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Los Angeles Times
December 20, 2011 Tuesday
Hollywood sees future: up;
Council is weighing new zoning guidelines that would allow bigger, taller buildings.
By Kate Linthicum
Hollywood, no stranger to the art of reinvention, is now at the center of a citywide urban planning makeover that could bring a sea of skyscrapers to the historic streets near the Walk of Fame.New zoning guidelines approved this month by the Los Angeles City Planning Commission will make it easier for developers to build bigger and taller buildings in many parts of Hollywood, often with extra incentives for placing them near bus and subway stops.
It's part of a grand vision of concentrating development around transit hubs -- a doctrine Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likes to call "elegant density."
The principle can be seen in the pricey downtown condos built over the last decade, and can be expected to be repeated in the future at current and future transit-rich communities like Woodland Hills and the Crenshaw district, officials say.
Ostensibly, Hollywood is a place where the payoff for the region's multibillion-dollar investment in a rail transit network should be easy to recoup. After all, it has a pioneering past, and in recent years it has seen a burst of new development that has revitalized its central core.
But as the zoning changes head toward final City Council approval, some residents are fighting back. They contend that the new plan is based on inaccurate projections of population growth and future demand for new housing, retail and other development.
And they worry that the new construction would increase traffic in an area already plagued with congestion.
Tourists come to Hollywood to see Grauman's Chinese Theatre, they argue, not 50-story buildings like those that have been proposed for either side of the landmark 13-story Capitol Records building.
On Monday, a group of protesters gathered outside the Hollywood Towers apartment complex, where Villaraigosa held a rooftop news conference to urge approval of the new zoning guidelines. One protester held a sign that read: "Residents Hate This Plan."
The community plan, part of the city's all-encompassing General Plan, was last updated in 1988. It is the first of several reworked neighborhood-specific plans that officials hope to adopt in the coming year.
It envisions "a compact city that is growing vertically, mixing residential, commercial and industrial uses in new and interesting ways." It generally limits development in single-family residential and historical neighborhoods, as well as the Hollywood Hills, but allows greatly increased density elsewhere, such as downtown Hollywood, along the Metro subway corridor. New size and height restrictions, for example, would allow towering buildings on Sunset and Hollywood boulevards just west of the 101 Freeway.
Developers with enough money, political will and lobbyists often can secure special permission to build more than allowed under city zoning guidelines. But that system has worked to hinder growth and has led to "piecemeal" development, Villaraigosa said. "This drawn-out, uncertain process was holding Hollywood back from revealing its full potential."
The current zoning, he said, does not account for the increased transit capacity of five rail stops built in the area in the 1990s.
Joel Kotkin, an urban studies fellow at Chapman University, questions the assertion that transit stations justify denser development, or that adding large projects near bus and rail lines increases ridership.
"This is the endless Villaraigosa fantasy that you'll get wealthy people to live near bus stops," said Kotkin, a longtime critic of Los Angeles urban planning who has championed traditional suburban developments.
City Councilman Eric Garcetti, who represents much of Hollywood, said the plan does not create growth, only accommodates it. Hollywood development has helped reduce crime and change the image of the area, he said. "Hollywood used to be the butt of jokes," he said. Now, "it's a hot spot."
Doug Haines, a member of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, said the neighborhood's hard-fought resurgence, after slumping into a haunt for crack dealers and prostitution in the 1980s, should not be used to justify a wave of new development. "We feel like we're being punished for sticking it out," he said.
Hollywood began a recovery in the 1990s with the establishment of a business improvement district and the involvement of the Community Redevelopment Agency.
Two massive developments further transformed the landscape: the Hollywood & Highland Center shopping and entertainment complex, which received millions of dollars in city subsidies for an underground city-owned parking structure, and the billboard-wrapped W Hotel complex.
Although some new residents have been drawn to the new condos and night life on the streets near Hollywood Boulevard, census figures show the larger region lost about 6% of its population over the last decade -- a point residents have used to challenge the necessity for intense new development.
City officials based their new plan on Southern California Assn. of Governments population forecasts showing Hollywood with 244,602 people in 2030 -- about 23% more than the 2010 census count of 198,234.
Several residents have threatened to sue over the city's population growth estimates -- and other aspects of the plan -- if it is passed.
Michael Woo, a former city councilman representing Hollywood who is now on the Planning Commission, voted to approve the plan earlier this month.
