America Needs California … Now, More Than Ever

AN ALTERNATIVE TO WALLED-OFF US--On Tuesday Nov. 8, Californians voted in record numbers to reaffirm our commitment to freedom, openness and really just basic human decency.  This fundamental difference in values offers an alternative future for America and indeed the world.

Civilizations succeed when they open themselves to new ideas and new people from new places. There is nothing great in closing off a country from the world.  Simply compare the backwardness of inward-looking medieval Europe – filled with castle walls – to the flourishing in the open minded Renaissance.

As an alternative to a walled off America, California builds bridges to every corner of the globe.  Every iconic Apple product says “designed in California,” and Hollywood movies inspire millions.  That open and imaginative attitude is exactly what the world needs to build a bright future.

Today, Californians work to automate driving, pioneer personalized medicine and colonize Mars. Under Gov. Jerry Brown’s leadership, California’s economy has growth to the sixth largest economy in the world, and our once-troubled state finances have stabilized.

Yes, California still has its share of problems.  Housing costs prohibit all but the creative elite from affording life in too much of coastal California.  Too many of our roads are chock full of potholes. The quality of too many of our kids’ schools is too often a function of the zip code they live in.  And a lingering drought challenges us to do more to prepare for an uncertain water future.

Yet fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with California that cannot be addressed by what is right with California.  Gov. Brown’s call for common sense reforms could lower housing costs. New sensors can map potholes radically more affordably and comprehensively

The web can connect students with opportunities unimaginable a generation ago and help us move beyond our one-size-fits-all public education system. And new data technologies enable new ways to measure and thus better manage California’s precious water resources. 

Today there is a global crisis of confidence in our basic public institutions. Meanwhile, ultimately none of those promising pilots linked above are certain.  Ultimately, they simply highlight a new frontier for public problem solving. Of course, the pioneers’ journey by land and sea to California was far from certain as well.

Today’s challenges offer a golden opportunity for Californians to bring that pioneering spirit to bear on our pressing public problems.  America – and indeed the world – needs nothing less from California today.

(Patrick Atwater is an author, entrepreneur and frequent Calbuzz commentator.  He currently runs a big water data project to prepare California to adapt to our historic drought and whatever the future holds. This perspective was posted first at Cal Buzz.

-cw 

A Word from the Wise: When Fixing LA’s Housing and Sidewalk Problems … Make Homes, not ‘Projects’

ALPERN AT LARGE--With all due respect to those who live in a housing project, I think it's safe to say that most of us want to live in a home, and not in a beehive.  And with all due respect to those who live in Manhattan or in Downtown LA, I think it's safe to say that most of us would move to those places if we wanted to truly live there. 

Similarly, when we ask for a drink of water, we don't want to be firehosed and swept off our feet.

We're in a war of words, a war of paradigms, and a war of math, in the City of the Angels. 

Example #1: Mass transit always leads to overdevelopment and traffic, and/or fighting mass transit prevents overdevelopment and traffic. 

As time and experience allows us to learn the difference between our fears and our realities, we've seen mass transit and freeways through bad neighborhoods not spruce up the housing and traffic, and we've seen mass transit and freeways through good neighborhoods jack up overdevelopment and traffic. 

Which is why our mayor deserves kudos for being a transportation advocate, but also deserves scathing criticism for overdevelopment.  Hollywood needs its Red Line, and a north-south link to the developing Purple Line Subway and Crenshaw/LAX light rail line, but then-Councilmember Eric Garcetti of Hollywood pushed through OVERdevelopment. 

In other words, despite the good that Garcetti has done for Hollywood, he's also done some bad ... and it's OK for us to both praise and scorn him for his good and bad efforts, respectively (and respectfully). 

Similarly, with respect to traffic, those who fought the Expo Line tooth and nail (make it go underground from Overland to Sepulveda, even if it costs $300 million and the LADOT doesn't support it!) also fought the rail bridges.  The LADOT worked with electeds to get the Sepulveda rail bridge (which is beautiful and works well), but now we've got a traffic problem on Overland. 

Good job, anti-Expo NIMBY's, because the Expo Line Authority DID have a plan to elevate the Expo Line at Overland, and the LADOT recommended a rail bridge there, but by insisting that everything be underground, we now have a street level Expo Line crossing at Overland that is the problem everyone knew it would be. 

