Power Outages Remind Us Why Density and Infrastructure Planning are Important to LA
THE CITY--According to DWP estimates, more than 80,000 people were affected by power outages during last weekend’s record-breaking high temperatures.
This despite DWP assurances earlier in the week that it had “adequate resources” to meet electrical demands in the forecasted heat wave. After ratepayers from Northridge to Florence and from the Palisades to Pasadena were left sweltering in the dark, utility officials explained that the city’s aging infrastructure was to blame.
In Beverly Grove, we had 20 or so sweaty hours to bear witness to the fragility of that infrastructure and to ruminate on the wisdom of policies that promote density and increase the load on our aging, rickety power grid.
Like many other parts of the city, Beverly Grove has been hit hard by mansionization ‒still unchecked, despite a raft of ordinances ‒ and a host of ambitious commercial and institutional developments. Backers of these large-scale projects tart up their plans with threadbare claims of civic benefits (affordable housing and transit-oriented development being perennial favorites), and they demand relief from size limits, setbacks, parking requirements, environmental review, and other such onerous regulations.
As it happens, just days before the power outage, local activists met with CD-5 Councilmember Paul Koretz to discuss pending projects and to stress the need to consider their cumulative impact on our community’s scale, character, traffic, schools, emergency response, and environment. And, oh yeah, on water and power.
These are points that concerned residents have made before. Many times. Points that have been brushed aside. Many times. City officials justify dubious development projects with sanctimonious hogwash about affordable housing. They pass feel-good regulations that lack any credible mechanism for enforcement. They make policy based on wishful thinking.
Twelve years ago, widespread power outages during a heat wave forced the DWP’s hand, and they cooked up a “power reliability” program to upgrade equipment. Two years ago, city leaders green-lighted rate hikes to address needed improvements to the power infrastructure. Reliability goals remain unmet. The LA Timesreported that, “Utility officials said the agency nonetheless compares well with other electrical utilities.” Where? In Puerto Rico?
The latest power outages make it abundantly clear that the city needs to invest in adequate infrastructure beforeramming more grandiose projects through the pipeline, however exalted the rationale.
Will the latest system-wide failure be a wake-up call? Not without relentless pushback from voters. We cannot afford the luxury of more wishful thinking.
(Shelley Wagers took a lead role in the campaign to amend and strengthen LA’s citywide mansionization ordinances. She is an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)
-cw
