Our tax dollars at work

I recently wrote a city planner and asked some very specific questions about what kind of houses can be built in our part of Silver Lake (zoned R2-1VL). He instructed me to look at a city website that has no information about our zone (I had already checked) and added: "You can go in person to the zoning counter of the Department of Building and Safety, either downtown or Van Nuys." Why does a Los Angeles resident need to take time out of his/her working day to go downtown or to Van Nuys to learn basic zoning information? Sure, these are tough economic times. But putting zoning information on a website has to be cheaper than paying a city worker to explain zoning to residents face to face. Or are city planners just not interested in sharing information with city residents? I am going to go downtown, but I had to complain.