los Angeles’s Executive Directive 1.
While the two regulations target different demographics—Live Local is for workforce housing, whereas ED-1 promotes affordable developments—both have generated rising interest among developers and may serve as blueprints for policies that can spur housing development.
Live Local: A workforce powerhouse
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Live Local Act into law in March 2023, with its provisions taking effect that July. Since then, the law has also undergone two revisions following feedback from developers and municipalities.
Live Local preempts local governments from regulating use, density, height or floor area ratio if at least 40 percent of units are accessible to households making up to 120 percent of the area median income, and at least 65 percent of the building area is residential in mixed-use projects.
Additionally, projects that reserve 71 units for households making 120 percent of the area median income qualify for a 75 percent tax exemption. For any units that are reserved for 80 percent AMI households, the tax exemption rises to 100 percent, proportionate to the number of units that qualify.
“It’s allowed us to streamline approvals,” said Anthony De Yurre, a partner at the law firm Bilzin Sumberg who assisted with drafting the act. “It’s allowed us to have additional land at our disposal for development, because on the zoning side, you’re allowed to do these projects in commercial, industrial and mixed-use zones.”
As of October 2025, Live Local has enabled the completion of 3,200 below-market-rate units in 23 projects, according to Florida TaxWatch. An additional 43,000 units across 143 in-progress developments are in the planning and permitting stages, the Florida Housing Coalition reports.
The law’s rollout hasn’t been without hiccups, however. Some municipalities have resisted or attempted to derail projects that they say would be incompatible with a neighborhood.
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For instance, a November 2025 Miami Herald opinion piece by Matthew Whitman Lazenby, president & CEO of Whitman Family Development, describes how the village of Bal Harbour rejected his firm’s plans for a new workforce housing community adjacent to a shopping center. That dispute, Lazenby said, has led to costly litigation.
Henry Torres, CEO of Coral Gables-based Astor Companies, told MHN that while Live Local can make some projects pencil that might not otherwise be able to, his firm hasn’t seen many benefits from the act. One project that did benefit from the program: Flagler Enclave, a project in Miami’s West Little Havana neighborhood. The law enabled him to add an additional story with 26 units because of the site’s location near a transit hub.
“You just have to find the right scenario,” Torres said, adding that it is easier to take advantage of the law’s benefits in less populated areas. He also observed that Live Local has caused property values to increase, because “property owners have gotten smart.”
As for critics who decry Live Local’s lack of incentives for projects catering to households with less than 80 percent AMI, De Yurre argues that’s the point of the legislation. Live Local, he said, is intended to serve the missing middle—workers such as police officers, firefighters, teachers and nurses who typically earn too much to qualify for affordable housing and not enough to afford upscale apartments.
‘Time is money’: Making affordable more attractive
On the other side of the country, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued Executive Directive 1 in March 2022, ordering city departments to fast-track permits and clearances for fully affordable housing projects. The directive makes it so qualifying projects, generally considered 100 percent affordable for households earning up to 80 percent AMI, can complete pre-construction review within 60 days and receive permits within 5 days of final approvals.
If a project qualifies, it is treated as by-right under ED-1, meaning that it doesn’t need to undergo discretionary reviews, hearings, or California Environmental Quality Act assessments at the city level.
That represents a dramatic reduction in waiting time, notes Vince Norris, regional managing director of Northmarq’s West Coast Investment Sales team. Before ED-1, approval would usually take at least a year, and sometimes as long as 18 months. As Norris summed up ED-1’s appeal: “Time is money.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, the city of Los Angeles has received applications for 42,300 affordable units under ED-1, and 31,700 of those were approved by November 2025.
However, while ED-1 makes it easier to get a project approved, it doesn’t solve the main barrier to building affordable housing: financing. As a result, the increase in approvals hasn’t yet translated into meaningful project completions.
“ED-1 does not guarantee a welfare property tax abatement,” Norris noted. “That’s a separate component of the process.”
To make affordable projects in L.A. pencil, Norris recommends that developers look to AB 1763, the state law which he says provides a “supercharged density bonus.” The program allows developers to increase the unit count of a project and take advantage of economies of scale.
Other challenges include high labor and materials costs, which Norris said he hopes will improve throughout 2026. Despite the lack of clarity on the policy’s concrete effects, he believes ED-1 represents a notable advancement in the affordable housing discussion.
“ED-1 is, from my perspective, a phenomenal achievement by the city of Los Angeles,” Norris said. “They have taken a seat at the table, and they have done their part, which, candidly, you don’t see very often.”
What’s next for these policies?
While both Live Local and ED-1 have been generally well received, there are still opportunities for improvement and follow-up steps.
For Live Local, De Yurre said he would like to modify the tax rules to have the exemption vest at final plan site approval, as opposed to the current system of vesting at completion and lease-up of 71 units. He also said there could be more “tweaks” to the zoning rules to better clarify property classifications.
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On the L.A. side, Norris reasons that ED-1 has largely achieved its goals of streamlining approvals. The rest of the work—setting up financing and reducing construction costs—will be up to other stakeholders, such as nonprofits, government agencies and developers.
Charting a path forward
Local jurisdictions, state legislatures and the federal government are vigorously debating the best ways to make housing more affordable and create more supply. De Yurre argued that policies such as Live Local and ED-1—those that seek to incentivize development—are more likely to solve the housing crisis, noting that Florida has made rent control illegal.
“We’ve seen what’s occurred in other states,” De Yurre noted. “You end up with units that you can’t rehab. There’s no money to put into them because you can’t raise the rents.”
He said that developers are more likely to respond to rewards like tax incentives and streamlined approvals, rather than perceived punishments like rent control: “It’s more of a carrot versus stick approach.”
