MID CITY WEST COMMUNITY COUNCIL

 

MOTION OF PUBLIC POLICY COMMITTEE

 

TO BE PRESENTED AT BOARD MEETING MAY 10, 2005

 

 

THE MOTION:   The Public Policy Committee moves that the Mid City West Community Council adopt the following position regarding the criteria to be used in selecting the new Planning Director for the City of Los Angeles:

 

Los Angeles is a world-class city.  In the coming years, the City will face enormous challenges and a great number of opportunities.  Los Angeles needs and deserves a Planning Director who is determined to maintain and enhance Los Angeles’ status as a world-class city.  The Planning Director should not only have the vision and creativity to imagine what the City should look like well into the 21st century, but also the practical experience and management skills necessary to transform that vision into a reality.

 

The City Must Actively Recruit Candidates

 

We urge the City to make a significant effort to recruit and attract candidates for the position of Planning Director, including publication and outreach through appropriate professional associations and publications.  Every Planning Director in the United States and major cities abroad should be aware of Los Angeles’ search.  We have grave concerns that the City has not made such an effort.  For example, the position of Planning Director has not been posted on the website of the American Planning Association.  This necessitates extending the May 20, 2005 application deadline.  It is more important to pick the right Planning Director than to pick one quickly.

 

            Transportation and Traffic Issues Are Paramount

 

Throughout Los Angeles, traffic congestion and public transportation issues are paramount.  The Planning Director must think creatively about solutions to the traffic congestion in Los Angeles.  A key element is to encourage development along key rail, Metro Rapid and other major transportation routes, and to facilitate the development of non-motorized forms of transportation such as bicycles and walking.  The Planning Director must implement the policy shift in Los Angeles’ General Plan away from trying to build our way out of congestion problems and toward putting new homes and jobs in areas that are well-served by public transit.  The Planning Director should have a demonstrated ability to work with other government agencies, such as the City Department of Transportation, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and CalTrans, to ensure that real estate development is harmonized with transportation development. 

 

            The Planning Director Must Have A Vision For Our Great City

 

  The new Planning Director must be a visionary.  The Planning Director should have significant (and preferably hands-on) experience with innovative planning successes from other urban areas, and should be willing to investigate, and possibly adopt, new concepts, such as moving away from the traditional use-based zoning code to a simple form-based code, and allowing and encouraging shared parking facilities instead of parking at every building.

 

  The citizens of the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles School District and Los Angeles County have enacted a number of bond measures for construction of schools, libraries, parks and transit projects.  In addition, there are a number of proposals for significant privately-financed development in Los Angeles.  The Planning Director must be committed to working with other City Departments, and regional and statewide agencies, to ensure that their policies and planning efforts do not undermine the City’s planning efforts to create a healthy and more sustainable city.  In particular, the Planning Director should be committed to ensuring that these new facilities are located such that they have a synergistic effect, such as co-locating new schools, parks and public libraries, putting senior housing near medical facilities, ensuring that new parks are adequately served by public transit, and coordinating possible refurbishment of the Coliseum with construction of the Exposition Line.

 

Communities Must Be Involved In Planning Decisions

 

The City’s General Plan includes positive guidelines for creating healthy communities, including encouraging transit-oriented development, mixed-use projects, and walkable and bikeable neighborhoods.  The Planning Director must be committed to these guidelines. 

 

The Planning Director must ensure that the General Plan goals are pursued at the Community Plan, Specific Plan and project levels, and must be committed to ensuring that these plans are reviewed and updated on a regular basis.  In addition, the Planning Director must establish a proactive community planning process that is inclusive, participatory and gives voice to the concerns of diverse neighborhoods while meeting citywide goals.  In particular, the Planning Director must be committed to affirmatively reaching out to Neighborhood Councils to ensure that that have meaningful involvement in all stages of the planning process.  At the same time, the Planning Director must be strong enough to resist (Not-In-My-BackYard) NIMBY-ism and ensure that all parts of the City share in the burdens and benefits of increased development.

 

We are opposed to expedited permitting as a development incentive, as such incentives limit the ability of Neighborhood Councils and the citizens of Los Angeles to provide input on discretionary land use decisions. 

 

            Preserving And Enhancing Neighborhoods

 

The Planning Director must ensure that future residential and commercial development is designed to enhance a sense of community, rather than encourage Angelenos to turn inward into their own homes or businesses.  In addition to having a broad vision for Los Angeles, the Planning Director must be detail-oriented enough to tackle development conflicts that involve neighborhood or site-specific issues.  For example, in many areas of the City, adjacent lots have inconsistent zoning, e.g., high-density residential or commercial zoning immediately adjacent to single-family or low-density residential.  The Planning Director should be committed to a detailed review of zoning maps and ordinances, and an adjustment of zoning where appropriate.  In some cases, that may lead to up-zoning of lots that have had significant development around them, or down-zoning or implementation of “Q” conditions. 

