CommentsDEEGAN ON LA-With a skyline dotted by cranes, and waves of paperwork for permits flooding City Planning and Council offices, Koreatown is becoming “boom-town,” and Councilmember Herb Wesson, whose CD10 map includes K’town, is well positioned to ride this concrete and steel tsunami right into the Mayor’s office -- a goal that may be held by this ambitious City Council President and former State Assembly Speaker.
Wesson’s ambitions may be helped by a perfect storm that includes:
- Transit Oriented Development (TOD).
- Density that is already an accepted fact of life.
- Developers with cash for campaign contributions.
- No NIMBY’s.
- A sitting mayor who may be seeking national office.
As reported recently in Curbed Los Angeles by reporter Elijah Chiland, “It's hard to imagine any part of the city looking as different as Koreatown. With new buildings going up left and right, entire blocks could be nearly unrecognizable in a relatively short amount of time.” He describes what he calls Koreatown’s unrecognizable new face that will come by the redrawing of K’town’s 300 square blocks into a mini-megalopolis with at least forty-six new projects and counting.
A population inflow of Koreans in the 1960s gave the neighborhood its name, although today it’s mostly Latino, with 63% Latino and 28% Asian, but the name stays, as do lots of Korean building owners and landlords, such as Korean heavyweight Jamison Services.
Driving the building boom are twin imperatives: a demand for density, and a favorable zoning allowance called Transit Oriented Development (TOD) that privileges developers who place mixed use development projects consisting of housing, retail, office and other amenities in very near proximity to public transportation. K’town has both Red and Purple subway lines, and major north-south and east west Metro bus lines: corridors along Wilshire, Western, Vermont, Third, and Olympic that are natural targets for new developments, as well as being roughly the borders of K’town. This is good news for developers, who can be just as valuable to a politico as voters.
Nowhere in the city is density more obvious and accepted as a fact of life than in Koreatown with its approximately 42,000 people per square mile. This is about two-thirds of Manhattan‘s 67,000 people per square mile density, making it the densest section of the city, as well as what the LA Times says is among the highest densities in the county.
Many development projects get stalled or mitigated as a result of community blowback and pressure. Significantly, K’town is comprised of 93% renters, so there are very few homeowners who could organize against growth. This buffers developers against the risk of NIMBY-ism that could slow down any one of the several dozen major building projects.
Wesson’s challenge as his term nears its end in 2020 (and Garcetti’s appearance on the national stage begins, creating the impression that he’s no longer interested in being Mayor) is to make a move to fill a probable vacancy at City Hall.
Wesson has lots of political experience, having served in staff or elected positions at three levels of government: city, county and state. In addition to being Councilmember for CD10, he’s also President of the City Council. At the County level he was Chief of Staff to Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke; at the State level, where he represented the 47th Assembly District in the California State Assembly, he was also Speaker of the Assembly.
Herb Wesson could possibly be elected as our next Mayor, given his experience and political resume. The question is: will he be able to bank on support from Boom Town?
(Tim Deegan, is a civic activist whose DEEGAN ON LA weekly column about city planning, new urbanism, the environment, and the homeless appears in CityWatch. Tim can be reached at [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
