CommentsPLATKIN ON PLANNING-In previous CityWatch articles I have spelled out the many long-term and harmful consequences of bad planning. Yet, in Los Angeles truly bad city planning just keeps rolling along, in particular, repeated cases of City Hall decision-makers overriding legally adopted Community Plans and local zoning through speculator-friendly spot-zoning and spot-planning enabled by campaign contributions.
While we wait for evidence that this bothers the decision makers, it clearly bothers the engaged public. In fact, this is why Los Angeles has had so many planning-related voter initiatives, lawsuits, and Sacramento legislative directives over the past half century. Furthermore, this push back against bad planning and the Big Real Estate interests behind it will continue as long as “legal corruption” is rooted out.
To cite but one example, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition U in 1986 to limit the size of commercial buildings. Now, 30 years later, in March 2017, they can bring Proposition U into the 21st Century through Proposition S, also called the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. As frequently discussed at CityWatch, Proposition S will stop most spot-zoning and spot-planning, while also jumpstarting the update of LA’s General Plan, including the 35 Community Plans.
An excellent example of spot-zoning and spot-planning in the cross hairs of Proposition S is close to where I live. It is the Caruso Affiliated project at 333 S. LaCienega, the site of former Loehman’s discount clothing store. Located at the “Bermuda Triangle” intersection of San Vicente Boulevard, Third Street, Burton Way, and LaCienega, it is one block south of the Beverly Center and one block west of the Cedar-Sinai Hospital. Now under appeal to the City Council, the City Planning Commission has already awarded this project six separate zoning and planning approvals. If sustained, these bennies would permit the construction of a 240 foot high rise luxury apartment tower on a parcel whose current height limit is 45 feet. While height is certainly a problem with this project, it also has other serious problems that I highlight later in this article.
But, first let’s examine how this malodorous project bulldozed its way through a City Council office, a neighborhood council, the Department of City Planning, and the City Planning Commission. Part of the answer is heavy lobbying, as described in another CityWatch article, “How Big Real Estate Manufactures Consent.” But, a second part of their formula is masking the bad planning that pervades this and similar projects with the cheap perfume of “conditions of approval.” In this case, there are nearly 40 pages of approval conditions all neatly folded into this project’s two determinations.
This is standard practice since nearly every case that the Department of City Planning handles, including those that the City Council later approves through lot specific ordinances, is weighted down by pages of conditions. Having written some of these determinations and read far more, I now believe that their real purpose of these many promises is to gain the support of community groups who do not like specific projects.
Flaws in Conditions of Approval: There are, however, eight serious flaws in this Big Real Estate tactic, even though it often succeeds in convincing local planning light weights to begrudgingly support a project.
1) The conditions cost the developers very little. They are a tiny fraction of the budget for a major project, and I suspect some conditions also qualify as tax credits or deductions, including those that were added as promises to community groups.
2) Most of the conditions mitigate a project’s construction and operational impacts. They are, therefore, not true community benefits. Instead their ostensible role is to buy off opponents to controversial projects.
3) A project’s developer and his/her tenants also benefit from conditions to offer on and off-site improvements, such as tree planting. The improvements spruce up projects, and therefore make them more appealing to potential tenants.
4) Some conditioned improvements, such as quasi-public fountains, can be used to offset L.A.’s one percent Public Arts fee.
5) Off-site improvements promised through conditions are minimal. They do not address the real infrastructure deficits in most of Los Angeles, including but hardly limited to sub-standard street trees, crumbling sidewalks, missing ADA curb cuts, dangerous pot-holes, thirsty grass in yards and parks, decrepit alleys, dangerous overhead wires, unsightly supergraphics and billboards, lax code enforcement, old and failing water mains, missing bicycle infrastructure, slow internet, and unreliable electric power.
6) The only conditions that City Planning actually monitors are contained in alcohol permits (CUB’s). As for more powerful discretionary actions adopted through City Council ordinances -- such as Zone Changes and General Plan Amendments -- City Planning has no monitoring staff or procedures.
7) The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) also does not have any proactive procedures for enforcing these hundreds of conditions for hundreds of cases. Like all code violations, it is up to local communities to submit complaints that approval conditions have not been complied with. But, as many Angelinos have slowly learned, these complaints are frequently ignored. In fact, this is why experienced residents resort to City Council interventions in order to get LADBS to finally move on code violations.
8) Once a building is permitted and completed, there are no consequences for unmet conditions, such on and off-site improvements. In Los Angeles, buildings are not partially or wholly demolished when they fail to meet the building code, zoning code, or compliance with the conditions imposed on all discretionary zoning and planning actions.
Considering these eight gaping loopholes, my conclusion is that the real purpose of conditions of approval is to assuage community opponents by offering mitigation to their complaints about major projects. It is to get them to approve an otherwise bad project when measured against legally adopted General Plan elements, Height Districts, and zones.
In my next City Watch column, I will address explain why projects like 333 S. LaCienega are truly awful city planning. For now suffice it to say the following:
- It sets an ominous precedent for future General Plan Amendments, Zone Changes, and Height District Changes. If this project is successful, similar requests to build other new high-rise luxury projects in this area will methodically appear.
- It does not comply with the legally required findings that the project be consistent with the scale and character of the neighborhood. As for scale, the projects will be 240 feet high and have a Floor Area Ratio (i.e., mass) of 6.0 on a lot where the height is restricted to 45 feet and the mass of a building is limited to an FAR of 1.5. As for compatible character, the proposed tower has a nautical architectural style, similar to a cruise ship, while most of the surrounding residential buildings have Spanish Revival design features.
- It does not comply with the City Charter Section 555, which is clear that the City Council can adopt legislative actions, such as General Plan Amendments, “… provided that the part or area involved has significant social, economic or physical identity.” A parcel that is bequeathed spot-zoning because it allows a more lucrative project hardly has a distinctive and significant identify.
- It has not demonstrated that there is such a shortage of lots zone for luxury apartments in the Wilshire Community Plan area that the City Council should require adopted zone changes to meet this need.
- It purports to be a transit oriented project, but the nearest mass transit station – at Wilshire and LaCienega-- will be more than a half-mile from the tower, and the transit station will not open up until 2023. Furthermore, the proposed project has 24/7 on-call, chauffer driven luxury car service for all tenants, making it high unlikely that these high flyers will walk a half-mile to hop on the Purple Line subway to travel
- It is located at one of the most congested intersections in Los Angeles. Called the Bermuda Triangle, the site is the convergence point of San Vicente Boulevard, Third Street, LaCienega Boulevard, and Burton Way. No combination of street signs, signal lights, and traffic officers have ever managed to keep this intersection clear.
- It claims it needs large amounts of additional height and mass economic incentives to add new pedestrian oriented features, even though this part of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills has many pedestrian-oriented projects and corridors, with buildings that conform to plans and zones.
(Dick Platkin is a veteran city planner. He reports on local planning issues for CityWatch, and he welcomes comments and questions at [email protected].) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
Can the Cheap Perfume of “Approve-with-Conditions” Mask the Stink of Bad Planning?
