EDITOR’S NOTE: The new Hollywood Community Plan has proven to be as unstoppable as a runaway train barreling down the tracks. Community activists and many experts in planning see it as nothing but a license to densify Hollywood and serve as a model for every other community in the city — potentially allowing for doubling the city’s population even as it eliminates the opportunity to effectively protest. Advocates say it sets up a single framework that will reduce the influence of lobbyists and take politics out of project approvals. “The
future of Los Angeles depends on this sound approach to city planning, not the
Wall Street-friendly, deregulatory approach approved by the City Planning
Commission,” concludes Dick Platkin, a highly respected former city planner, who wrote this article based on his testimony to the commission. Platkin is now a Los Angeles-based city planning consultant and can be reached at rhplatkin@yahoo.com
WHY THE PLANNING COMMISSION SHOULD HAVE REJECTED
THE UPDATE OF THE HOLLYWOOD COMMUNITY PLAN
BY Dick Platkiin
The
City Planning Commission (CPC) approved the proposed update to the Hollywood
Community Plan on Thursday. It will quickly be sent to the City Council, and
after that become the template for increasing the zoned and planned density of
LA’s 34 other Community Plans, including six which be unveiled in 2012. Real
estate speculators, who now must go through public hearings, environmental
reviews, and appeals for most of their projects, will soon be able to quickly
build these same projects “by right.” In most cases, the public will learn
about these new mega-projects when construction begins.
These
were my comments on why I think this Community Plan Update is so flawed it
should have been rejected outright, not approved, by the City Planning
Commission.
CRITIQUE: Because the Hollywood Community Plan is part
of the Land Use Element of the General Plan, it is fully subject to State of
California planning codes and administrative guidelines.This update must not
only be consistent with the Los Angeles General Plan, in particular the General
Plan Framework Element, but also be timely and comprehensive. I will explain
how the proposed update and its attached ordinances do not meet any of these
legal or administrative requirements.
The
Plan itself and its companion ordinances have six fatal flaws.Any one of these
flaws should be sufficient for the City Planning Commission to return the Plan
to the Department of City Planning for comprehensive revisions.Six such fatal
flaws should, however, result in a full rejection of the Update, and the CPC
should direct the Department of City Planning to initiate a new planning
process, beginning with an update of the expired General Plan Framework Element
based on new 2010 census data.
FLAW 1)
FAILURE TO CALCULATE BUILD-OUT. Based on the growth neutral purpose and intent
of the General Plan Framework Element, the Hollywood Community Plan Update and
its support documents do not present a credible planning rationale for the
Plan’s 105 pages of up-planning and up-zoning implementation ordinances. Los
Angeles, according to the General Plan Framework Element, has enormous untapped
land use capacity for population and housing expansion based on current (ca.
1995), legally adopted plan designations and zones. In fact, the Framework
demonstrated that Los Angeles could more than double its population – from under
four million to eight million – without changing any of its zones or plan
designations.
To
exceed these existing densities in Hollywood, as in all Los Angeles
communities, the City must, therefore, present a clear justification. It should
be based on documented increases in population growth and housing demand that
are so extensive that they have outstripped locally permitted densities. In the case of this Community Plan Update,
however, there is no such analysis of the remaining build-out potential for the
privately zoned parcels in the Hollywood Plan area. Likewise there is no
demonstration that these private parcels cannot meet the future needs for the
plan area’s projected population, housing, and employment.
This
is the exact approach of the General Plan Framework to increases in density,
and for the Hollywood Community Plan Update
to be consistent with the General Plan, it must follow — not reject — this
same methodology.
FLAW
2) VIOLATION OF TIMELY REQUIREMENT: The process of updating this community plan
is based on old data, and hence does not meet the State requirement that all General
Plan documents be timely. California State planning laws and guidelines require
General Plans, including their land use elements (e.g., the Hollywood Community
Plan) to be current and internally consistent among their required and optional
elements. In this case the General Plan Framework Element is based on 1990
census data that was extended to the Plan’s 2010 horizon year. The update of
the Hollywood Community Plan, which is supposed to flesh out the Framework Element
at the local level, is, however, based on year 2000 data, augmented by a 2005
estimate, and then extended to the year 2030. The two plans are not only
inconsistent with each other, but neither is current because the new 2010
census data is now available, was submitted to the Department of City Planning,
and should have been used for all plan reviews and updates, including the
General Plan, the General Plan Land Use Element (e.g. Hollywood Community Plan),
and related ordinances attached to the Community Plan update.
