After more than a year of heated rhetoric about the role of developers in City Hall, supporters of Measure S were handed a major defeat on Tuesday, with more than two-thirds of Los Angeles voters opposing the measure.
"There are people in the city who oppose new housing, oppose the direction that things are headed in terms of transit-oriented development and higher density in urban centers. But those people are not representative of the city as a whole," said Shane Phillips of the advocacy group Abundant Housing LA.
Even in loss there is victory, according to Jill Stewart, Campaign Director of Yes on S. "All of these things are now openly being discussed as extremely bad for Los Angeles, and the City Council is tripping over itself to see who proposes which reform first."
Photo: A billboard for the "Yes on S" campaign, placed next to a billboard for the film Get Out. (Bennett Stein)