The Strathmore Solution: How to Empower the People and Reform the System

Let’s examine a case study involving a property on 11024 Strathmore, in North Westwood where I was able to get the system to work for the people, as intended. We’ll call it “The Strathmore Solution”. 

It is August, 2010. The City Planning Commission is about to begin its deliberations. The hearing room is particularly crowded on this day because on the agenda is a request to approve a 31 unit apartment project in North Westwood promoted by an out-of-state land use entitlement speculator on the remnants of a demolished fraternity house. It is to be11 feet over the 45’ height limit, with 68% of the units to be 4-5 bedrooms (enabling the each ‘bed’ to be rented separately. . . a practice which is unlawful, but which the City Attorney does not enforce and Councilman Koretz ignores). 

A particularly perverse use of SB 1818 (a state mandated affordable housing law which, misapplied, will destroy more affordable housing than it creates) and the City’s faulty SB1818 implementation ordinance is to be employed so that parking is limited even as the population density is enhanced. All of this was negotiated in secret between the Planning Department and the highly skilled, well-connected lawyer lobbyist for the speculator. 

A thoughtful, thorough analysis of the project was completely lacking. The public was shut out. The objective was to ‘ram’ and ‘jam’ this secret deal through the Planning Commission. While the City Attorney could have been pro-active on behalf of the people, instead, he was silent. 

Former Planning Director Gail Goldberg, in a dramatic departure from precedent, had overruled the recommendation of the local design review board to reject the project. The design review board had held six different hearings over a 5 month period. It was after the Director had chosen to ignore the local design review board rejection of the project that secret negotiations between the speculator and the Planning Department ensued. 

By the time of the August, 2010 hearing before the City Planning Commission, things were ‘ripe’ for the ‘rigging’. The rule requiring the public to be apprised 10 days in advance of all submittals to the Commission was, of course, ignored. 

The City Attorney said nothing about this. The legal requirement under SB 1818 that the speculator justify the economic need for the added density as a way to subsidize the provision of the affordable units was ignored. The discussion before the Commission became ‘pro-forma’, except for some questions by two Commission Members who later left the commission. The secretly negotiated project was approved. 

Following the Planning Commission’s approval, a follow-up hearing before the West Los Angeles Planning Commission was held. Two Commissioners expressed their concern about the fact that the project had been rejected by the Design Review Board six different times. But acting on ‘legal advice’ of the Planning Department, and the speculator’s ‘promise’ to not ‘rent by the bed’ (a promise the speculator knew would never be enforced because it is the City Attorney’s policy to not enforce ‘voluntary’ promises (despite two Court of Appeal decisions in the Lincoln Place litigation to the contrary) the West Los Angeles Area Planning Commission approved the project’s design. 

So the politicians won. The public lost. The system had been successfully ‘rigged’. Rules and procedures intended to protect the integrity of the process were ignored. A project concocted in secret and then approved on a pro-forma basis was approved without fair public input. The integrity, the intellectual honesty, and the independence of the Planning Department had been undermined. Insiders and their political friends had gotten their way. The social contract between the people and their government was violated. 

I then filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group representative of the concerns of the North Westwood Community to void out the entitlements. We were given little chance. We prevailed. Judge Ann Jones voided out the entitlements and ordered a ‘re-do’, noting that the City’s rules were to be followed, not bent; and certainly not ignored, and that the provisions of SB 1818 which the City Attorney ignored should be followed and respected. 

We subsequently settled the case. It has been approved in a completely open and transparent manner. The speculator got its development. Equally important is that the community has now been empowered by way of a ‘community enforcement provision’ in the Settlement Agreement where the developer’s ‘no rent by the bed’ promise is enforced via a quick neutral arbitration (and if mutually desired a mediation) so that any violation of that promise (and others) can and will be swiftly enforced. The promise is recorded against the property so it must be honored for the next 40 years by the property owner. 

What this little tale demonstrates is that a pro-active City Attorney, using the powers of the office, including mediation, could have provided direction to this effort at the beginning. Two years would have been saved; litigation would have been avoided, and the Deputy City Attorneys involved in the case freed to work on other cases. The fact that we settled matters at the end proves that a fair result, fairly obtained could have been achieved at the beginning.

Lessons to be learned: 

1.  As City Attorney, I would have directed that all negotiations occur in public (call it open source negotiations), including the use of a specially directed City Attorney Task force, if necessary; 

2.  The speculator should have been required to repay the City for all costs and time expended in defense of the voided-out entitlements pursuant to the indemnity provision incorporated into the land use entitlements. This was not done by the City Attorney; 

3.  As City Attorney, I would have issued a written opinion requiring the Director to state in detail all of the specific ‘facts’ in support of her ‘findings’, as per a Court of Appeal ruling I succeeded in obtaining on behalf of citizens in Sherman Oaks (West Chandler Blvd. Neighborhood Ass’n vs. City of Los Angeles (2011) 198 Cal. App. 4^th 1506); 

4. Citizen empowerment is not anti-development. Growth can come from greater certainty and predictability in how the rules are to be enforced and applied. Trying to ‘rig’ the system is costly; and it undermines the independence and integrity of the Planning Department. My policy as City Attorney would be to make sure that every promise made by an applicant to procure land use entitlements is a promise kept; 

5. All meetings by and between developers and the City Attorney’s office should be reported to the public, with emails and correspondence being made available. The same would apply to developer dealings with all other agencies of the City, including the City Council. My policy of having a Deputy City Attorney permanently assigned to each Council Office would aid this process because it would provide a ‘check’ and a ‘balance’ on City Council excesses and abuses of power. Providing the public with a roadmap of how each Deputy City Attorney spends his or her time on these cases would help ensure a higher degree of openness and transparency beyond that which currently exists. It would, in short, level the playing field, and position the people to insist that the laws be faithfully carried out so that in the end, there is a greater likelihood of getting a fair result, fairly obtained. The role of the office of City Attorney as a ‘check’ and ‘balance’ on the excesses of the City Council cannot be underestimated; 

Where the political interests of the City Council, the Mayor, their friends, lobbyists, and supporters conflict with the broader public interest, as reflected in what the law requires, as City Attorney I will make sure the public interest will win out every single time. 

Enough is enough! The time for meaningful and substantive reform has arrived.

(Noel Weiss is candidate for City Attorney. PowerOverPoliticians.com)

-cw

CityWatch

2-11-13