If
2010 census data possessed by City Planning had been used for the Update and its
Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), they would have demonstrated that
Hollywood had a serious population decline from 2000 to 2010, about 15,000
people, on top of a totally static population from 1990-2000. This means that the FEIR’s population
projections, obtained from the Department of City Planning and from the
Southern California Association of Governments, are highly inflated,
inaccurate, and therefore not acceptable for the FEIR. However, even if these outmoded and inflated
population numbers were accepted, there is absolutely no evidence in the Plan
or its support documents that existing plan designations and zones cannot meet
this population’s exaggerated needs for housing and employment.
FLAW
3) IMPROPER SEQUENCING: Furthermore, to meet the requirements of
timeliness and comprehensiveness, an accurate update of a community plan must
begin with the General Plan Framework Element.
This element, integrating the Los Angeles General Plan, was intended to
expire in 2010 and should now be totally revised based on new 2010 census data,
in combination with subsequent demographic and infrastructure data. Once this process is completed and the General
Plan is brought up-to-date, only then should the 35 local community plans,
including Hollywood, be updated. But, to
apply an outdated citywide General Plan locally, much less with different base
and horizon years, defies both common sense and State of California planning
guidelines.
FLAW
4) CONSISTENCY FAILURE BY TURNING THE
FRAMEWORK ON ITS HEAD: In fact, in the
Hollywood Community Plan’s implementation program of up-zoning and up-planning
is being proposed to openly encourage growth to meet secondary Framework goals,
such as transit use and housing. This is an approach which turns LA’s
growth neutral General Plan Framework Element on its head. It also conflicts with Charter Sections 556
and 558, which require consistency with the intent and purposes of the General
Plan. Growth neutrality means that the role of transit is to serve the
public’s growing need for mobility.
Therefore, calls to increase density in Hollywood as a planning tool to expand
transit use or housing units absolutely conflict with the intent and purposes
of the General Plan.
FLAW
5) FAILURE TO MONITOR INFRASTRUCTURE: The city’s infrastructure, which has not been
monitored in over 12 years, and in some categories not planned through the
General Plan process in over 40 years, cannot handle existing user demand, much
less the demands of the larger population which is intended to result from the
extensive up-planning and up-zoning of Hollywood. Without demonstrating unused infrastructure
capacity, there should be no increases in permitted density according to the
General Plan Framework. Furthermore,
there does not appear to be any proposal in the FEIR or Plan to monitor local
infrastructure conditions, including changing demographics and user demand, as
well as the effectiveness of the updated Plan’s policies and programs.
FLAW
6) FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT THE PLAN THROUGH
IMPROVED PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES:
The Final Environmental Impact Report and the Plan itself address public
services and infrastructure, yet the 11 action items which City Planning
Department presented to the City Planning Commission, which the Commission
approved Commission, are directed at expanding private development, not public
services and infrastructure. What about Plan implementation in the form
of improving public services and public infrastructure? Hollywood needs
better alternative transportation like bike lanes, it needs a better urban
forest, it needs pocket parks, it needs adequate maintenance on its streets and
sidewalks, and much more? The City has a vehicle for keeping track on
much of these public improvements in the form of the Capital Improvement
Program, yet the silence on such implementation was deafening as the
“developers plan” was presented and approved.
CONCLUSION? This plan and its associated FEIR and
implementation ordinances should be returned to the Department of City
Planning. They should be revised after
the General Plan Framework Element is fully updated based on new census data. The future of Los Angeles depends on this sound
approach to city planning, not the Wall Street-friendly, deregulatory approach
approved by the City Planning Commission.
Mr. Platkin says that the city should follow the law when making Plans. Ha! L.A. in general and Garcetti’s Hollywood in particular are Pay to Play towns. There is only one law — He would has the gold rules.
