PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

Hollywood Community Plan Update - A Fiasco in the Makine

2011-12-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

The Update of the Hollywood Community Plan is not only opposed by every neighborhood council and resident group in Hollywood, but also by city planning professionals like myself. I was part of the team of Los Angeles city planners who prepared the General Plan Framework in the mid-1990's, the adopted citywide plan which public officials, like Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilmembers Garcetti and

WHAT CRITICS SAY ABOUT THE PROPOSED UPDATE OF THE HOLLYWOOD COMMUNITY PLAN: BEWARE OF INTENDED CONSEQUENCES

2011-06-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

After 18 years of work, LA’s Department of City Planning has finally unveiled a draft update for the 1988 Hollywood Community Plan, including 105 pages of detailed amendments to increase permitted building densities in Hollywood, as well as a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). If or when this update is eventually adopted, it will then become a template for similar updates of LA’s 34 other

LA is country's third dirtiest city and least pedestrian friendly

2011-06-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

s « MORE TRAVEL IDEAS tweetSendPrintProvided by:America's Dirtiest CitiesCan clean be overrated? America's dirtiest cities happen to include some very popular tourist destinations.By Katrina Brown HuntNo. 1 New OrleansPhoto by: iStockMore from TravelandLeisure.comAmerica's Rudest PeopleVote for America's Most Attractive PeopleMore from Yahoo! TravelFind Special Offers & More SavingsCheck flight

Comments on update of the Hollywood Community Plan

2011-05-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

My views are that the most immediate planning issue in Los Angeles is the inadequacy of the DEIR for the update of the Hollywoood Community plan since its comment period closes on June 3, 2011.1) The plan's policy language is irrelevant. No decision makers ever look at it in making budget or land use decisions.2) The focus should be opposition to sections of the DEIR which sanction broad

McMansion Law Toothless, Scourage Continues Unabated

2011-05-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

LA NEIGHBORHOODSDick PlatkinThe Mayor recently signed a new ordinance adopted by the Los Angeles City Council tohalt the construction of McMansions on small hillside lots. These elected officials vowthat this ordinance will stop the mansionization process in hillside areas. But will it?If the Hillside McMansion ordinance is filled with loopholes similar to those of theBaseline McMansion

The Infrastructure Coalition

2011-05-06T23:52:00.001-07:00

A website covering the Infrastructure Coalition's lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles relating to the Annual Report on Growth and InfrastructureHomeSATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2011Infrastructure Lawsuit Appeal FiledThursday, April 14, 2011Infrastructure Lawsuit Appeal FiledFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Sabrina VenskusApril 14, 2011 (213) 482-4200venskus@lawsv.comInfrastructure Lawsuit Moves to Next

Commentary on LA Times article on 2010 census data

2011-04-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Commentary on article: In the decade of the 1980's, LA's annual growth rate was about 2 % per year, the basis for the General Plan Framework Element, which is based on extrapolations of 1990 census data. The city's growth rate has now slowed to .25 % per year over the past decade, and in most of Hollywood, there was actual population decline. Yet, the proposed Hollywood Community Plan Update

LA Times article on slowing growth rates in large Cal. cities

2011-04-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

Big cities' population boom slows to a trickle, census data show Some of California's largest cities, including Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego, saw their populations plateau or even decline from 2000 to 2010, ending a decades-long trend of expansion.By Ari Bloomekatz, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, April 24, 2011 http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-old-cities-20110424,0,5154235.

HOW CAN WE FIX L.A.’S PLANNING MESS?

2011-03-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

ASK THE PLANNER: By Dick Platkin* In response to several recent questions on how Los Angeles can fix its dysfunctional planning process, these are my suggestions. It all begins with the State of California’s legal requirement that cities must have legally adopted current, comprehensive, an internally consistent General Plans. So far so good. The Los Angeles City Planning Department has

Untangling Zoning Code Amendments in Los Angeles

2011-02-11T18:10:00.001-08:00

The Department of City Planning is undertaking a series of workshops on development reform throughout Los Angeles, which they also call zoning code streamlining, zoning code simplification, and zoning code amendments. This is my effort to untangle the maze of what is proposed under these confusing titles. Furthermore, some of the promotional materials for these planning workshops

Amazing Rainbow after Six Day and Nights of Rain

2010-12-28T01:11:00.000-08:00

Real Estate Speculation ramping up in L.A.

2010-12-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

When investors are sitting on $2 trillion in cash in the United States and foreign investors have even more, when market conditions are highly volatile, and when potential profitability quickly moves from one estate category to another, speculation runs rampant. Can "we" get a quick zone change and flip a property while it is still hot? Can "we" quickly build a project and extract some serious

New General Plan Urban Design Guidelines: More Baffling than Bad

2010-11-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

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

Failure to Implement LA's Community Plans

2010-11-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

Get Informed and Involved: The Failure to implement LA's Community PlansBy 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

Public employee pension 'reforms' recipe for disaster

2010-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

By Paul Weber, LA Daily News, August 29, 2010Posted:RECENTLY many opportunistic politicians around the state have been on rant against public employee pensions and calling for draconian "reform." A more accurate description of would be: "It's about time public employees joined the race to the bottom."While many of the people, including the Daily News, calling for reform are acknowledging that

Critique of proposed Design Guidelines for Framework

2010-09-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

I have quickly looked over the three sets of design guidelines and have several reactions. First, the Framework already has a design chapter, Chapter 5, which is quite good. If these three sets of design guidelines are to augment and update the Framework as appendices, then why is there is no effort to connect these new guidelines with the existing, adopted guidelines? There are obviously many

Analysis of Management Changes at LA’s Planning Department

2010-07-27T00:04:00.000-07:00