PLANNING WATCH / PLAN-IT LOS ANGELES

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 LeBonge, claim the Update implements. In fact, the Update totally conflicts with LA's General Plan. It is nothing more than the city planning version of the fantasy film, Field of Dreams, in which an Iowa farmer built a baseball diamond that magically materialized high caliber baseball teams and games. The politicians promoting this "plan" believe that a slew of mega-projects in Hollywood will propel economic growth. Nothing could be further from the truth, which is why the General Plan Framework is strongly opposed to such real estate bubbles. First, Hollywood's public i...

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 community plans. In theory, it also could become a model for Specific Plan amendments to permitting greater densities. Because of the Hollywood plan’s importance to potentially alter private land use patters all throughout Los Angeles , many analysts have carefully scrutinized the draft, especially its DEIR, and submitted their analyses to the Department of City Planning. Among these many submissions, one theme stands out; the Draft Environmental Impact Report does not present a credible planning rationale for the proposed Community Plan update. The following six points summarize muc...

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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 increases in density through general plan amendments and zone changes because: -- They will become a template for dramatic increases in permitted densities in the remaining 34 community plans. -- There is no planning rationale for this up-planning and up-zoning based on the "growth neutrality" intent of the Genera Plan Framework Element. The city, according to the Framework, has enormous untapped potential for population and housing expansion based on established plan designations and zones. -- In fact, in the Hollywood Community Plan's implementation program up-zoning and up-...

LA NEIGHBORHOODS Dick Platkin The Mayor recently signed a new ordinance adopted by the Los Angeles City Council to halt the construction of McMansions on small hillside lots. These elected officials vow that 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 the Baseline McMansion ordinance enacted several years ago for non-hillside areas, hillside residents should be very wary. This is because the Baseline ordinance still allowed McMansions to be constructed -- as long as they were less than about 4,500 square feet. Since this p rovision effectively green-lighted nearly all McMansions, especially in the R1-1 zone, the Mansionization process has continued unabated in Los Angeles. To begin, McMansions are those boxy, massively oversized, suburban-style spec houses appearing in older neighborhoods, such as Beverly Grove, where I live. They are all two stories and built by ...

A website covering the Infrastructure Coalition's lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles relating to the Annual Report on Growth and Infrastructure Home SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2011 Infrastructure Lawsuit Appeal Filed Thursday, April 14, 2011 Infrastructure Lawsuit Appeal Filed FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact : Sabrina Venskus April 14, 2011 (213) 482-4200 venskus@lawsv.com Infrastructure Lawsuit Moves to Next Phase An appeal was filed today by several Los Angeles community groups to overturn a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s denial of their landmark lawsuit to force the city to produce and implement its Annual Report on Growth and Infrastructure . Superior Court Judge John Torribio ruled the City of Los Angeles need not follow mandatory duties and mitigation measures set out in its General Plan Framework Element, the City’s “land use constitution”. The appeal requesting review of the decision was filed in the Second District Court by group attorneys Sabrina Venskus and Doug Carstens...