REPORT: Reanalysis of multifamily housing permit activity shows no reduction after Measure ULA

by Greg Bonett, Senior Policy Counsel, Public Counsel
and Madeline Wander, Assistant Professor, Urban & Environmental Policy, Occidental College

This paper is a partial reanalysis of the data used by Jason Ward and Shane Phillips in a report released in April 2025 by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies titled “Taxing Tomorrow: Measure ULA’s Impact on Multifamily Housing Production and Potential Reforms.” This reanalysis examines Ward and Phillips’ claim to have shown a “robust causal linkage” between Measure ULA and a reduction in multifamily housing construction. Specifically, Ward and Phillips claim that Measure ULA had “caused” a nearly 50% reduction in the number of housing units permitted in projects with 20 or more units, amounting to a loss of at least 1,910 units annually. That conclusion has been widely cited in media accounts, by elected officials, in proposed legislation, and in a proposed constitutional amendment. In contrast, our reanalysis finds that the building permit data used by Ward and Phillips do not show any meaningful change in the number of multifamily housing units permitted on land sold after Measure ULA took effect. In fact, there was a slight, albeit statistically insignificant, increase in the number of multifamily units permitted per month for projects with 10 or more units on land sold after Measure ULA.