So let's get over the "mass transit always leads to this, or fighting mass transit leads to that", because common sense comes from all over, and stupidity, greed, and narcissism also comes from all over. 

Example #2: Addressing Affordable Housing always leads to megadevelopment, and we've got to get used to big monster projects. 

Nonsense.  Poppycock.  Garbage.  We've created stupid megadevelopment before mass transit, and we're doing it during mass transit, and if we'd voted down Measure M and voted to end all new mass transit tomorrow, our city leaders and its crony-capitalism developer clique would still advocate for overdevelopment. 

No one but NO ONE has a realistic chance of fighting a big development downtown, or on the Wilshire corridor, or wherever a "downtown" atmosphere/planning zone is SUPPOSED to be, but there's always a fight to avoid making the City into a series of Downtowns and create a new traffic jam all over again. 

And I suppose that uberdeveloper Pamela Day, an acolyte of the "Alan Casden school of overdevelopment" deserves a big "thank you" for her honesty when she spoke her true feelings at a Planning town hall regarding an 80+ foot-tall project in a 30-40-foot-tall corridor about how she thought Mar Vista was a lousy place to live, and insulted Mar Vistans as a whole. 

Fortunately, we've got Councilmember Mike Bonin and his team to remind Ms. Day and her team that 80+ foot-tall projects is still too damned high in the suburbs, and that her financial betterment isn't the driving force as to whether her project should be approved, and that infuriating the neighbors while threatening traffic, parking, and blocking out the sun is probably a bad, bad, BAD idea. 

Similar to signage, there's proper compromise, and then there's urban blight.  And if the public sees a bad idea, then the public's elected leaders should represent them. 

People want HOMES and NOT PROJECTS.  Housing, not beehives.  We could create 2-4 story-tall projects throughout the city (and both north AND south of the I-10 freeway!) to create sustainable, delightful, and happy apartments, condos, and townhomes to address the needs of those who want a place to call "home". 

And when we create tall megadevelopments, they should be located where they make sense, and require lots of mitigation to acknowledge the impacts these megadevelopments have on their taxpaying neighbors (who still, believe it or not, have rights, too). 

Example #3: The sidewalks are too expensive to be fixed, and too challenging a project to fix in 5-7 years. 

One of the main reasons that Angelenos had some misgivings about Measure M was that it didn't fix the sidewalks quick enough, and provide enough rapid funding to address this horrible problem.  But Measure M was one of the best ways to get some funding, and to get the ball rolling for private-public and other funding initiatives, to address our sidewalks.  So it was passed. 

But today, after the bruising and drama-laden election cycle that ended in November 2016, we've got new battles to fight. 

Any and ALL mitigation for new light rail lines and rapid bus lines should involve and include a prioritization of fixing the major commercial corridors adjacent to all major rail and bus stops--and with a timeframe of 3-5 years. 

Street Services, Public Works, the LADOT, Metro, and Neighborhood Councils should derive lists of the most major sidewalk fixes (and ADA-compliant sidewalk carveouts for the handicapped and for bicycles to reach their destinations) with a 3-5 year goal of fixing those problems first. 

And NO development, particularly one with variances, should be allowed to escape or avoid the sidewalk repair mitigation funding requirements needed to resolve a "War on Sidewalk Safety". 

Commercial/business zones, family-friendly neighborhoods, areas fighting urban blight, and mass transit all have something in common:  keep the sidewalks safe, clean, and user-friendly. 

And with spring 2017, with all of its City Council races, and the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative on the ballot, the time is NOW to demand that the right balance of common sense be applied to ensure we build (but don't overbuild) the right Los Angeles for the 21st Century.

 

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties.  He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)

-cw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LA’s ‘Comprehensive Homeless Strategy’ - Off to a Not So Groovy Start

EASTSIDER-Is homelessness a real problem in LA? You betchy. Should we do something about it? Of course. Can the LA City Council handle the problem? So far, indications aren’t good. 

In the run up to passing a $1.2 billion dollar bond measure on November 8, the LA City Council was all over the problem of homelessness. I mean, we had committees, plans, pontification and platitudes galore. Political fodder of the highest order, but what was underneath the rhetoric? 

