PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

How to Smoke Out Flacks for Luxury High-Rise Projects Who Masquerade as Friends of the Down-and-Out BY DICK PLATKIN, City Watch LA,   04 FEBRUARY 2016 LOS ANGELES PREVIOUS ARTICLE California’s June Primary: Better Late than Never? NEXT ARTICLE Public’s Voice Drowned Out … Billboard Companies Spend Millions Lobbying LA Officials PLATKIN ON PLANNING-In the dystopian movie about Los Angeles,  “Blade Runner,”  the lead character, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), was an expert at sleuthing out Replicants. They are androids so human that only an expert can detect them with 20 to 30 questions triggering an emotional response through a "Voight-Kampff" machine.  In the case of an experimental android model named Rachael, Ford/Deckard ultimately determines that she, too, is a Replicant…but it takes him 100 questions to do this. Nevertheless, he falls in love with her.  While I cannot promise that you will fall in love with the flacks and shills promoting unsustainable, lu

Phony Sustainability Arguments Used to justify High-Rise, Luxury Buildings DICK PLATKIN, City Watch LA,   01 FEBRUARY 2016 LOS ANGELES PLATKIN ON PLANNING--When investors decide to plunk their own money -- or more likely someone else’s money – into high-rise buildings, usually with luxury apartments or condos, their motivation is to turn a handsome profit.  Despite their public persona, their investment decisions have nothing to do with self-serving claims about LA’s housing crisis, demographic trends, transit use, or land use policies promoting Transit Oriented Development.  Developers invoke these arguments, especially proximity to transit, when they happen to coincide with their projects. This is why the same high-rise, luxury buildings shoot up in many neighborhoods where the only transit service is a bus line. Examples of these luxury buildings can be found in many LA areas, such as Warner Center and Century City, where the entire built environment is based on cars.