He said planners did a good job of addressing residents' concerns during about 150 community meetings.
He wishes the city had included architectural guidelines in the plan to avoid buildings that look like some other Hollywood developments, which he called "serviceable at best."
Still, he added, city leaders are right to think big.
"This is really what government is supposed to be doing," he said. "We're supposed to be guessing and dreaming about the future. Who knows, in 2030, whether we'll have been right."
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Los Angeles Times
December 25, 2011 Sunday
Doing the Hollywood ruffle;
Residents are livid over L.A. panel's proposed zoning changes that could make it easier to erect skyscrapers in the heart of Tinseltown
By STEVE LOPEZ
If this is the season to be merry, many residents of Hollywood did not get the memo. Instead, they got a community development plan they look upon as their very own nightmare before Christmas.
It happened earlier this month, when the Los Angeles City Planning Commission approved zoning changes that could make it easier to erect skyscrapers in the heart of Hollywood, forever changing the scale of a historic neighborhood with international cachet. They say the high-rises will block views, throw shadows and obscure the landmark Capitol Records building, and make already unbearable traffic even worse.
The Hollywood Community Plan, headed to the City Council in a month or two for review and consideration, fits with what L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has called "elegant density," accommodating expected population growth by building mixed-use projects around transit hubs. And there is definitely something to be said for so-called smart growth, offering residents the option of using transit instead of cars.
But some Hollywood residents are livid about this particular plan. I asked to meet with a few of them, and 16 people -- all but a couple of them from the neighborhood -- showed up for a Thursday morning coffee klatch at Solar de Cahuenga in Hollywood. They marched in like an infantry division, armed with stacks of planning documents, artists' renderings, written denunciations by neighborhood groups and records of developer contributions to city politicians.
Elegant density?
"What you're talking about is the rape of Hollywood," said a spitting mad Sarajane Schwartz.
Like others, she considers the plan a license for developers to virtually have their way, with more access to taxpayer handouts through the Community Redevelopment Agency.
"What we have is no plan at all," said George Abrahams. "Let us build a tower unto heaven. That's the CRA plan."
Crosby Doe scribbled a message on his business card and handed it to me. "This is not a planning document," he wrote, "but rather a development rights Ponzi scheme!!"
Hyperbolic?
Yeah, a bit. And to be honest, I wondered as I drove to Hollywood if I was in for a NIMBY powwow. Hollywood is an international destination, after all, and living nearby means putting up with some of the mania. Also, if L.A.'s population does grow, where better to put people than near transit and commercial zones?
But I heard a lot of legitimate objections at the meeting, from little things to broader philosophical questions.
Dick Platkin, a former Los Angeles city planner, challenged the logic of erecting mega-projects to propel growth. What if you build and nobody comes? He also warned that the Hollywood plan could become a template that leads to less vigorous review of projects across the city.
Hollywood residents wanted to know why City Hall is planning for a population explosion when, in fact, Hollywood's population has fallen by 6% in the last decade. And they'd like to know why City Hall is convinced that someone who shells out $500,000 or more for a high-rise condo is going to take the bus to work rather than drive.
What they want from City Hall, the residents say, are better basic services, less congestion and more open space. Not a blueprint for huge projects that could further deteriorate infrastructure and quality of life.
"The plan has some hollow words about protecting Hollywood's residential areas, but the facts do not support the words," says a letter "to whom it may concern" from the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council. "Residential areas cannot maintain their value in the face of horrible traffic congestion, excessive density, and increased crime, reduced fire protection, a deficient and underfunded police force, and a crumbling infrastructure."
Councilman Eric Garcetti, who represents the bulk of Hollywood (Councilman Tom LaBonge has the rest), argued that the city isn't trying to create growth but intelligently prepare for it as Los Angeles evolves in the decades to come. He thinks of Hollywood's recent changes as part of a success story, the seedy neighborhood of the 1980s and '90s coming alive with mixed-use projects and more attractions. The new Hollywood Community Plan can build on that success, and Garcetti said it has the support of many residents as well as the business community.
In some cases, he said, it may be better to put 200 residents into a high-rise that takes up a quarter of a block, reserving the rest of the block for a park or plaza, than to put 200 residents into a low-rise that squats across the entire block. But he doesn't see the Hollywood plan as a finished document. He said he's willing to negotiate with critics when the matter comes before the City Council, even if he can't answer all the demands.
