Los Angeles Council Approves $1-a-Day Property Deals for Film Crews

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to let small film crews shoot for free in the city and lease city-owned property for $1 a day, a pair of measures aimed at stopping the exodus of film and TV production from Hollywood, according to the New York Post.

What Did the City Council Approve?

The council passed two motions, both introduced by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian. The first allows crews of 10 or fewer people to film in Los Angeles at no cost. The second lets productions rent city-owned parking lots, yards and other properties for $1 a day, the Post reported. Both measures target so-called micro-budget productions — the smaller shoots that studios and independent filmmakers say have been priced out of the city in recent years.

Why Is Hollywood Production Declining in Los Angeles?

The vote came days after a report found that film and TV production in Los Angeles is still falling, according to the Post, which cited the new data as the backdrop for the council's action. The report is not detailed further in the available coverage, but the timing underscores the pressure city officials are under: Hollywood is still described in the story as "hurting," with production continuing to migrate to other states and countries that offer lower costs and more generous tax incentives.

The two measures approved Tuesday do not address that broader competitive gap. They are narrowly aimed at the bottom of the production ladder — the low-budget shoots, student films, and independent projects for which even modest permit fees and location costs can be the difference between filming in Los Angeles or filming somewhere cheaper.

How Will the $1 Property Deals Work?

Under the new rules, productions can use city-owned parking lots, yards and similar properties as filming locations for $1 a day, according to the Post. Combined with the free-filming provision for crews of 10 or fewer, the measures are designed to strip out two of the most common cost barriers for micro-budget productions: location fees and basic permitting costs.

The council's action does not change rules for larger, studio-backed productions, which face a different set of cost pressures tied to crew size, union agreements, and competition from production-friendly jurisdictions elsewhere.

What Is the Keep Hollywood Home Campaign?

Both motions are part of Nazarian's "Keep Hollywood Home" campaign, an effort the council member has pushed to lower the cost of filming in Los Angeles and reduce bureaucratic friction for productions, according to the Post. Nazarian framed Tuesday's vote as a milestone for that effort.

"Today marks a major milestone for the Keep Hollywood Home campaign," Nazarian said in a statement reported by the Post. "With these latest actions, all Phase 1 motions have now been approved by the City. This progress demonstrates the impact of the Ad Hoc Committee and our commitment to keep up the pressure for real reforms."

The reference to "Phase 1" indicates the council is treating Tuesday's approvals as the first stage of a larger set of reforms rather than a single, standalone fix. The Post's report does not detail what additional phases might include or when they would come before the council.

What Happens Next for LA Film Incentives?

The Post's reporting stops at Tuesday's vote and Nazarian's statement; it does not include a timeline for Phase 2 motions, nor does it quantify how much production has left Los Angeles or where it has gone. Those gaps leave open questions for an industry that has spent recent years watching productions relocate to states and countries with stronger tax incentives.

What is clear from the available record: the council has now cleared every motion in the first phase of Nazarian's push, and city officials are betting that free filming for small crews and $1-a-day access to municipal property will be enough to keep at least some of that work — and the jobs attached to it — inside city limits. Whether it moves the needle on the broader production slump described in the report cited by the Post is a question the next phase of the campaign, whenever it arrives, will have to answer.

For now, the practical effect lands squarely on the smallest productions: a student film crew of eight, an independent feature shooting on a shoestring, a web series using a city parking lot as a backlot. Those are the productions Nazarian's office says the measures are built for, and they are the productions most likely to notice the difference the next time they apply for a permit.

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