Speaking as a recovering bureaucrat, I have noticed that public agencies handle their documents in two very different ways. When they are serious and want to do something odious, the documents are usually a black and white memo, full of technical jargon and indecipherable gobbledygook. On the other hand, when they want to sell snow in the wintertime to the public, it’s an entirely different deal. In this case, they write huge full color documents, with pretty color charts and graphs and tons of headings and subheadings which prove that they know what they are doing and so you should trust them. The City’s Comprehensive Homeless Strategy is a shining example, and you can find it here.  

Be forewarned, it will take a while to even load the document in your browser, since it is a 300 page piece of dazzling you know what. The glitz starts on page 7 and goes on and on. I found a particularly pretty color flow chart on page 18 that shows all the public and private agencies that work together on this knotty problem. 

For a shorter and even flashier version, check out the Mayor’s summary version of how the Mayor is single handedly transforming LA into the vanguard of homelessness solutions. 

If you look at the fine print, the City of Los Angeles has already pledged allocating $100 million in the budget towards the problem, which they recognized was a drop in the bucket. The Committee working on this was led by no other than Jose Huizar, whose PLUM Committee has created plenty of homelessness by blessing every developer’s dream over the last few years. 

First Reports. 

A key part of the City’s Plan has been to use City owned property to provide quick housing. Indeed, City Controller Ron Galperin has developed a very cool database to map the approximately 9000 city properties which may be underutilized. For a good read on how this came to happen and how it works, check out this article at The Planning Report

After all this, the first public report on the homeless strategy progress was released by the Homeless Strategy Committee on November 7. It’s a good example of a “serious” memo, black and white, full of technical jargon. 

The reason for the report’s awkward language is pretty clear -- the core first steps relating to “crisis response” efforts aren’t going that well. As the LA Times  put it, “Proposals for storage lockers and toilets for street dwellers are stalled, new shelter capacity is being added at a trickle, and the city bureaucracy moving more slowly than some council members expected.” 

Buried in the report is the fact that it was community opposition that derailed storage facilities in Venice and San Pedro, and CD 9’s La Opinion site turned out to be no good “due to the rehabilitation cost.” 

Also, the 9th District Court of Appeals torpedoed the Council’s hot flash vision of a Citywide Safe Parking Program. So back to the drawing board on that one. 

You have to wonder how much use Ron Galperin’s database of city owned properties is going to be in the face of all of this pushback. Using city owned properties was a key element in providing supportive housing for the homeless. 

Speaking of Quick Homeless Housing. 

Part of phase one of the City’s ambitious 300 page Comprehensive Homeless Strategy was to provide quick, permanent supportive homeless housing on some 12 city-owned parcels. A big part of this plan was to establish a list of prequalified developers who could quickly build on those parcels. This list ultimately included 39 developers and recommendations for the disposition of the twelve parcels. 

Well, that didn’t last long. In a mid-November move, the recommendations had suddenly winnowed down to four developers, and the types of housing now magically include “Permanent Supportive Housing, Affordable Multifamily Housing, Mixed-Income Housing, Affordable Homeownership,” and my favorite, “Innovative Methods of Housing.” 

Also, the 12 parcels are now down to 10, with the staff recommendation that the other two parcels be sold off on the grounds that “there are no recommended proposals for these sites.” The money, of course, will go to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. 

So what we are left with in the initial phases of LA City’s master plan for homelessness are 4 developers who are authorized to build affordable housing or anything “innovative.” Great. 

What Can We Expect for Our $1.2 Billion Bond? 

In a heartwarming, if naive expression of faith, over 76% of the voters approved Measure HHH on November 8, authorizing the sale of $1.2 billion in bonds to pay for about 10,000 units of affordable permanent-supportive housing in the next 10 years. It is the major long-term component of the City’s Comprehensive Homeless Strategy. 

Take a look at KPPC’s article on 10 things you need to know about measure HHH  to see what the promises were in hyping the bond measure, as well as the fears. 

If you contrast the bond measure rhetoric with what the City has actually done so far, the disconnect looms like the Grand Canyon. Affordable housing is not permanent-supportive housing; it’s simply another opportunity for real estate developers to make money building more housing. And if the 12 parcels already identified have shrunk to 10 already, where are all of these 10,000 units going to be built? Furthermore, if you believe the cost per unit for this housing, then I invite you to my lottery for the 6th Street Bridge. 