The folks I met with are ready to do battle but fear they're up against powerful forces in a fight they can't win. And they don't consider recent changes in Hollywood to be for the good. They don't go to the velvet-rope nightclubs, and they certainly don't go to Hollywood & Highland, the commercial abomination that stands as a centerpiece of the new Hollywood.
People who come from across the country and around the world don't want to see a modern colossus like that, argues Doug Haines of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council.
Nor do they care to see a field of Manhattan-style skyscrapers that block views of the hills and the Hollywood sign. A better way to celebrate and improve the neighborhood, Haines said, is to restore and preserve the old Hollywood rather than erect a glitzy new one that serves neither its residents nor its history.
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Los Angeles Times
January 2, 2012 Monday
Home Edition
The future of Hollywood;
The mayor and others have big plans, but some residents feel left out.
The mayor and others have big plans, but some residents feel left out.
By JIM NEWTON
On a blustery recent morning, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and Councilman Tom LaBonge held a rooftop news conference in the heart of Hollywood. They were there to announce the completion of the Hollywood community plan, a document intended to guide the growth of the historic community. The event went the way most such things go: Villaraigosa spoke first and longest; Garcetti gave a few earnest remarks; LaBonge mugged and got off a couple of laugh lines. Congratulations were offered to the residents who participated in the process and to the bureaucrats who guided it. Reporters asked some questions, and everyone beat it back to their cars before it started to rain.
But there was grumbling at the event's periphery. While Villaraigosa and Garcetti talked of the scores of public meetings convened to solicit input into the plan, a few Hollywood residents complained that their input had been ignored. While Villaraigosa championed "transit-oriented development" and bragged about the subway stops that have been built in the area in recent years, the neighbors grumbled that traffic continues to get worse. While the mayor sees growth as essential to pulling the city out of its nationally induced recession, these neighbors fear that the growth he envisions will simply cram more people into already crowded communities. And the mayor's push for new jobs, they worry, could benefit his union supporters at the expense of the neighborhoods where growth will occur.
In an essential way, these two groups are talking past each other. The residents express a kind of elemental conservatism: They want to preserve the qualities that drew them to their neighborhoods in the first place. The elected officials, meanwhile, are trying to create a vision for a future Los Angeles, one with denser housing and fewer cars, a place where people live close to their work and use public transportation to get to it.
The mayor and his allies, in other words, are trying to lead Los Angeles toward a break with its past. That's a sensible path toward a better future, but the public isn't as sold as the leadership.
Hints of that disconnect were evident in the news conference, or at least on the margins of it. The mayor described his recent trip to China, where he said planners from other parts of the world saw "L.A. as what you don't want to do." To them, he said, "we're the quintessential city of sprawl."
But the neighbors who turned out on the rooftop of the Hollywood Tower weren't interested in what Chinese planners think about Los Angeles. They wanted to know why they'd only learned of the event 72 hours earlier, and they wanted to know what the mayor had in mind for Sunset Boulevard and Franklin Avenue, which they said were already too congested. One neighbor worried about plans for a 46-story tower and the burden it would place on local infrastructure; another complained that more cars on Hollywood streets would "make it unbearable" to travel through the area. A third, longtime journalist and Hollywood resident Laurie Becklund (a good friend and a former colleague), sought some assurance that the Sunday Hollywood Farmers Market would be protected. Garcetti said it would be, though not through this plan.
Garcetti seemed to grasp better than the mayor did that there is still uneasiness about the community plan, as there is with other such efforts across the city. Still, he defended the resulting work and the prospects for coherent development of the area. "Never mistake the loudest voices for being representative," he argued.
He's right about that, of course, but it raises the question of what is truly representative. Is it the local chamber of commerce, or the residents who turn out for neighborhood council meetings? Or is there a quieter majority unaware of the plans being made and the effect they will have?
Neighborhood concerns and complaints did not dominate Villaraigosa's news conference. Indeed, politeness and diffidence triumphed over discomfort, allowing the mayor to continue doling out congratulations and anticipating the council's swift approval of the plans. When it was over, Villaraigosa shook a few hands, LaBonge worked the rooftop one more time, and they parted with smiles, content to have presented their work and seemingly untroubled by the doubts of the neighbors.
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