The FAIR LA Housing Plan allows real estate speculators to profit from the housing crisis. It is sophisticated nonsense. By Dick Platkin* A reader asked me to review Abundant Housing’s Fair LA housing plan. It contains an elaborate formula, disconnected from the legally required planning process, to up-zone all of Los Angeles, with most up-zoning directed at affluent neighborhoods. If adopted, it would lift the zoning code’s restrictions on density, height, mass, and open space throughout the entire city. I have previously dubbed this approach to city planning urban Reaganomics because its goal is to increase housing supply through deregulation. But, unlike Ronald Reagan, its advocates pawn themselves off as “progressives” so their developer-friendly proposals can gain political traction in liberal Los Angeles. For example, they invoke the name of Bernie Sanders, while totally rejecting his approach to the housing crisis: restore HUD public housing programs and raise wages. ...
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Want to Finally do Something about Homelessness? Let's End Phony Solutions.
Please be in touch to add or delete names from this e-mail service. Links to archived previous columns below. Want to Finally Do Something about Homelessness? Let’s End Phony Solutions. By Dick Platkin, CityWatchLA, December 10, 2020 Planning Watch: When Albert Einstein famously observed, “God does not play dice with the universe,” his insight about universal laws of physics also applies to human affairs. We do not have a worsening homeless crisis because some supernatural being is hurling lightning bolts at us. Instead, the current housing crisis, including homelessness, overcrowding, out-migration, and rent-gouging, has very real lessons about its causes and solutions. (Photo above: Rendering of Cumulus luxury apartment project at Jefferson and La Cienega, near the Expo light rail line.) The most important lesson is to end supposed solutions that visibly make the housing crisis worse. In specific, I am referring to proposals from the California state legislat...
Will Joe Biden become the climate change President? Don’t get your hopes up.
Will Joe Biden become the climate change President? Don’t get your hopes up. By Dick Platkin, CityWatchLA, December 3, 2020 https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/20855-will-joe-biden-become-the-climate-change-president-don-t-get-your-hopes-up Planning Watch: Because Donald Trump has a well-deserved reputation for making the climate crisis worse, many pro-Biden pundits believed that Biden’s victory over Trump means the United States government will now take the climate crisis seriously. They point to Biden’s appointment of former Secretary of State John Kerry as his climate change envoy. Press reports indicate that Kerry’s first assignment will be orchestrating U.S. reentry into the Paris Climate Accords. But, before anyone prematurely pops the champagne corks, these are several reasons why the ascendancy of a Biden-led Democratic Party will barely impact the climate crisis. True, Trump’s tantrums and tweets wi...
When it comes to its urban forest, Los Angeles is not a nanny state.
When it comes to its urban forest, Los Angeles is not a nanny state . By Dick Platkin* https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/20808-when-it-comes-to-its-urban-forest-los-angeles-is-not-a-nanny-state (Please note photos and comments in the published version.) Even though Los Angeles has a nearly perfect climate, fall is best time to plant new trees and save LA’s existing trees. Trees, after all, are nature’s way to combat the climate crisis by cooling heat islands and sequestering rapidly rising atmospheric carbon. In addition, trees enhance rainwater absorption, provide shade, generate oxygen, buffer glare and noise, host urban wildlife, and are beautiful in their own right. Historically, only five species of trees are native to Los Angeles, but due to LA’s semi-tropical climate, over 1000 tree species now grow here, and the City permits 150 tree species on its parkways (the city-owne...
Updating the Hollywood Community Plan. Tragedy in 2012 and farce in 2020.
Updating the Hollywood Community Plan. Tragedy in 2012 and farce in 2020. By Dick Platkin* https://www.citywatchla.com/index.php/cw/los-angeles/20776-updating-the-hollywood-community-plan-tragedy-in-2012-and-farce-in-2020 If you forgot that history repeats itself , first as tragedy and the second time as farce, you only need to look at City Hall’s repeated efforts to update the Hollywood Community Plan. Despite two decades of updating, Superior Court Judge Allan Goodman overturned the 2012 Update for being fundamentally and fatally flawed . Judge Goodman offered these reasons : ...