Look at the absolute jerks on the Planning Commission and by jerk I mean Michael Woo. After delaying the start of the hearing by 5 hours, Jerky Woo proclaims that the reason there are so people to speak against the Hollywood Plan is that it is such a great plan and everyone loves it! Liar, liar pants on fire — oer 1/2 the people had to leave since the Commissions gave the public the wrong time for the hearing.
The LAPD or the LDFD sent captains to explain the dangers lurking in the Plan. But the jerks could not extent the courtesy to the LAPD or LAFD to speak early, but they did allow a council aid to Koretz to rush up and praise the plan as he had pressing business. Really! Was there a murder, a burning building and this council aid had to waddle over and tend to?
That is the attitude of the City — pressing business is whatever the developers want, but the LAPD and the LAFD can go to the back of the bus. [Both the LAPD and the LAFD had to tend to business an leave rather than wait more hours to speak.]
So, let’s say the plan weren’t severely flawed.
What makes them think they’ll be able to fill all the units they’re planning to build when people are stampeding out of the city as well as the state?
Didn’t I read right here on this site that AEG is stuck with a building full of unsold condos downtown except for the one, one of their bigshots bought? And he probably won’t live there, because he couldn’t get a good night’s sleep because of all the glitzy, flashing, blinking supergraphics his company has plastered on the sides of buildings.
A pox on all their “houses!”
Every single community activist in the City who reads this Blog: This is a time for action, not sitting on your butt and “expressing sympathy” for what Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti, Paul Koretz, Michael LoGrande, Bill Roshen, and Michael Woo have done to screw the people who live in Hollywood. These actions will be repeated and repeated throughout the City until they come to strangle your Community Plan too. To pick up the famous ACT-UP AIDS slogan: SILENCE=DEATH. Your silence allows the City Council to kill the quality of life in Hollywood and other community plans down the line.
This article and your own calls to your community organizations and membership need to hear from you why this action, without factual basis or respecting the planning laws of the State and City, must be withdrawn by the City.
They KNOW the 2010 census figures wipe out the rationale for ANY upzoning and upplanning. They KNOW they have not monitored the City’s infrastructure for 12 years and that it cannot handle the density planned. They KNOW parking in Hollywood is a disaster because they blindly follow Michael Woo’s baseless claim that everyone now should live in an apartment and not be given sufficient parking in order to “force” people to use transit.
Here’s a planning concept for Woo: When you make people’s life in Hollywood shitty, they move to other cities like Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Southbay or Long Beach. Or worse, they just move out of state because they don’t want to live in the artifical Hollywood hell hole you created with by-right ability of developers and banks to build a “taller slum.”
Occupy LA: Activists need to engage the protesters from Occupy LA. There needs to be a protest NOW. You can bet that Garcetti will rush this item onto the Council’s last week’s agendas before the Christmas vacation begins. It is a well-known trick of the dirtbags who inhabit our City Hall. Garcetti says he is all about transparency and then rams this thing through during the holidays because he KNOWS he can suppress public outcry during this time of year.
We must all paste this link into our mass email lists and send out alerts all over the City. Someone from Hollywood needs to put together a form protest letter for people to send into all Council members. If you do not turn out large numbers of people to protest, the real estate developers and bankers will effectively rape Hollywood.
This is a call for action CITYWIDE.
Every single community activist in the City who reads this Blog: This is a time for action, not sitting on your butt and “expressing sympathy” for what Antonio Villaraigosa, Eric Garcetti, Paul Koretz, Michael LoGrande, Bill Roshen, and Michael Woo have done to screw the people who live in Hollywood. These actions will be repeated and repeated throughout the City until they come to strangle your Community Plan too. To pick up the famous ACT-UP AIDS slogan: SILENCE=DEATH. Your silence allows the City Council to kill the quality of life in Hollywood and other community plans down the line.
This article and your own calls to your community organizations and membership need to hear from you why this action, without factual basis or respecting the planning laws of the State and City, must be withdrawn by the City.
