HAWTHORNE INSIDER-On November 8, residents in the City of Hawthorne will not only vote for their next President, they will also have an opportunity to voice their opposition to the mega-housing developers seeking to redevelop their community. The City Council will hold a Public Hearing at City Hall on Ordinance 2128 which seeks to increase the minimum lot acreage for high-density, mixed-use residential and commercial developments. 

In early 2016, the Hawthorne City Council adopted the Downtown Hawthorne Specific Plan. Residents rejoiced as it appeared that the decades-old defunct Hawthorne Mall would finally see development. The plan put forth by the Charles Company, the company working with land owner Arman Gabay, includes 600 planned rental units at the mall. (Photo above.) Many residents of the community currently oppose any housing at the Hawthorne Mall site.  

There are an additional several hundred housing units planned on the South Bay Ford site, further south down Hawthorne Boulevard. Two large-scale developments have surfaced in Hawthorne’s poorest neighborhood, Moneta Gardens. According to Councilwoman Angie English-Reyes, these were state mandated units. It is unclear if she is indicating that the Planning Commission and City Council had no option but to allow these developments. 

Residents from all communities in Hawthorne have come out en masse to oppose high-density housing projects. Overwhelmingly, residents support the Hawthorne Downtown Specific Plan which allows for a variety of housing and commercial development along the Boulevard. With the current changes made by Ordinance 2128, the minimum project size of any other project would be three acres, translating to a minimum of 135 units. This directly contradicts what so many residents have been advocating since the possibility of development arose. 

According to municipal code in the City of Carson, developers can “jump the block” and use lots that are separated by public streets to meet their site size requirement. Hawthorne’s Interim Planning Director and consultant, John Ramirez, says, “This is the intent of the changes made to Hawthorne’s zoning.” They are encouraging developers to acquire smaller parcels along the Boulevard to get the amenities of larger complexes. 

Unfortunately, that puts dozens of small businesses in jeopardy. Ramirez has suggested that these small land/business owners can sell out to big developers and then move back into the revitalized projects. What he fails to mention is the triple increase in rents by the developers, forcing several small businesses out of town -- or worse, out of business. 

The current Ordinance 2128 also increases the size requirement of living space in mixed use and single family zones, encouraging larger floorplans in each unit. This drives up the cost for builders to develop and thus, the monthly rent/purchase price on the units also increases.

“We estimate costs based on square footage. At $2.50 per square foot, we will be renting a two bedroom 1,200 square foot apartment for close to $3,000 per month,” says Bill Hassan, owner of KIG Properties LLC. 

By creating larger spaces at a higher cost, this Ordinance 2128 increases the potential for multiple families to cohabitate and overcrowd. These living arrangements increase car congestion, demand on utilities and public resources like police, fire and schools. 

The Hawthorne Police Chief, Robert Fager, has given two presentations on the hiring needs of his department in recent council meetings. It has also been made public through the Civil Commission that there is a lack of applicants for open positions in the Police Department. Additionally, close to 1/3 of the active duty Hawthorne police officers are set to retire in the next 5 years. There is a serious, inherently critical shortage of police officers to meet the demands of large units over three acres.

The City of Hawthorne also faces a huge parking crisis today. Because of poor planning in the 1960s-1980s, there are several smaller units all over the city that are not meeting the demands of modern living. For example, in the Ramona tract there are dozens of 2-4 unit buildings that are only required to have one space per unit no matter how many bedrooms the units have. Thus, a fourplex with 2-bedroom units is only required to offer four parking spaces despite most two-adult households having two cars each. That places a demand on the city to accommodate four additional cars for just one building. There are 1,035 apartment buildings in Hawthorne today. 

The zone text amendment approved by the Planning Commission 2016ZA12, which led to Ordinance 2128, seeks to increase this to one guest parking space for every two units -- a 33% increase in the guest parking space requirement. This places an economic burden on developers, causing them to reduce the number of living spaces in favor of parking spaces and does nothing to solve the current parking crisis.

Small to medium-sized mixed use development allows for a variety of home types to be constructed. The most vital of these smaller units are live/work spaces. As the City of Hawthorne’s Senior Planner, Chris Palmer suggested in his presentation at the October 19 Planning Commission Meeting that there are a variety of design options and industry choices that would be constructed in these smaller developments for tenants from artists to technology startups.

