PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

On Wednesday, November 10, 2010 , the Los Angeles City Council adopted the new Community Plan Implementation Overlay District Ordinance (CPIO) -- without hearing any public testimony . This new ordinance is enabling legislation which allows the City of Los Angeles to ostensibly implement a Community Plan through an overlay zoning ordinance covering an entire Community Plan area. In addition, a CPIO can have sub-areas as small as a single lot (i.e., spot zoning). But would such local zoning ordinances actually implement a Community Plan? The answer is: hardly at all. The title of this new legislation misleads the public, in particular because, in practice, CPIO’s could usher in many zoning and environmental changes to local communities which conflict with Community Plans. This is because the nexus between a CPIO and the Community Plan it purports to implement is tenuous. In fact, the Council’s enabling legislation contains no criteria to determine if a C...

The Los Angeles Department of City Planning is currently preparing three related sets of detailed urban design guidelines. They separately address future residential, commercial, and industrial projects. Once approved by the City Planning Commission, these guidelines will become an appendix to the General Plan Framework Element, the backbone of the Los Angeles General Plan. These guidelines are not binding, but would be advisory for discretionary actions (e.g., plan amendments, zone changes) for which there are no approved or adopted design guidelines otherwise available to decision makers. Full copies of these guidelines, including background information, can found at City Planning’s web-site: http://cityplanning.lacity.org/code_studies/CDOGuidelines/CDG_FAQ.pdf As I explain below, the preparation and on-going public information campaign to promote these Design Guidelines is baffling for at least three reasons, and I have little doubt that readers will find additional wrinkles regar...

Get Informed and Involved: The Failure to implement LA's Community Plans By Ron Kaye on November 9, 2010 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) Editor's Note: The assault on planning rules that protect neighborhoods and require processes that give the public a voice is in his gear. The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday will vote on a proposed ordinance that will fundamentally change how Community Plans are updated. It would enable the city to effectively upzone and change zoning within Community Plan areas without a formal Community Plan update, to spot-zone individual sites with only adjustments and exceptions without requriing variances, potentially override existing Community Design Overlay Districts, Pedestrian Oriented Districts and Q conditions and undermine the new Baseline Hillside Ordinance, according to LA Neighbors United. This article by former city planner, Dick Platkin, now a planning consultant, helps explain the issue. By Dick Platkin (r...