 

The Planning Director must recognize that, although Los Angeles is a relatively young city, it nevertheless has a significant amount of historically significant architecture that makes important contributions to the character of neighborhoods throughout the City.  The Planning Director must be committed to development that balances the City’s future with its historical architectural and cultural legacy.  

 

The Planning Director should explore community planning tools to ensure safe and livable neighborhoods, such as zoning to limit or reduce concentrations of liquor stores or sexually-oriented businesses, converting trash-strewn alleys and vacant lots into community gardens or pocket parks, and planting trees in and around school yards for shade and energy savings. 

 

            We Need More Affordable Housing

 

Los Angeles lacks enough affordable housing.  The creation of a Housing Trust was in important step forward, but the City needs additional policy tools to ensure that more affordable units are built and that the issues of homelessness and substandard housing are directly addressed.  The Planning Director must rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of these various policy tools.  The Planning Director must be committed to ensuring that a sufficient amount of the new housing in Los Angeles is affordable, and that new housing includes a mix of rental and owner-occupied housing.  We are concerned about the demolition of affordable rent-controlled rental housing and the construction of expensive market-rate condominiums in their place.

           

            We Need To Reduce The Divides That Separate Our Residents

 

There is an enormous divide between low-income and higher-income people and communities in Los Angeles.  The Planning Director must directly address this divide in planning for the City’s future.  On the one hand, it is essential that, in creating and preserving mixed-income communities, we improve rather than lose precious affordable housing, local jobs and tight-knit communities.  On the other hand, it is equally essential that new development provide the broadest possible benefit to the larger community:  living wage jobs, local hiring, affordable housing, and neighborhood services.  Planning policies must facilitate this kind of high-road development to support a healthy economy for Los Angeles.

 

We Need Updated Community Plans

 

The Planning Department is supposed to update community plans every five years.  Most of our 35 community plans are outdated..  In order to make our planning process work, we need a Planning Director who will work hard to ensure that community plans are up to date.

 

            Other Issues 

 

The City of Los Angeles recently adopted an ordinance to require independent economic assessments of certain categories of new, large retail establishments, i.e., “big box” stores.  The Planning Director must implement the new ordinance and require design strategies to minimize the impacts of these giant stores.  For example, new home improvement centers must be designed to accommodate “day laborer” sites.  In addition, new development must be designed to enhance, rather than destroy, existing pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly neighborhood retail areas. 

 

The City of Los Angeles has made advances in the development of green buildings and renewable energy.  The new Planning Director should take the next step by exploring additional strategies such as providing incentives, possibly including density bonuses and fee waivers, for developments that use green building practices or include clean energy technologies.

 

The Public Policy Committee also moves that the Chair of the Public Policy Committee be directed to communicate this position to appropriate persons in the Office of the Mayor, Councilmembers LaBonge, Ludlow and Weiss, and other appropriate persons in City government; to follow-up to determine the treatment our input has received; and to report back to the Board. 

 

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:  The City of Los Angeles currently is seeking a new Planning Director.  The Planning Director is the head of the Department of City Planning, which

 

·         prepares and maintains a general plan which is a comprehensive declaration of purposes, policies and programs for the development of the City including such elements as land use, conservation, circulation, service systems, highways, public works facilities, branch administrative centers, schools, recreational facilities and airports;

·         regulates the use of privately-owned property through community planning, zoning regulation specific plan ordinances and State laws and through the approval of proposed subdivisions; and

·         investigates and reports on applications for amendments to zoning regulations, and passes upon zone variance and conditional use applications.

 

On February 27, 2005, Mayor James Hahn invited Neighborhood Councils to provide input regarding the criteria to be used by the City in selecting the new Planning Director.  Because the Planning Director undoubtedly will have a strong influence on future development in the City, and in the MCWCC area, it is important that MCWCC’s voice be heard on this issue.  The application period currently is scheduled to close  

 

The objective of this motion is to provide the MCWCC’s input on this important, and to do so in a manner that will permit other Neighborhood Councils to sign on to this motion.   To a large degree, the content of this motion is derived from an “open letter” drafted by a professor at Occidental College and endorsed by a variety of community organizations.  The open letter was modified by Jeff Jacobberger and Ryan Snyder to address issues that were not included in the open letter, such as the inadequate recruitment process, and because some of the specific recommendations in the open letter, such as the endorsement of an inclusionary zoning ordinance, are not consistent with positions previously taken by the MCWCC.

 

FINANCIAL COST:    None.             

 

COMMITTEE MAJORITY VIEW:  The Committee recommends that the Board adopt the motion.  The Committee vote was 4-0.

 

COMMITTEE MINORITY VIEW:   None.

 

PASSED BY  THE BOARD May 10, 2005