Liza Simone of Phantom Galleries LA has successfully created Gallery Row in Downtown Los Angeles. As a result, this living style has spurred a micro-economy of entrepreneurs who have both space to create and produce their own income. 

At a minimum of three acres, developers cannot economically build live/work units. The commercial space would be developed into large, high-profile retail and office space. These companies have a well-documented history of paying minimum wages and not offering room for professional advancement.

Additionally, by effectively stopping smaller projects from being constructed, thousands of construction jobs are lost. Dozens of professional contractors, their sub-contractors, material suppliers and laborers are without potential work, which pays at least triple minimum wage. 

Finally, these changes affect local builders who have been working with the city for decades to acquire land, work with zone changes and spend their time and money to create projects for resident’s approval. The current message that the Planning Commission is putting out to potential investors is that the rules can change at any time. This does not create a certainty that developers need to build. And our goal is to enhance economic development, not stifle it. 

Hawthorne has a history of pay-to-play politics. The Mayor’s office has been rocked with scandal, as two of the last three mayors were indicted on felony charges and the last mayor was evicted by two separate landlords. The corruption in local government has been attributed to wealthy land developers influencing elections with hefty campaign donations in exchange for political favors on their projects.

Mayor Alex Vargas promised an end to the pay-to-play corruption, while he touted the benefits of the Hawthorne Blvd. Specific Plan; however, recent introduction of Ordinance 2128 places the burden of mega-housing projects squarely on his shoulders. By crippling small- to medium-sized developments, Mayor Vargas is ushering in a new and deafening thunder of massive housing development in Hawthorne. 

Public Hearing on Ordinance 2128 will be held at Hawthorne City Hall on November 8, 2016 at 6pm.

(Amie Shepard is a local realtor and activist. She currently serves on the Board of the Hawthorne Economic Development Council and is Vice President of the Ramona Neighborhood Association. She was a candidate for Hawthorne City Council in 2015.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

TRANSPORTATION CHOICE-I'm voting "NO" on Measure M for the following reasons: 

1) Measure M is like a welfare tax on us with the benefits going to land developers. 

If you own property in LA, you paid for the roads. The roads were built by the original developers and the cost was included in the price of the original homes. That cost was passed down to you (at a very inflated price) and you pay property taxes for their up-keep. For at least the last 30 years, the City has been giving your roads away to density-increasing land re-developers free of charge. 

Although the City claims it charges developers a "Transportation Impact Assessment Fee,” the City provides many ways for developers to escape such fees, such as allowing them to use Peak congestion Hour Trip Rates as an estimate of the number of commuters added by their projects. This accounts for only 25% to 30% of the actual number. Or exempting all residential development projects using the argument that the City needs to incent developers to build more housing. Yeah, right. 

So if developers are not paying their fair share toward the additional transportation infrastructure needed to accommodate the commuters their projects add to an area, why should we? 

2) Measure M would fund the wrong type of transit improvements. Since there's no room for new roads, the excess demand created by both past and (assuming it is allowed to continue) future unmitigated density-increasing land development must be accommodated on mass transit. But is "Light" Rail the best solution? 

The Expo Line cost $227 million a mile, but it takes an hour to go between Santa Monica and Downtown LA. Why? Because much of it runs at street level and has to slow to 25 MPH at every street crossing. It would have run faster if it was all elevated but that would have cost a lot more because "Light" Rail is still conventional rail, and conventional rail is not light in spite of its name. 

Metro should be planning to build all-elevated monorails because they: 

• Run much faster than street-level trains and would make the SM to Downtown LA run in 25 minutes vs. 55. 
• Run quieter. Monorails run on rubber tires rather than steel-on-steel wheels. 
• Are much cheaper to build. It takes 40% less concrete and steel to elevate 15-inch-wide GuideBeams than 8-foot-wide conventional rail beds.
• Are faster to build. The GuideBeams can be built offsite and installed at night.
• Require much less energy to operate. Because Monorails run all-elevated, they can't collide with other vehicles. Therefore monorails are built much lighter than "Light" Rail trains and therefore take much less energy to move. San Diego's General Atomic is developing a frictionless passive-maglev monorail that requires no electricity to elevate after reaching 4 MPH.
• Can't derail in earthquakes. Monorails straddle their track rather than sit on top of it.
• Could be run over the parking lanes of major arterial streets, dipping down to street-level for passenger loading.
• Would not take street space or Left-Turns away from private-vehicle traffic. 

