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California
L.A. Planning Commission President Criticizes New Residential Bonus Ordinance
In an odd internal split on Los Angeles development priorities, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's handpicked Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher criticized the newly signed residential bonus ordinance, which lets developers increase project densities up to 35 percent and reduce open and parking space if they provide required shares of affordable units, describing its provisions in an e-mail to neighborhood associations as ''ripe for immediate litigation'' for contravening state environmental law and benefiting mostly developers, a notion the ordinance backers refute.
Planning Director Gail Goldberg said her department worked closely with the City Attorney staff to observe state law and Councilwoman Jan Perry pointed out that recipients of the e-mail, signed ''President, Los Angeles City Planning Commission,'' could feel it was sent at the mayor's behest.
City Council President Eric Garcetti's spokeswoman Julie Wong and mayoral spokeswoman Janelle Erickson reiterated that the ordinance will help expand affordable housing, the latter adding, ''With nine people sitting on the planning commission, you're bound to get a variety of viewpoints.''
A day later, report Los Angeles Times writer David Zahniser and Daily News writer Kerry Cavanaugh, the Planning Commission president explained that she meant the e-mail as merely private, but she repeated her objections to the ordinance, also questioning the lack of transparency in its preparatory phase and its adopted procedure, under which projects with density bonuses and fewer parking spaces will receive over-the-counter permits.
''There is no public notice. There is no environmental analysis. There is no right to appeal,'' she observed. ''At the end of the day, the loser is the neighborhood and the winner is the developer -- and the affordable housing that the community receives is peanuts. If there are members of the community who would like to litigate these actions, there are statutes of limitations that are short.''
Several community activists commended her for the advice, some ready to consult lawyers.
''It takes a woman of great courage to do this. This is not the politically correct thing to do, under the circumstances,'' stressed Valley Glen Neighborhood Council President Judy Price, while Westwood South of Santa Monica Boulevard Homeowners Association President Barbara Broide dismissed arguments for density as necessary to spur transit use, saying, ''We don't have the Expo Line yet. And we may get the Subway to the Sea, but it won't be in my lifetime.'' -- Daily News, Los Angeles Times 3/11/2008
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