Don’t misunderstand. Homelessness is really important, but so far, the efforts of the Council don’t seem to be remotely on track to provide the 500 units of supportive housing and key “crisis response” that was promised. As the City stated in the Executive Summary of their very own Comprehensive Homeless Strategy document: 

In the short-term, the City must enhance its existing homeless shelter system and transform shelter beds into bridge housing by including homeless case management and integrating supportive health and social services from the County at appropriate levels of caseload via the CES.” 

Since the ability to sell bonds is not a requirement to sell the bonds, I urge all Angelenos to closely monitor the Mayor/City Council machine as they continue to try and implement their grand design. If they can’t get it right on what they have already promised to do without the bond money, maybe they should not sell bonds at all until and unless they get their act together. 

This should be about our surging homeless population, not politics as usual. 

One can dream...

 

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Photo: Elizabeth Daniels/LA Curbed.

Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Treasury Secretary Nominee, Steven Mnuchin: a Goniff or a Mensch?

TRUMP’S MOST IMPORTANT PICK-As the Trump Transition careens along, proposing that free speech be sanctioned by depriving Americans their U.S. citizenship, we come to the most important appointment – California’s Steven Mnuchin as Secretary of Treasury. 

As explained previously in a CityWatch article, Little Timmy Giethner turned Obama’s Administration into an American tragedy, setting the stage for the rise of Trumpism. Rather than risk being turned into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife for looking back upon destruction, let’s affix our gaze to the future. 

What are the primary duties of the Secretary of the Treasury? 

(1) Protect the Price System (aka Price Structure.) 

(2) Institute policies to ameliorate the swings of the business cycle. Since we are in a mild upswing, the focus is to protect the economy from the down phase, i.e. recession.

The Price System. 

Neither businessmen nor family members can make wise economic decisions without knowing the actual value of everything. If a homeowner is deceived into believing that the true value of healthcare insurance is $1,500 per month when it is only $800 per month, he is losing $700 per month. That is $8,400 per year which simply disappears from his wealth and he gets nothing in return. 

On the other hand, if the homeowner is deceived into believing that a healthcare plan will insure his family for only $300 per month, but when a catastrophic illness befalls the family, he discovers that it pays only 45% of the medical bills, bankruptcy follows the illness. 

The law of supply and demand is often invoked along with some quasi-religious belief that if everyone is allowed to lie their heads off about the value of everything, the law of supply and demand will magically arrive at the correct price for everything. Troglodytes who adhere to this theory oppose regulations which would keep false data out of the Price System. Wall Street is filled with thieves who want no regulations on their power to lie, cheat, manipulate and thereby financially devastate the American people. 

We saw a fine example of the destruction of the Price System during the Subprime Mortgage frauds where Wall Street firms forced the rating agencies like Standard and Poor to rate junk securities as top grade. This practice was widespread when Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson, Jr., the last Secretary of the Treasury, who was a scion of Goldman Sachs, reigned supreme in the Bush Administration. As a result of Hank’s treachery, America lost $22 trillion in wealth, but we hasten to add that Little Timmy Geithner gets more than honorable mention in guaranteeing that we’d never have a real recovery. 

The first step to protect the Price System is for Secretary Mnuchin to propose a stronger Glass-Steagall law to replace the laughable Dodd-Frank Act. Investment firms need to be restricted to their vital role of raising capital from sophisticated investors for needed projects. They need to be restricted not only as a means to stop trillions of dollars in fraud, but also to make certain that the capitalist system has a functioning institution for raising capital. That can only happen when investment houses have no access to commercial banking funds. 

Needless to say, many volumes can be written about protecting the Price System, especially for a society which has just elected a predatory real estate developer to be President. Even prior to the arrival of Trumpism, however, the fraud which has become pandemic in our financial institutions was rotting our economic system: ninety percent of all productivity increases since the Crash of 2008 have gone to the top One Percent. 

Secretary Mnuchin’s Duty is to Tame the Business Cycle. 

The upswing in the economy is a dangerous return to the Business Cycle with its Booms and Busts. Due to the reactionary economic policies of little Timmy Geithner, the Obama Administration failed to institutionalize additional safeguards to modulate the next Bust Phase. For some reason, people habitually believe that the Boom Phase will last forever. Let’s be blunt about who warned the world that the Boom Phase of any economy has a short life span. GOD told us and GOD told us what to do. People are usually surprised to discover that GOD is the true father of Keynesian Economics. 

