Saunders and Eveloff, in their lawsuit, cite the lack of city infrastructure reports as a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) — yet more proof that little real planning went into L.A.’s most recent growth spurt.
Now, Brazeman has become the decoder from the development side, as he translates for the rest of the city what the core findings might mean for L.A. One translation he provides is of the phrase “project permit adjustment” — often sought by developers who want to deviate from the zoning code. Today, for the adjustment to be granted, the director of planning must make a “written finding of circumstances” showing that following the local land-use rules is impractical.
Illustration by Matt Mahurin
Alan Bell, L.A.’s deputy director of planning
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But in the new wording under consideration on Jan. 13, that’s all deleted. An unwritten approval could be granted if the retail, commercial or housing project “will perform a function or provide a service that is essential or beneficial to the community, city or region.”
The requirement to provide a service beneficial to the “city or region” could easily be cited in order to allow a dense project in Pacific Palisades to serve a community in Covina by providing jobs to contractors there.
Brazeman says the city’s wording scheme creates the potential for “up-zoning by right,” granted by the Planning Department without community review. That’s also against state law.
Jeff Jacobberger, chairman of the Mid-City West Community Council, to which Brazeman belongs, tells the Weekly he is satisfied by the new wording because it’s “simpler and easier to understand.” Jacobberger testified before the City Planning Commission to that effect.
Not so Sharon Commins, vice chair of land use for the Mar Vista Community Council.
Commins, who read the core-findings plan and submitted a comparison of that wording to rules used in Culver City, Burbank, Santa Monica and West Hollywood, found that L.A.’s vague proposed wording contrasted with the precise, protective language used in nearby cities.
“If L.A.’s zoning protections don’t mean anything,” even in quiet, pleasant residential areas like Mar Vista, “you’re going to lose potential home buyers to surrounding areas,” she tells the Weekly.
Reactions to Brazeman’s full-page ads in the Times and Daily News heated up the debate, and responses started rolling in to the City Planning Commission.
“The Brentwood Residents Coalition supports the Planning Department’s effort to revise the zoning code by establishing core findings and eliminating language that is redundant and confusing.”
“The Hollywoodland Homeowners Association is opposed to the above ordinance as currently written. ... We feel adoption of this new ordinance would substantially undermine ... existing L.A. municipal codes.”
On Oct. 7, Brazeman wrote to the City Planning Commission, on behalf of L.A. Neighbors United: “Following careful review of the proposed nine-part zoning code update ... it is quite clear that the city intends to gut the zoning code, apparently with callous disregard for the people, neighborhoods and long-term future of Los Angeles.”
Watch exclusive, in-person video interviews with Cary Brazeman and Deputy Planning Director Alan Bell here.
If this is indeed an attempt to gut the zoning code, it isn’t just about microscopic analyses of words and meanings. There’s a theology at play, a utopian vision of a 21st-century “new urban” city proclaimed with far more zeal than evidence.
Skeptics believe that Mayor Villaraigosa and his deputy, Austin Beutner, have an ulterior motive for further loosening the rules on growth in a city where those rules have never been strong: to fend off city bankruptcy by feeding “underutilized” areas and land-hogging single-family neighborhoods to Wall Street real estate investment companies.
(As this story was going to press, the Weekly learned that the Department of City Planning is being ordered to absorb another $1 million budget cut — with most of the shortfall expected to gut the Community Planning Unit. Westside Neighborhood Council board member Barbara Broide writes, in an e-mail leaked to the Weekly, “The [Planning] Department is now looking at being funded 75% from developer fees and 25% from the General Fund. If things continue in the manner that they are going, the department will no longer be a planning department, it will be a project processing or permitting department.”)
A key example was the March 2010 decision by the City Council to hand Goldman Sachs eye-popping up-zoning approvals that, if fully developed, are worth $456 million. Council members blew past zoning restrictions, ignoring the Community Plan and disregarding the opposition of the district’s councilman, Bill Rosendahl, by up-zoning 111 empty acres at the massive Playa Vista deve that the company co-owns near the Ballona Wetlands. The decision re-enacts a similar gift of Playa Vista development rights by the City Council to DreamWorks Pictures in 2004, which was overturned by the courts on environmental grounds.
Ken Alpern, co-chair of the Mar Vista Community Council Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, says it’s not difficult for City Hall to “greenwash” such schemes using the theology’s appealing ideas about ecological sustainability. These include public transit that leads directly to densely populated hubs where people can live and shop; pedestrian thoroughfares; bicycle lanes; and public space.
