Why Angelenos are Angry at City Hall: ‘No One There is Listening to Us’

STILL MAD AS HELL-In August we wrote an article for CityWatchLA, People are Pissed: Can a Revolution be Far Behind? that got a great response. 

So what do the responses have in common? The answer is straightforward: “They aren’t listening to us.” In this case “they” refers to LA’s elected officials and to City departments because of their top down agendas. And “us” refers to LA’s residents, the funders and users of municipal services. Through user fees, utility bills, traffic and parking fines, property taxes, and sales taxes, we are the ones who fill the city’s coffers. Yet when it comes to getting something of value in exchange for all this revenue, over $8 billion per year, we, LA residents, feel totally ignored and disempowered at City Hall. 

If you go back to the three major categories of public concern we listed in August, this is what we repeatedly heard back in comments. 

Poorly maintained infrastructure and poor delivery of public services. Whether it is safe, pothole free streets, sufficient bike lanes, ADA curb cuts at corners, walkable sidewalks, planted and pruned street trees, permits for rooftop solar, and a host of other public services, LA residents feel that they are ignored at City Hall. It is not just a case of City departments that were downsized during the Riordan and Villaraigosa eras (in order to bring the LAPD up to 10,000 officers,) but repeated complaints and requests that seldom get callbacks or result in repairs.  

Second-rate code enforcement. Time and again we heard from residents all over LA that their complaints about zoning and building code violations are not followed through by Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS.) Either the complaints are totally ignored or the code violators are never forced to make changes to their plans, applications, or structures.  

These consistent failures cannot be explained away by staffing levels. The real reason is that the voices of real estate speculators are heard so loud and clear that they drown out the voices of local residents. 

One example shared with us is repeated violations of the Beverly Grove Residential Floor Area District (RFA). This special overlay ordinance required 10 years of hard campaigning by local residents. Once the City Council adopted it, Beverly Grove residents assumed they could depend on LADBS to enforce its provisions. But, this has not happened. Instead, local residents must submit RFA code violations to Building and Safety, only to hear from LADBS staff that they have never even heard of the RFA.  

Approval of plans and real estate projects that clash with the character and scale of local communities. 

Most real estate projects are built “by-right” through building permits issued directly by the Department of Building and Safety. There is no public notification process, no way to routinely review files, no public hearings, no written determinations, and no right of appeal for these ministerial decisions. The only time that neighbors learn of these projects is when bulldozers and construction crews suddenly show up. 

When neighbors then try to figure out what is happening, they run into a brick wall. Other than learning how to navigate the LADBS website to review a basic building permit, there is virtually nothing else they can find out about these projects, including how LADBS made internal decisions regarding a building permit. 

For example, in the case of McMansions, which are now responsible for the demolition of at least 2000 smaller, older, less expensive homes per year, there is no way for the public to find out how LADBS dished out increases in house size that can reach 42 percent of the legal base area. Was Building and Safety’s internal decision based on legal loopholes, such as exemptions for attached garages or bonuses for using “green” building materials? No one knows because guesses can never substitute for the actual facts. 

To make project-related information even more secret, LADBS has removed public access to its online PCIS database. Now, permits applied for but not yet approved, architectural drawings, project clearance summary sheets, which chronicle the necessary corrections and approvals for a project, and inspection field notes are unavailable, except by a time consuming and expensive California Public Records Act request. 

The City has 10 days to respond to these requests and can optionally seek an extra 14 days for “unusual circumstances.” That adds up to almost a month of delay, during which time much mischief can occur and sometimes can exceed the deadlines for an appeal or legal challenge. 

In contrast to these by-right cases, Building and Safety refers about 10 percent of all building permit requests to City Planning, where they become discretionary decisions. In these cases, some projects, like Density Bonus ones, do not require any public notification or public hearings. If communities do not religiously read the Thursday LA Times for a list of environmental reviews for such projects, they would not ever know they existed until immediately adjacent neighbors receive a determination letter. 

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Then, if neighbors manage to appeal the project, they are told that there are no legal grounds for their appeal because all such projects are routinely approved. Local residents can quote ordinance provisions about financial bona fides or environmental impacts, or Charter sections 556 and 558 that should apply to ALL discretionary actions, but they are always rejected. 

In those discretionary categories with public notices and hearings, public testimony is routinely ignored, even when it clearly identifies violations of City and State of California laws and regulations.  Since City Planning approves nearly every request for a discretionary permit and since nearly every subsequent appeal is denied, this leaves communities with only one option – suing the City of Los Angeles. If communities have this knowledge and financial resources to pay an experienced land use attorney, they have a decent chance of winning in court.  But this is an onerous way to have one’s voice heard, especially when the litigants are also paying the salaries – through taxes and fees – of the City Attorney staff opposing their attorney. 

Many real estate projects are also piecemealed through the regulatory process, each piece falling below the radar that would alert neighboring residents to the existence of a project that could not meet the requirements of the planning and building codes. These projects are usually shepherded through the review process by “expediters” – insiders who know how to order, shape, and size the pieces without triggering alarms. Before you know it, what began as a minor addition rears its ugly head as a large commercial building. 

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, but isn’t that the job of the professional staff at City Planning and Building and Safety? Shouldn’t their duty be protecting the public interest, not abetting shady real estate projects?

 

This list only scrapes the surface of what LA’s residents mean when they say “No one is listening to us at City Hall.” UN4LA’s mission to make sure local voices are finally heard – loud and clear -- at City Hall.  Once heard, our goal is to take this city back, even if it is one loophole at a time.

 

(Dick Platkin and George Abrahams are members of United Neighborhoods for LA. You can reach them via email at [email protected] or on Facebook: United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles.) Dick and George are CityWatch contributors. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw

  

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 82

Pub: Oct 9, 2015