There are already close to 50 urban-transit-class monorails running in the world.  The Wuppertal Germany monorail ran for over 100 years without a single fatality. "Light" Rail trains kill up to 100 people a year in LA. 

Another transit "improvement" to be funded with Measure M's tax revenue is "Bus Rapid Transit." This is the conversion of private vehicle lanes for bus-only use. While this may speed up bus travel, it will reduce the total people movement capacity of the arterial streets where lanes are converted to bus-only use. You don't improve capacity by forcing commuters out of small containers carrying 1 to 2 people that move by every 2 seconds and putting them into large containers carrying 40 to 64 which pass by only every 8 minutes or so. Do the math. 

3) Measure M will NOT reduce congestion by 15%. This claim is as bogus as similar claims made to con us into approving the Measure R Sales Tax increase in 2008. For example, Metro's 2008 Long Range Plan (upon which the Measure R tax increase was justified) shows that freeway travel speeds would decline from 34 MPH to 20 MPH by 2030 without Measure R taxes, but would decline to only 23 MPH with Measure R taxes, allowing them to claim that Measure R taxes would decrease congestion by 15% (a 3 MPH increase from 20 MPH.) So Measure M is unlikely to reduce today's congestion by 15%. It may only make future congestion 15% less worse than it will be if the City continues to allow density-increasing land development projects without making their developers fund the infrastructure required to accommodate the additional commuters their projects add to the City. 

4) Measure M has no end date. Providing any government agency with an open-ended revenue stream is a license to waste it. 

So I'm voting "NO" on any new tax for infrastructure until the above problems are fixed.

(Bill Pope is a former traffic consultant to neighborhood councils. He can be reached as [email protected])   Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CITYWATCH READER POLL—On the brink of the 2016 Presidential Election, CityWatch is asking readers to predict the winner. 

Fifteen months of primaries, controversy, debates, endless ads, non-stop media coverage, at-odds polls and family disputes have prepared you. Click on to the poll below and register your pick. It’s easy as that. 15 seconds of your time to provide some election outcome perspective. Go for it.

[sexypolling id="11"]

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Here’s a new maxim for Californians to live by, courtesy of this election: Don’t dismiss apocalyptic warnings from Stockton.

If you’re a Californian with a television or a mailbox, you’re encountering a barrage of ill-advised Stockton dismissals. Specifically, Gov. Jerry Brown, labor unions, and Sacramento building and infrastructure lobbies are trying to defeat a November ballot initiative—Prop 53, which would require voter approval for state revenue bonds of $2 billion or more—by marginalizing it as merely the flawed idea of a rich and selfish “Stockton farmer.”

This messaging turns out to be doubly wrong, as I learned firsthand on a recent visit to Stockton.

For one thing, the “Stockton farmer” slight badly underestimates the man in question, Dino Cortopassi, who turns out to be a formidable if blustery businessman with diverse interests, a knack for marketing, and a taste for taking on difficult fights. For another, the political message trivializes the real trauma in the city of 300,000 as it struggles through the aftermath of municipal bankruptcy. As a result, Stockton and its citizens, including Cortopassi, know the perils of irresponsible borrowing like Pittsburghers know steel and Houstonians know oil.

Cortopassi grew up on Stockton’s eastside and has spent his life in the area, despite amassing a multimillion-dollar fortune that would allow him to move anywhere he desired. He’s also all too familiar with the difficulties of debt. He started as a tenant farmer, borrowing heavily to buy equipment and farm as much land as he could, and then plugging back the profits into further expansion.

“I was in debt a long part of my life,” he told me during the half-day we spent together in a conference room at his business. “Debt never goes away. So when you borrow, don’t forget you have to pay it back.”

Cortopassi, 79, got ahead by doing things the hard way. He specialized in “headache” crops—like tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, and onions—that require more labor and attention, and that carry more risks in terms of weather, disease, and volatile market prices. While he identifies himself as a farmer (albeit a retired one), much of his business was in food processing. Business associates say he was an early adopter of new technologies, an unusually talented marketer, and maker of food brands, and a savvy investor (most notably in Dreyer’s ice cream). And his combativeness distinguished him; he was willing to wage big fights against larger food companies and against powerful unions, including the Teamsters, when they crossed him.