Way back then, Pharaoh’s dream alerted him to the short life span of the good times. When he did not understand the significance of his dream where the seven lean cows ate the seven fat cows and remained lean, Joseph instructed Pharaoh in the first principle of Keynesian Economics. The wise Pharaoh saves during the fat years so that he can release grain from the storehouses during the lean years and avoid famine. Secretary Mnuchin’s Torah portion seems to have been Parashat Vayaeshev (Genesis 37.1 - 40.23) which stops just before the section where Joseph explains the basics of Keynesian economics to Pharaoh. Shall we mystically wonder whether Secretary Mnuchin is standing on the threshold of perfidy or greatness? Did he peak ahead to Genesis 41 et seq.? 

What Economic Policies Should Mnuchin Institute for the Trump Administration? 

While the Trump is obsessed with the idea that the boom phase of the business cycle will not only be infinite but should be 6% growth per year, Secretary Mnuchin’s real duty is to institute programs to prepare for the famine years. 

The income level on which Social Security contributions are based, for example, needs to be raised immediately. Currently, it stops at an income of $118,500 per year. Social Security payments protect businesses when the economy hits a down turn, but unless the government has saved more funds during the fat years by raising the income level for contributions, the fund will not have accumulated enough money to increase Social Security payments. This measure should have been undertaken in January 2010, but it could not be done due to Little Timmy Geithner’s reactionary policies. 

Because private pensions have all but evaporated for the average citizen, Social Security payments need to increase by 5% to 10% per year each over and above the annual increase of the CPI. The problem is that first we needed the seven fat years of increased contributions before we can responsibly increase payments. We do not have that accumulation of cash. 

Secretary Mnuchin faces a crisis. The recession will arrive before he has enough time to collect sufficiently more Social Security contributions to have instituted these increased payments. Thus, Secretary Mnuchin needs to maximize contributions as fast as possible so that the increased payments can begin as the recession starts. Ideally, the legislation which increases the contributions will also set an objective benchmark for when to start the increased Social Security payments. Keynesian mechanisms function best when they are automatic, as the politicians are mostly economic ignoramuses who think spending should be cut when a recession starts. 

How to Interface Mercantilism with Modern Economics 

From what one can tell, Trump’s plan to make America Great Again is a reversion to the Mercantilism of the 1500s to 1600s. That places Trumpism in direct conflict Secretary Mnuchin’s duty to modulate the severity of the Boom and Bust Phases of the Business Cycle. 

Will Mnuchin side with the goniff impulsive of Trumpism or will he be a mensch who promotes the general welfare of human beings?

 

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Sentimental Journey … ‘Tis the Season

RANTZ & RAVES--That special time between Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year brings families together from around the country and the world in celebration of our annual holidays. I can remember when I was a youngster and my Mom and Dad would gather me and my brother together with our aunts and uncles and cousins for great feasts and family holiday fun times. (Photo above: Holiday decorations at the May Company on Miracle Mile in 1940’s.) 

There was Uncle Eddie and Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe and Aunt Tina and Aunt Olga and Uncles Bill and Mitchell and so many others that impressed me during those early years of my life in Los Angeles. My cousins Sharon and Joe and Eddie and Annie and Mary and Beth and Kenny and so many others. Sadly many have passed and others have grown old with time. Old like I am feeling this time of the year. 

Those Good Old Days are blazed deep in my memory and come to the surface as our annual year-end celebrations approach. During those years, Los Angeles was a place where you called your adult neighbors Mr. and Mrs. There was no calling them by their first name. It was called respect for the adults in the neighborhood. 

It was a time when Mom would yell from the front porch of the Hollywood apartment at dusk … ‘Dennis and Vincent come home for dinner.’ When the sun went down, it was a time when all moms and dads gathered for dinner with the family. We would all enjoy mom’s cooking. Could Mom cook! 

All sorts of delicious food made fresh. There was no microwave cooking just fresh food cooked by Mom in her special tasty way. Cooking with love for her family. That was long ago and a much better time in Los Angeles and the world. 

There was Black and White TV, no cell phones or Internet. It was a time when people appreciated each other and gathered in friendship on a regular schedule. It was a time with great Love and Happiness. Shopping with the Sear’s catalog and J.C. Penny, May Company, Bullocks, Orbachs and Robinsons and the Broadway on Wilshire Blvd that was called the Miracle Mile. A time when Blue Chip and S&H Green Stamps were given out at gas stations where you would receive service including water, oil and tire pressure checks. Fedmart and Zody’s department stores were discount places to purchase a variety of items.   A great time in the City of the Angels. 