They KNOW the 2010 census figures wipe out the rationale for ANY upzoning and upplanning. They KNOW they have not monitored the City’s infrastructure for 12 years and that it cannot handle the density planned. They KNOW parking in Hollywood is a disaster because they blindly follow Michael Woo’s baseless claim that everyone now should live in an apartment and not be given sufficient parking in order to “force” people to use transit.
Here’s a planning concept for Woo: When you make people’s life in Hollywood shitty, they move to other cities like Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Southbay or Long Beach. Or worse, they just move out of state because they don’t want to live in the artifical Hollywood hell hole you created with by-right ability of developers and banks to build a “taller slum.”
Occupy LA: Activists need to engage the protesters from Occupy LA. There needs to be a protest NOW. You can bet that Garcetti will rush this item onto the Council’s last week’s agendas before the Christmas vacation begins. It is a well-known trick of the dirtbags who inhabit our City Hall. Garcetti says he is all about transparency and then rams this thing through during the holidays because he KNOWS he can suppress public outcry during this time of year.
We must all paste this link into our mass email lists and send out alerts all over the City. Someone from Hollywood needs to put together a form protest letter for people to send into all Council members. If you do not turn out large numbers of people to protest, the real estate developers and bankers will effectively rape Hollywood.
This is a call for action CITYWIDE.
9:57 – nah, not going to happen and it’s too late. The time for change was in 2009 but most were too busy to be bothered to vote. Or some of you were too uppity to consider voting for an outsider like Walter Moore. Getting rid of Villar would be the first step in cleaning up the corrupt next of city departments, boards etc
Now the special interests are even more entrenched and have even deeper pockets. So the next mayor is going to be either garcetti or gruel whether you like or not.
The only way to vote in LA and CA is with your feet.
Misanthrope is correct. There is no guarantee that the Hollywood mega-projects which would be built by-right through the zone change ordinances attached to the Hollywood Community Plan update will have condo buyers, apartment renters, and store and office tenants.
But there is so much investment capital parked in hedge funds and other large cash warehouses around the world, that the prospects for flipping property (which will become much more valuable once this plan is adopted in early 2012) or building risky projects will be like a spot light attracting moths. In fact, this process can already be observed on the Miracle Mile, where there are many new mixed use projects with few tenants. When you drive by them at night, the apartment buildings are nearly dark.
But, why should the speculators worry? It is a risk well worth taking. In the S and L crisis of 20 years ago, the banks and developers massively overbuilt and the Federal government came to their rescue, allowing them to buy back their bankrupt projects at 10 cents on the dollar. That bailout only cost $500 billion, while the future Federal bailout of the commercial property bubble beginning in Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas will undoubtedly cost much, much more.
Just asking—how could this drivel -the Hollywood CPU – with no rationale in facts or law get approved by the City Attorney.
Because the City Attorney does not advise whether a proposed ordinance is good or bad policy, he just expresses opinion as whether an ordinance is legal in form. Of course, he may be asked if he thinks that a proposed ordinance is consistent with state law, Charter, or the adopted General Plan. That is precisely why no one in the Planning Department, the Planning Commission, or the City Council asks the question that they do not want the answer from the City Attorney.
Whatever happened to the City Attorney we elected. He could have been a leader, the next Mayor instead of the bureaucrat he turned into. Just how much guts and intellect does it take to be one ie a bureaucrat, a dumb city employee.
By law the City Atty may not take a position agst the council — he is their atty and he must act agst the intrest of the public.
Garcetti can tell him, “I am getting $20 M to let CIM GROUP and its gagglet of boys to let them build whatever they want,” and the city atty has to keep the crime secret.
The D.A., as the Coun ty Prosecutor, has the power to file criminal charges over al the frauds, but Trust Fund Baby Garcetti, the ring leader of these goniffs and mamzers, is also little sonny boy of the ex-DA. Cooley is as corrupt and incompetent as a DA you’ll see in any comic book.
Poor Gov Blagojevich — he must wish he’d been an LA city councilman — then he’d be running for mayor of scum town rather than doing 14 years in prison
By law the City Atty may not take a position agst the council — he is their atty and he must act agst the intrest of the public.