In recent years, as he’s stepped away from day-to-day management of his business, Cortopassi has had time to watch, with growing fury, as his hometown of Stockton declined and ultimately fell into bankruptcy.

That Stockton story is a convoluted one. But the heart of the tale is this: The city accumulated all sorts of unsustainable debts in a variety of ways, without realizing it.

The fundamental lesson is that when things go bad, even private debts or “safe” borrowing for projects can unexpectedly become obligations for the public. Stockton’s leaders had assumed that city revenues would keep increasing. Then the housing market collapse overextended Stockton homeowners and crushed the city budget. The city had little cushion because it had borrowed aggressively in the previous decade to pay for various public buildings, an arena, housing projects, and marina and downtown improvements. The final straw was a bond that Stockton sold in 2007, just before the financial crisis, to try to cover the costs of compensation and pension benefits it had promised its employees.

As a result of its crisis and bankruptcy, Stockton had to cut all sorts of basic services, including policing. That’s contributed to an ongoing tragedy: Stockton has one of the highest crime rates among California cities and is one of the country’s most violent places.

Cortopassi says he was frustrated about how, despite the fiscal carnage in Stockton and other cities, public borrowing has continued apace, with too little public attention. So, using rhetoric about as subtle as that of your angriest uncle, he’s started issuing warnings—in interviews, in self-published pamphlets (including one called “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!”), and, in a charmingly journalist-friendly touch, newspaper ads about “the Sacramento gang” that is borrowing without understanding the dangers of the “Debt Dragon.”

The fundamental lesson is that when things go bad, even private debts or “safe” borrowing for projects can unexpectedly become obligations for the public.

Cortopassi can be loud and bombastic. During our half-day together, Cortopassi yelled at me when I argued with him about the finer points of Prop 53 and about some of the numbers he uses on state debt. But, beyond the bluster, I found him to be quite thoughtful and strategic.

Prop 53 reflects Cortopassi’s strategic impulses. It can appear like a broadside against one mode of borrowing—a requirement for voter approval for state revenue bonds, bonds that have some guaranteed source of funds to pay them back (like tolls for a bridge). But the initiative is a carefully crafted political document full of exemptions for local governments, and with a requirement so high—only bonds of $2 billion or more would require voter approval—that it’s not clear to me that it would have much practical impact at all. After all, California voters approve most of the bonds upon which they already cast ballots. And state revenue bonds are hardly the only financing mechanism available to big projects.

What’s more, revenue-bond projects of that size are rare—precisely because it’s so hard to do anything big in California these days. The state’s non-partisan legislative analyst found Prop 53, if approved, would only prove an obstacle to two current state projects: High-speed rail and the governor’s proposed water tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. And both of those projects face so much opposition and so many obstacles that they could both die whether Prop 53 passes or not.

Cortopassi has business interests in the Delta, so the “No” on 53 campaign has argued that he’s acting primarily to frustrate the tunnels and serve himself. Cortopassi acknowledges his fervent opposition to the tunnels and desire to protect the Delta (among his passions there are restoring marsh habitat and duck hunting) but says his Delta interests are less than 5 percent of his empire.

When pressed, Cortopassi said that Prop 53, like any ballot initiative, can’t do everything. His goals for the measure, he told me, are to gain attention for the state’s debt issues and to win a victory at the polls that could set up future initiatives and political action to force a reckoning with debt.

Whatever you think of Prop 53’s particulars (and I remain skeptical), Cortopassi’s larger point is inarguable: California and its many governments have taken on too many different kinds of debts, and leaders and citizens alike are not facing up to them.

In his ads and writings, Cortopassi shows how debt is already cutting into the public services upon which Californians rely. He writes about how the state’s prison realignment has created new and largely hidden financial burdens for cities, including Stockton; about how water and parks bond measures are often corrupt efforts to secure money for the favored projects of the measures’ sponsors; about the $60 billion-plus in deferred maintenance on state roads; and especially about the many billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities.

“We act like we don’t have to pay debt back,” he says.

