Growth war - 2008 edition

Let's hope for a big turnout tonight at the Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn in North Hollywood when five neighborhood councils hold a town hall meeting to discuss the battle for Los Angeles. Organizers aren't putting it quite that way - they're billing it as a chance for residents to talk to developers, politicians and government officials involved in several development projects throughout the San Fernando Valley. But make no mistake - we have a war on our hands. L.A. officials are zealously mapping out a plan to make the city more congested and unlivable than ever. Of course they don't see it that way. They fancy themselves as visionaries who insist they know what’s good for us by essentially trashing years and years of zoning regulations. In their place is a strategy that boils down to jamming as many apartment rentals into as many already clogged neighborhoods as humanly possible (and doing it as secretly as possible). Forget parking restrictions, forget existing growth ordinances – none of it matters just so long as new housing is located near public transit. Because we all know that folks are ready to abandon their cars for public transit, right? From the LAT:

"I've been warning people to wake up, there's a new philosophy and a new direction being advocated by the leadership of the city at all levels," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who worked to curb development as a Los Angeles councilman during the 1980s. "If you care about this in San Pedro, or Encino, or Lincoln Heights, you have to be heard, because all the city cares about right now is negotiating with developers and their agents." Residents say their goal is to "step between the city and the developer" and to "force both sides to listen."

The Weekly's Steven Leigh Morris has a sobering look at City Hall's so-called "density hawks."

With little debate, a trio of new "density enabling" ordinances (a real mouthful, known as the Downtown Ordinance, the Parking Reduction Ordinance and the Senate Bill 1818 Implementation Ordinance) has rolled through Goldberg's Planning Department and ended up in the ornate council chambers on City Hall's second floor. The first two were easily approved, and the SB 1818 Implementation Ordinance passed on February 20, with only council members Dennis Zine, Janice Hahn, Bill Rosendahl and Tom LaBonge opposed. On paper, the three ordinances will let developers bypass the city's fundamental zoning protections — and profoundly alter the livability, look and essence of L.A.

This is no small thing. The rules for how Angelenos wanted to fashion their city were arduously, sometimes bitterly, negotiated among homeowners, developers, environmentalists and politicians in the mid-'80s, led by then city councilmen Joel Wachs, Marvin Braude and Yaroslavsky. Those core rules today hold tremendous power, creating a blueprint that dictates which Los Angeles neighborhoods should be preserved — and which should be dramatically built up. Yet in contrast to the boisterous civic debate launched by city and community leaders in the 1980s, the Villaraigosa administration has grown accustomed to only tepid public interference and awareness. Through aide Gil Duran, the mayor has for five months ducked L.A. Weekly's routine questions about his agenda's potential consequences citywide — much taller and fatter residential buildings than zoning law allows, significantly less green space, obliteration of residential parking in some complexes and removal of older, less expensive housing. (Hours before the Weekly went to press, Deputy Mayor Helmi Hisserich finally responded, lashing out at "heads in the sand" sentiments and warning that "the city is not going to stop growing.")