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The Los Angeles City Council moved Tuesday to drastically increase the cost of appealing development and other land-use decisions, despite opposition from homeowner groups who said it will make it much harder for residents to challenge city actions.

The proposal raises the fee for appeals on city development decisions from a flat rate of $229 to $1,145 for residents living in the project’s vicinity.

For those who don’t live near the project, the fee nearly doubles to $2,289, an almost 900% increase from the previous rate. The system also tacks on a various surcharges that would take the non-neighbor rate for appeal applications to over $2,800, advocates said.

The City Council voted 13-0 without discussion to instruct the City Attorney to draft an ordinance for the fee hike, which will require council approval.

“To take away essentially the right of the community to have an opportunity to raise their voice about their concerns…is really an indication of how this is just a punitive measure on the part of the City Council to shut the people up,” Doug Haines, a representative for the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, said to The Times before the vote.

City Council members didn’t defend the planned fee hike at Tuesday’s meeting, but supporters have said previously that the higher fee would put Los Angeles on par with what other cities are charging and would discourage frivolous challenges that raise the cost of developing housing.

The Housing Action Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for building more housing in California, called the proposed increase is a small and meaningful step toward deterring unnecessary delays.

“We need to pull housing out of this doom loop,” said Victoria Gomez, the coalition’s political organizer for Southern California. “As long as appeals stay this cheap and heavily subsidized, they’ll keep being used to slow down homes Los Angeles can’t afford to wait for.”

The council did agree, on the motion of Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, to consider keeping the fee at $229 in the cases of tenants who would be displaced by a development. That proposal was referred to committee for study.

The L.A. City Planning Department manages the city’s land use and makes key decisions on development projects and zoning regulations. Residents who disagree with projects that are green lit by the department can go through an appeals process.

Residents can appeal a variety of city planning decisions, ranging from zoning exemptions granted by the department to fire safety violations and roadway or parking concerns regarding new project builds.

Residents were for years able to file appeals against these decisions for a minimal fee that represented 1% of what the city estimated it cost to process the appeal, while the rest is subsidized through the city’s general fund. That amounted to $229 since February, which has only increased slightly every year to adjust for inflation. The proposed change would bump the price to 5% of the expected cost for neighbors and 10% for anyone else choosing to file an appeal.

Appeal applications have steadily decreased from 217 in 2020 to 91 in 2025. The city department has received 90 applications this year so far, the department told The Times.

The Planning and Land Use Committee instructed the city Planning Department in October 2025 to explore alternative price points for appeals that would decrease the amount of money the city’s general fund would have to subsidize.

Neighboring residents would include people who live within the noticing radius of a development project, which can vary but is typically around a 500-feet radius. Only about 30% of appeals submitted in the past came from residents living within that radius, according to the city planning department.

The appeals process is only chance for city residents to challenge development decisions that impact their neighborhoods, and it’s a required step for an issue to reach the courtroom.

The proposed change was hidden in a procedural City Council item to deceive residents and lacked transparency, said Mark Kenyon, who lives in Mount Washington, in written opposition to fee hike.

“I see it as a way of blocking public participation,” Kenyon told The Times. “If they can’t come up with the money, the appeals aren’t going to happen.”

The proposed change could save the city about $254,086 in subsidies, according to the city planning department’s report, what Kenyon said amounts to pocket change for the city.

“People will simply not be able to appeal,” Kenyon said. “The process is already technically complicated.”

The city planning department estimated that processing an appeal application costs about $22,894.

“The Department brought on an independent consultant to evaluate the cost of all department processes,” a spokesperson for the department said. “It is important to note that determining the cost is separate from determining the fee. A number of planning functions have costs that are subsidized by the city, including appeals.”

Angelenos for Historic Preservation, an independent advocacy group, petitioned the California Department of Justice and the state’s deputy attorney general to defer Tuesday’s vote. The department didn’t immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

The fee change will bring L.A. in line with other cities across California, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said during a Planning and Land Use Commission meeting in August.

Appeals to Los Angeles County cost over $1,000. Santa Monica charges around $750 and San Diego charges $1,000, while appeal fees in Berkeley can cost up to $3,000, according to the city planning department’s report.

“I don’t think there’s a magic number, but our appeal fees, I think, are clearly far below our peer cities,” Blumenfield said. “They need to go up because…there’s no free money. All the money that we have does come at the expense of other critical programs.”

The city’s convoluted building and development process is unique to the city of L.A. and can’t be compared to other cities in the state, said Haines of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. An affordable appeals process is necessary for residents to fight against dangerous builds in their neighborhoods, he said.

“It’s basically a corrupt process from beginning to end,” Haines said.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday directed the federal government to bolster federal research into women’s health, a move pushed by his wife, first lady Melania Trump.

The Republican president signed an executive order that creates a new women’s health division at the National Institutes of Health and a White House task force to focus on the issue. That panel was set to hold its first meeting Monday after the Trumps held a Rose Garden signing ceremony.

“Beginning today we will change the reality of women’s health,” Melania Trump said. “Previous generations fought for women’s rights. Our generation will fight to discover the cures that will ensure a woman can live her life in health and to the fullest.”

The president, who spoke after his wife, said the order will “promote new research and really go after the understudied diseases affecting women.” The order is also intended to promote diagnostic technology and improve treatment.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will lead the White House task force. Donald Trump said the task force will coordinate with various federal agencies and programs. The order does not include specific funding goals.

The initiative comes after a series of meetings the first lady had with federal health officials.

The president called it a “historic action” and praised the first lady’s work.

“She’s accomplished so much,” he said before pivoting into unscripted commentary on White House renovations, including the patio stone that now covers what was once the Rose Garden lawn.

Shifting back to women’s health, the president expressed surprise that some of the order’s requirements had not already been imposed.

“Who the hell wouldn’t have a women’s health division?” he said, after recalling that he’d asked Melania Trump, “Are you sure they don’t have that?”

The executive order calls for targeting maternal health, mental health and endometriosis. It also mentions other health concerns and diseases, including Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, heart disease and stroke.

Melania Trump helped shape the order and the task force in consultation with physicians, White House officials, Kennedy and the Republican president. The initiative adds a new dimension to her policy portfolio as first lady.

In Donald Trump’s second term, the first lady has focused on improving foster care systems and expanding technology and artificial-intelligence access in education. In Trump’s first presidency, the first lady’s signature initiative, Be Best, focused on child well-being, safe social media use and reducing drug abuse.

The White House ceremony comes weeks before Nov. 3 elections and as Donald Trump’s job approval ratings have declined, including among women.

About 4 in 10 independent women supported Trump during the 2024 election against Democrat Kamala Harris and in the pre-presidency period, according to AP-NORC polls. That dropped to around a quarter in the opening months of this midterm election year, the period marked by Trump’s hard-line immigration crackdown in U.S. cities and the opening weeks of the Iran war.

Barrow writes for the Associated Press.