LA's Next Mayor Could Kill — Or Save — Measure ULA. Here's Where The Candidates Stand
The primary election for Los Angeles mayor is June 2, and although the margin of undecided voters has narrowed, polls show it remains a close race. A May 9 and 10 poll by Emerson College found that while incumbent Karen Bass was favored by 35% of likely voters, challengers Nithya Raman and Spencer Pratt were both favored by 23%. Entrepreneur Adam Miller captured 12% of likely voters.
In Los Angeles, the mayor’s power lies mainly in the ability to appoint department heads and city officials and galvanize support for issues, as the 15-member city council is what guides and votes on policies.
But CRE professionals are eager to see a mayor who will take full advantage of the power to guide popular opinion and support the development of more housing and coalesce city departments around plans that will demonstrate that Los Angeles can get the basics done right and be friendly to businesses.
With a close race ahead, here is where the four front-runners stand on a handful of key issues for commercial real estate, including plans to address the city’s stubborn housing affordability challenges, views on the real estate transfer tax Measure ULA, and plans for recovering from the January 2025 Palisades Fire.
The top four candidates, according to polling results from March to May:
Karen Bass — The incumbent first took office as Los Angeles mayor in December 2022.
Adam Miller — An education tech entrepreneur who sold his first company, Cornerstone OnDemand, in 2021 for just over $5B and is now focused on philanthropy.
Spencer Pratt — A former reality TV star and advocate for victims of the Palisades Fire who lost his home in the 2025 blaze.
Nithya Raman — A council member representing Council District 4, which stretches from the San Fernando Valley, including Sherman Oaks, Encino and parts of Studio City, Van Nuys and Reseda, through the Hollywood Hills and east to Los Feliz and parts of Silver Lake.
Housing Production And Affordability
Less than a month into her first term in office, Bass signed Executive Directive 1, a measure to streamline the approvals process for 100% affordable housing projects. It did speed up approvals: About 34,000 affordable units have been entitled in the 3.5 years since ED 1 went into effect, about a 42% increase over the roughly 24,000 units in the seven years prior. However, only about 6,000 ED 1 units have pulled building permits. The city council made a version of ED 1 permanent in December, but it has been stripped of several of the elements that arguably made ED 1 attractive to developers.
Miller focuses on reducing permitting times through mandated parallel project review, in which city departments would look over projects concurrently, as well as creating new teams in the city’s Departments of Water and Power and Building and Safety to “fast-track” review of new housing. Miller would also delay impact fees so they are due when the project receives a certificate of occupancy, not when permits are issued, and waive fees entirely for 100% affordable projects, according to his campaign website.
Pratt would focus on growing housing stock near transit hubs and commercial corridors, boosting accessory dwelling units, duplexes and “mixed-income housing while preserving neighborhood character and green space,” according to his website. He also spotlights enhancing coordination between city departments to speed up the approvals process.
Raman has led the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee since 2023. In a debate this month, Raman said she would require the city to approve a multifamily project within 60 days of receiving an application, provided it complies with zoning rules, and noncompliant projects would need to be approved within four months.
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Homelessness
Bass declared a local state of emergency around homelessness shortly after taking office and established Inside Safe, a program to place people in motels and hotels temporarily before moving them into more permanent housing. Bass said the program is responsible for a 17.5% drop in people living in cars or tents on the street, but an estimated 40% have ended up back on the street, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Miller aims to clear 80% of homeless encampments near schools, parks and other public spaces. He would consolidate all local outreach programs — city, county, council district — under one program, according to his website. He plans to build 100 new “tiny home” communities for a price tag of $100M while also increasing the number of citywide shelter beds, the LA Times reported.
Pratt’s plan includes a “treatment-first” approach to housing, based on the assumption that mental illness and addiction are the main drivers of chronic homelessness, where “long-term housing will be reserved for those demonstrating stability and sobriety.” Pratt supports enforcing the city ordinance that prohibits encampments within 500 feet of schools, daycares and a handful of other designated types of public places and would use it to clear encampments across the city.
As an elected official, Raman has a record on homelessness: a 54% reduction in the number of tents and encampments in her district over three years. But she acknowledges that there is still an enormous amount of work to do. Raman shared a plan to halve the number of homeless encampments across the city by the 2028 Olympic Games, the Los Angeles Times reported. She advocates for the use of apartment vouchers, which are less expensive than the Inside Safe program has been, as part of the solution.
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Measure ULA
Bass has proposed pausing Measure ULA to help residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the Palisades Fire and has also tried to go straight to Sacramento to get exemptions for newer properties. She also acknowledges it is an important source of revenue while federal funding for the city is likely in jeopardy. In January, she said she was committed to “looking at all opportunities to ensure Measure ULA remains a critical funding source to help us address Los Angeles’ housing and homelessness crisis.”
Miller wants to suspend Measure ULA for all new construction for a minimum of 10 years, calling the transfer tax “the single biggest reason large residential developers are sitting on approved projects rather than building them.”
Pratt said in April that he would push to repeal Measure ULA, which “has effectively frozen the market, as nobody wants to trigger a taxable event.” He has also said he would create ULA exemptions for anyone rebuilding from the fire, the Real Deal reported.
Raman has been both a champion of Measure ULA and a champion of tweaking it. She phone-banked to get it passed in 2022, but in January 2026, she proposed a 15-year exemption on new commercial construction that could reduce the transfer tax’s revenue by an estimated $64M a year. Raman has called the revenue “an integral resource to Los Angeles” but has also said it is causing traditional lenders to rule out lending in Los Angeles.
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Fire Recovery And Preparedness
Bass has introduced preapproved plans for those rebuilding from the fires and introduced executive directives to speed up the rebuilding of homes and businesses in areas burned by the Palisades Fire. However, she has received significant criticism for her handling of the fire on several fronts, from her absence on the day the fire broke out to a disjointed recovery response.
Miller’s platform looks toward preparedness and resiliency efforts that include having a forestry team to lead brush clearing and cleanups and contracting with third parties, when necessary, to supplement responses in emergencies. However, he said in a letter in the Palisadian Post that it is taking too long to rebuild in the Palisades. Miller pointed to a streamlining plan that would speed up permitting and approvals and add a tracker so the public and residents can see whether progress is being made.
Pratt’s plan for rebuilding would include the elimination of permitting and plan-check fees for main residences destroyed by the fire and guarantee permit decisions for fire rebuild projects within 60 days. Pratt would also have city departments coordinate with each other to reduce delays. Launching a fire recovery team and guaranteeing permitting action in 60 days are on Pratt’s list of priorities for his first 100 days in office.
Raman would push for the creation of a “recovery district” that would centralize operations, which are now spread across a dozen jurisdictions, with one head official and a board of Palisades residents that would hold that person accountable. Raman would follow LA County’s lead, creating a framework for concurrent permitting reviews across departments and speeding up approvals. Like others, her plan also looks forward to avoiding future fire disasters by upgrading water infrastructure and having year-round brush clearance crews.