Traffic would flow smoothly and you could travel from the San Fernando Valley to Downtown Los Angeles on the 101 Freeway without traffic gridlock most of the day and evening. What happened to all that goodness and happiness and neighborly respect for each other? 

A time when hubcaps were stolen and not cars. A time without vicious gangs and deranged individuals that would shoot and kill police officers just because they wanted to. 

A time when a national election would take place and the will of the people would be respected and not generate into protests including the blocking of freeways. 

It is a long time past and a memory that many readers can relate to. Readers like the sweet couple I recently met at Costco … one of my favorite stores … that mentioned to me that they enjoyed reading my RantZ and RaveZ column. 

I wish each or you a Safe, Merry and Happy Holiday season.   

While I get very sentimental this time of the year, I can assure you that my RantZ will continue following the holidays. 

I welcome your comments, observations and concerns at [email protected].

(Dennis P. Zine is a 33-year member of the Los Angeles Police Department and former Vice-Chairman of the Elected Los Angeles City Charter Reform Commission, a 12-year member of the Los Angeles City Council and a current LAPD Reserve Officer who serves as a member of the Fugitive Warrant Detail assigned out of Gang and Narcotics Division. Disclosure: Zine was a candidate for City Controller last city election. He writes RantZ & RaveZ for CityWatch. You can contact him at [email protected]. Mr. Zine’s views are his own and do not reflect the views of CityWatch.)

-cw

How Did LA’s Planning Process become Such a Mess?

THE REAL DEAL SPECIAL REPORT-In the first installation of TRD’s series on the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, we explain the underlying problems with LA’s planning process. We take a look at the issues that gave NII fertile ground to build a movement. Stay tuned this week as we explore the implications of the March ballot measure in depth. 

It took 18 months, four public hearings, and at least $100,000 for developer CityView to get a 160-unit student housing complex entitled in University Park, just a mile northeast of the dorm-starved USC.

And this was a lucky one, according to Con Howe, (photo above: right) managing director of the firm’s Los Angeles fund and a former Planning Director. The project had no opponents, he said. If there were protests, the process would’ve dragged on, despite the fact that the site was already zoned for commercial uses. 

As NIMBYs square off against developers over the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative — a measure that would put the brakes on most development in the city for two full years — they can at least all agree on one thing: LA’s zoning is a profound mess. 

But fixing LA’s arduous entitlement process, outdated community plans and antiquated zoning code will not happen overnight. And certainly not through a two-year suspension on developments, opponents of the ballot measure say. 

“There’s just no quick way to do it,” said Christian Redfearn, a professor of real estate and urban policy at USC. In order to “rework the land use process,” he explained, communities need to not only modernize their plans but also put in place guidelines for more by-right opportunities that minimize so-called “spot-zoning,” the process by which the city approves, piecemeal, developers’ requests for exemptions to the zoning code. The subjective nature of the spot-zoning process is one of the NII’s main rallying cries.  

Reworking the system is not easy, considering LA has 35 individual community plans, weighed down by countless specific plans, overlays and other conditions. The county’s zoning code itself has not been updated since 1946. 

“It’s just a dysfunctional process,” said Gail Goldberg, (photo above: left) the executive director of the Urban Land Institute, who was an LA Planning Director between 2006 and 2010. “I don’t know when or where it went wrong.” 

Plans, Overlays, Qs, oh my. 

Under the state-mandated General Plan, there are 35 community plans that lay out the vision for LA’s land use infrastructure. Ideally, these plans should be updated every five years to address changing demographics, according to Howe, who served as the city’s Planning Director for 13 years, from 1992 to 2005. 

Under his tenure, 33 of the 35 community plans were updated. By the time Goldberg took office in 2006, they were due for another round of modernization. At first, she was granted all the resources to start the process. Then, the recession hit. 

“The minute the economy wasn’t great, the first place they cut was planning,” she said. “If they’re going to update the plan now, [the Council] must commit to funding not only this year, but next year and the year after that. It’s a difficult thing to guarantee.” 

According to Goldberg, 29 of LA’s 35 plans are currently more than 15 years old. 

