The LA City Council has approved plans to allow taller residential and commercial buildings near the  five Expo Line stations on the Westside.

It sets a possible precedent for future decisions along the region’s growing Metro rail lines. Zev Yaroslavsky, the former LA County Supervisor and current director of the LA Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, says what’s badly needed is affordable housing.

“If you’re making $60K to $70K thousand a year, the kinds of rents you can afford to pay are not found in West Los Angeles. You got to make it economical for the private sector. You don’t want the government building housing. You want to incentivize the private sector. In order to do that you have to make it economically profitable. They’re not going to build at a loss. Nobody will do that. So, it’s not just about what happens at City Hall, it’s what happens at the Capitol, the State Capitol. It’s what happens in Washington.”

Yaroslavsky was a guest on McIntyre in the Morning.

Sharon Reardon, KABC News