Garcetti can tell him, “I am getting $20 M to let CIM GROUP and its gagglet of boys to let them build whatever they want,” and the city atty has to keep the crime secret.
The D.A., as the Coun ty Prosecutor, has the power to file criminal charges over al the frauds, but Trust Fund Baby Garcetti, the ring leader of these goniffs and mamzers, is also little sonny boy of the ex-DA. Cooley is as corrupt and incompetent as a DA you’ll see in any comic book.
Poor Gov Blagojevich — he must wish he’d been an LA city councilman — then he’d be running for mayor of scum town rather than doing 14 years in prison
By law the City Atty may not take a position agst the council — he is their atty and he must act agst the intrest of the public.
Garcetti can tell him, “I am getting $20 M to let CIM GROUP and its gagglet of boys to let them build whatever they want,” and the city atty has to keep the crime secret.
The D.A., as the Coun ty Prosecutor, has the power to file criminal charges over al the frauds, but Trust Fund Baby Garcetti, the ring leader of these goniffs and mamzers, is also little sonny boy of the ex-DA. Cooley is as corrupt and incompetent as a DA you’ll see in any comic book.
Poor Gov Blagojevich — he must wish he’d been an LA city councilman — then he’d be running for mayor of scum town rather than doing 14 years in prison
Luv ya 6:57 p.m.
I notice people post the same thing two or three times. This is not intentional. There is something wrong with Ron’s provider. It often says that a posting has failed, so one tried again. Later, one sees that everything posted 2 or 3 times.
I notice people post the same thing two or three times. This is not intentional. There is something wrong with Ron’s provider. It often says that a posting has failed, so one tries again. Later, one sees that everything posted 2 or 3 times.
The City needs a special prosecutor. The city Atty is forbidden by law to investigate the City since they City and the crooks that run the place are his clients.
The District Attorney must be a crook himself as he watches all the corruption and he has mandate to stop it. Ha, we should live so long to see Cooley ever do anything to stop Garcetti.
The US Attorney is a Dem appointee and he refuses to even acknowledge a complaint against the Dem’s golden trust fund baby Garcetti. The GOP are just as corruption in how they use the US Atty Office for partisan politics.
But Los Angeles is a corrupt and incompetent Pay to Play town and no Special Prosecutor or Grand Jury will even convene. They might ask evil Eli to give back the $52 Million that could have built a Children’s Park in Hollywood.
The City needs a special prosecutor. The city Atty is forbidden by law to investigate the City since they City and the crooks that run the place are his clients.
The District Attorney must be a crook himself as he watches all the corruption and he has mandate to stop it. Ha, we should live so long to see Cooley ever do anything to stop Garcetti.
The US Attorney is a Dem appointee and he refuses to even acknowledge a complaint against the Dem’s golden trust fund baby Garcetti. The GOP are just as corrupt in how they use the US Atty Office for partisan politics.
But Los Angeles is a corrupt and incompetent Pay to Play town and no Special Prosecutor or Grand Jury will even convene. They might ask evil Eli to give back the $52 Million that could have built a Children’s Park in Hollywood.
City Attorney is correct. Part of the job of City Attorney is to be the legal counsel to the idiot City Council. Trutanich must serve the City through his obligation to represent the City Council which is the ELECTED BODY of the City. That is why the Dec 9 at 11:00 am is also correct: the problem with our City is an electoral one. But that is driven by the Supreme Court decisions that say that spending unlimited amounts of money is free speech and no law can restrict how much the wealthy greedy monsters in charge of our largest corporations and banks want to spend on electing their puppets. How much do the real estate developer shell out to our Council members for their campaigns, their legal defense funds, and their officeholder accounts? Answer: Alot. How much attention do their wealthy contributors get from their puppets on the City Council? Answer: Alot. Our government is sick and only the people can rise up to fix it.
So when will the litigation begin?
Did Eric Garcetti approve this plan?
No development proceeds in Hollywood unless it satisfies his Royal Hindness Garcetti.
Did Eric Garcetti approve this plan?
The Cesspool in Hollywood.
Garcetti is the Councilman for the Hollywood CPU. Just wondering if all the properties have been upzoned to the max, how does he get to make his money from developers?