Beyond money, updating the plan would entail heavy input from the community and approval from City Council. This brings up the costliest factor: time. Goldberg worked on 10 plans during her time in the department. By the time she left, only two were adopted. 

Community plans, according to city planner Deborah Kahen, were originally intended to be updated in accordance with the zoning code; the two would go hand-in-hand. A community plan would lay out the vision for a certain region, and the zoning code would record the nitty-gritty logistics. 

But when it was first written after World War II, the very sparse code was oriented toward cars and suburban development, said Kahen, who works for the re: code LA program, which was created by the Comprehensive Zoning Code Revision Ordinance to rewrite the code. 

These old zones, she said, can’t accommodate modern needs such as sidewalks or signage, so areas instead lobby City Hall or the Planning Department to create specific plans and overlay zones.

In other words, instead of amending the code, city planners have added hundreds of pages of site-specific conditions. Two-thirds of the city is now covered in more than just the zoning code.  

“For example, there could be a place that’s zoned R4  -- high-density multifamily. But it could have something called a ‘Q condition,’ which is not easy to find in the books. It’ll say ‘for this region, R4 must have retail,’” Kahen said.  “And it’s kind of mind blowing because it’s obviously zoned for multifamily.” 

It’s re: code’s job, therefore, to reduce the need for such conditions — sometimes referred to as the phantom city code — so that zones alone could keep up with modern community plans. 

Fearing the “D” 

In LA, density is a political matter. 

Up until 1960, LA had a residential capacity of 10 million people, planning expert Greg Morrow said in Slate. But as real estate politics shifted toward the stronghold of homeowners associations, capacity diminished. Between the 60s and the early 2000s, LA was effectively “downzoned” by 60 percent, his findings show. 

Satisfying the dominant single-family interests of the time, height restrictions were enacted and commercial zones were made less flexible. The heaviest blow, however, came in 1986. Proposition U, which failed in the City Council but passed on the ballot, reduced the floor-area ratio of 85 percent of L.A.’s commercial zones by half. 

Los Angeles has yet to rebound from its downzoning in the latter half of the 20th century. Findings from a recent study by C. J. Gabbe, a recent PhD graduate of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, show that between 2002 and 2014, only about 1.1 percent of LA’s total land area had been upzoned. 

“The upzoning that occurred since 2002 to present day was a relative blip compared to the massive downzoning in the decades prior to that,” he told TRD

Experts project that modern-day zoning in LA can house up to 4.2 million people -- this means that LA is already at 95 percent capacity, considering its current population of more than 4 million, according to a January report published by the city. 

“Disingenuous” motives 

The NII’s Coalition to Preserve LA, which did not respond to requests to comment for this article, believe a two-year moratorium on all developments seeking a zone change will light a fire under the Council.

But some of NII’s biggest players have been instrumental in stalling planning progress in the past, detractors say. NII’s benefactor, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, hired the attorney who single-handedly defeated the Hollywood Plan update to spearhead its latest litigation against Crescent Heights, the Miami-based developer behind the Palladium Towers (photo, left) project on Sunset Boulevard. The attorney, Robert Silverstein, is known, unofficially, as LA’s most formidable NIMBY crusader. 

Sources said the AHF’s Michael Weinstein was also involved in some capacity in the fight against the Hollywood community plan update, but this could not be confirmed, and AHF and the Coalition to Preserve LA did not respond to requests for comment. 

In any case, the neighborhood associations that sued with Silverstein against the Hollywood plan were successful. In late 2013, LA County Superior Court Judge Allan Goodman ruled that city leaders did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act when they approved the plan, which addressed the area’s projected population growth and aimed to increase density in transit zones, such as the intersection of Sunset and Vine. 

Now, Hollywood is back to using its 1988 community plan, after the city spent more than a dozen years trying to revamp it, according to Goldberg. 

“It’s just disingenuous,” said Howe, the former Planning Director. “The [planning] department spent years on the update. There were over 60 public workshops and hearings and meetings and it was approved through a legal process, and then City Council, and then these people sued.” 

Slow progress 

In addition to curbing “luxury mega-projects that cause traffic gridlock,” the controversial March ballot measure would “make the City Council do its job, by creating a rational citywide plan for Los Angeles,” the Coalition to Preserve LA’s reads. 

The reality is that the city has already taken steps toward a gradual overhaul of the current system. It just may not be happening as fast as the NII — or as developers — would like it to. 