If you’re from Stockton, you know better.

(Connecting California Columnist and Editor, Zócalo Public Square, Fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University and co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, 2010). This piece first appeared in foxandhoundsdaily.com.)

DEEGAN ON LA-In what could be seen as a blow to historic preservation, further frustrated by twisted planning logic, the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee has decided to approve Frank Gehry’s massive building project at 8150 Sunset Boulevard before considering a recommendation from the Department of City Planning’s Historic-Cultural Monument Commission to grant Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Lytton Savings Bank building that occupies part of the site. By reversing the review and approval process, they have gone about this backwards. 

Had the PLUM Committee considered the Historic-Cultural Monument status motion before the 8150 building motion, they would have had to seriously deal with the question of what to do about the Lytton Savings Bank building (photo left). Instead, they postponed consideration of Lytton Savings Bank’s Historic-Cultural Monument status until November 22. That’s well after next week’s November 1 City Council vote on approving the 8150 Sunset project. 

By taking these two motions out of order, they may have effectively destroyed hopes for preserving the Lytton Savings Bank building, even if it’s eventually granted monument status by PLUM. 

Steven Luftman, co-founder of Friends of Lytton Savings, is fighting for preservation of the building. “At the end of the day,” he says, “I believe that David Ryu will stand by his commitment to preserve the historic Lytton Savings building.” Councilmember David Ryu (CD4), who negotiated a compromise with the 8150 Sunset developer to bring the building height down, “supports the Cultural Heritage Commission decision to award Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Lytton Savings Bank building,” according to his spokesperson. 

The LA Conservancy is also working to find a solution that avoids the wrecking ball for the Lytton Savings Bank building. Director of Advocacy Adrian Scott Fine provided this statement to CityWatch: “The Los Angeles Conservancy continues to press for a win-win outcome and is deeply disappointed in the direction by the City to date. Not only is the project and preservation possible but it was identified in two separate preservation alternatives studied by the City in the environmental review process. Townscape Partners, and their architect, Frank Gehry, however prefer to instead proceed with their plan, needlessly calling for the demolition of Lytton Savings when it otherwise could be successfully integrated into the proposed project. In allowing this to happen, the City is not fulfilling its responsibility under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and that’s a problem.” 

Luftman added, “I feel this could be an amazing opportunity to have two of the most significant architects of Los Angeles -- Frank Gehry and Kurt Meyer -- together in one project. It seems to me that what is keeping this from happening is greed and ego. I find it terribly sad that one architect would want to erase another’s work. Tearing down this historic Modernist building, an obvious Historical Monument, is unacceptable -- especially when alternatives exist. In the end it will be up to the city council to decide if wealthy developers are more important than the city’s rich history.” 

The other side of the preservation question was represented at the meeting by Gehry himself, who offered no apologies when he said, “The Lytton Bank building is in a precarious position for this building project.” That statement, and the fawning over him by the star-struck committee members (one gushing “what an honor” it was to have him in the chamber,) left no doubt that the spin cycle was in high gear for project approval, and that Lytton would be orphaned. Anastasia Mann, Chair of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council observed, “The ‘guardians of our city’ are really selling our soul to the devil for celebrity here.” 

At the center of this brewing controversy was what to do about Frank Gehry’s plans that many (but not everyone) like to build a collection of signature buildings at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights Boulevard. Gehry has called this location “the gateway to the Sunset Strip,” to be flanked by his buildings on the south and, on the north, a mostly tree-obscured Chateau Marmont. 

That was the primary question -- to approve or not to approve Gehry’s plans. It was answered by the PLUM committee, pushed by David Ryu, who sent them a forceful letter objecting to the original plans a few days ago, just before the meeting, and subsequently entered negotiations to try to get the changes he hoped for. He seems to have met that goal, said his spokesperson, telling a local paper, “We got right what we wanted -- a 24% reduction [in height]. Right in the middle.” 

In the end, the committee unanimously voted for the compromises brokered by Ryu, who was out of the country but in text message contact with his chief of staff monitoring the situation throughout the PLUM meeting. Appellants Laurel Canyon Association and the City of West Hollywood, as well as the developer Townscape Partners, praised Ryu for his efforts to find a solution, while others at the meeting and in the community afterwards were unhappy with what he had done. 