There’s the Comprehensive Zoning Code Revision Ordinance, signed by the Council in 2012. The policy assures funding for five years of Planning Department activity to update the 70-year-old zoning code. Then there’s the updates to the he city’s 35 community plans, as well as the broader General Plan, for which Mayor Eric Garcetti will hire 28 new planners. The new staff members will cost the city about $4.2 million a year. 

Still, critics say these changes fall short of immediately addressing the city’s dire affordable housing shortage. 

Looking out for the little guy  

While developers may be gung-ho for higher building capacities, density alone will not heal LA It takes community discussions, which are easier when the rules are clear. The real need, planners say, is just a little bit of certainty, from which both community members — yes, even NIMBYs — and builders can benefit. 

“We’re not saying every project should be by-right,” Howe said. “No one should be able to drop an application on the desk of the planning department and say, ‘Here it is.’ You’re supposed to talk about it.” 

Right now, only the developers with the resources and money to hire the most clever land use consultants can get their projects through. The dubious Sea Breeze development is a prime example of this flaw. In pursuing approval for the 352-unit development, developer Samuel Leung funneled $600,000 in campaign contributions to local politicians through his employees, friends and relatives, according to an October investigation by the LA Times. If the rules are clearer, Goldberg said, smaller builders will also be able to present their visions for the city. 

“It’s hard to build trust,” Goldberg said. “But I believe you can build consensus around the plan if you bring all the right people to the table.” 

Updating community plans does not mean resident input will be deemed obsolete. It is embedded in not only the zoning process but also the very ethos of the city, she said.  

“There’s never going to be a situation where some can just open up their plans and say ‘alright, I’m gonna set up shop and build right here’ — despite what development opponents may fear.” 

(Cathaleen Chen is a national web reporter for The Real Deal, where this piece was first posted.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

Garcetti: LA Has the Power to Fight Climate Change, Don’t Need Anyone to Show Us the Way

GOOD FOR LA, GOOD FOR THE WORLD--Mayor Eric Garcetti Wednesday reaffirmed Los Angeles’ commitment to tackling the climate crisis by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and making an unprecedented effort to boost the use of electric vehicles.(Photo above left: Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti at C40 Mayor’s Summit.)

In an address to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Mayor Garcetti committed LA to being among the first cities to explore and pursue every possible strategy for doing its part to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C — the scientifically accepted threshold for a dangerous level of planetary warming — as laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement. Mayor Garcetti has also instructed his Chief Sustainability Officer to analyze existing GHG reduction targets in the Los Angeles Sustainable City pLAn — including 80% GHG reductions by 2050 — and identify additional strategies to achieve a target that scientists view as critical to stemming climate change impacts that include sea level rise, extreme heat, and drought.

“Every city, every community, every individual has the power to fight climate change,” said Mayor Garcetti. “We do not need to wait for any one person or government to show us the way. Acting together as cities, we can set an example for our neighbors, spur clean energy innovation, clean up our air, and speed up the inevitable transition to a low-carbon, opportunity-rich future for us all.”

The Mayor also unveiled plans for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle to leverage city vehicle fleets to demonstrate substantial demand for electric vehicle (EV) purchases from major auto manufacturers — potentially leading to orders for more than 30,000 EVs. Los Angeles is already home to the country’s largest municipal EV fleet, and has the most aggressive procurement policy of any city in the United States — requiring 50% of all annual sedan fleet purchases to be fully electric.

Mayor Garcetti and 39 other U.S. mayors in the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda (MNCAA) have signed an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump to declare continued action and collaboration toward fully implementing the Paris Climate Agreement. 

“Simply put, we can all agree that fires, flooding, and financial losses are bad for our country, that we need to protect our communities’ most vulnerable residents who suffer the most from the impacts of climate change, and that we all need healthier air to breathe and a stronger economy —  rural and urban, Republican and Democrat  —  and in terms of our domestic quality of life and our standing abroad,” the MNCAA mayors wrote.

C40 is a network of the world’s largest cities committed to close collaboration and knowledge-sharing to drive meaningful, measurable action on climate change. At this year’s 2016 C40 Mayors Summit, city representatives and sustainability leaders are gathering in Mexico City to advance urban solutions to climate change.

 

(This article was provided CityWatch by the office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.)

-cw

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