The PLUM meeting may have lasted five hours (its last three meetings were dedicated solely to 8150 Sunset,) but the wrangling has been going on for years. “The Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council has spent three years trying to work with the developers,” emphasized Neighborhood Council Chair Mann. “These compromises negotiated by David Ryu are better than nothing...it’s a step in the right direction. I was impressed that he was able to get them. It’s David versus Goliath. Obviously, there’s more to be considered; everybody's not thrilled, but I don't know how anybody else, under the circumstances, could have done better than David Ryu did for the community. David’s efforts have been as a result of his attempts to represent his constituents. The reality is that no one else would even try.” 

Where does this stand now? The PLUM committee will send a unanimous recommendation to the full City Council to approve the 8150 Sunset plan when they meet on November 1. On November 22, the committee will consider the unanimous recommendation of the Cultural Heritage Commission to grant Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Lytton Savings Bank building. 

If, after monument status is approved, a preservation plan can be created that includes relocating the Lytton Savings Bank building, or keeping it on site, then it has a chance of remaining intact. Other than Frank Gehry having a change of heart, or David Ryu pulling a rabbit out of his hat, or litigation, it’s possible that the orphaned Lytton Bank building may not be adopted.

Tim Deegan is a long-time resident and community leader in the Miracle Mile, who has served as board chair at the Mid City West Community Council and on the board of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

CORRUPTION WATCH--On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times published a damning, in-depth report about developer Samuel Leung and his associates who greased LA’s rigged development approval system with hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions that benefited City Council members and Mayor Eric Garcetti, seeking favors for a 352-unit residential mega-project known as “Sea Breeze” that the City Planning Commission had rejected.

The LA Times pulled out all the stops — six reporters worked on the story, flashy graphics are featured on the website and a data base was created that provides more information about the contributions. It’s the kind of hard-hitting, fact-driven, eye-opening news feature that should prompt an investigation by the LA County District Attorney’s Office corruption unit. 

Now, the Coalition to Preserve LA and its supporters aren’t surprised by the LA Times’ Sunday bombshell. In fact, we believe the paper should have been covering soft corruption among developers and City Hall politicians much sooner.

Because for months, week after week, our citizens’ movement has rolled out the hard facts about the millions of dollars deep-pocketed developers spend on campaign contributions, slush funds, officeholder accounts and politically connected lobbyists as they seek profitable spot-zoning favors for mega-projects that end up destroying neighborhood character, creating gridlock traffic and causing wide displacement of lower-income and middle-class Angelenos. 

By the way, our opposing campaign that’s funded by billionaire developers never, ever mentions the obvious influence peddling that’s going on at City Hall. Neither do the developers’ apologists. It’s as if developers never seek to change city zoning rules and manipulate a broken planning and land-use system that favors the fat cats over ordinary people.

But the Times report shows that’s obviously case, and we’ve published numerous stories that offer proof as well. This is not just one bad-apple developer doing something shady while everyone else plays by the rules. To wit:

1. NoHo West in North Hollywood, where developers spent hundreds of thousands in campaign and lobbyist cash to get City Hall favors for a luxury housing mega-project; 
2. The same goes for the Westside luxury housing mega-project known as Martin Expo Town Center; 
3. And there’s the luxury skyscraper in Koreatown that Mayor Eric Garcetti pushed through against the wishes of the City Planning Commission;
4. There’s also the Cumulus luxury housing mega-project in South LA — the developers again spent hundreds of thousands in campaign and lobbyists money to get profitable spot-zoning favors from City Hall;       
5. And there’s billionaire developer Rick Caruso and his luxury housing skyscraper known as “333 La Cienega.” 

As one can see, developer’s seeking spot-zoning favors from the City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti is happening across Los Angeles — and developers are raking in millions upon millions in the process while longtime residents get displaced, streets get more clogged with traffic and neighborhoods get ruined.

It’s why a citywide solution that’s the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative is desperately needed — developers and LA politicians need to be reined in and the playing field needs to be leveled.

Read the LA Times and check out its database. It’s all there, and you’ll see — LA’s broken and rigged planning and land-use system must be reformed.

(Patrick Range McDonald writes for 2PreserveLA. Check it out. See if you don’t agree it will help end buying favors at City Hall.)

-cw