On Thursday, February 2, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky attended a meeting of the North East Central Alliance of Neighborhood Councils held at the community meeting room of the Russian Orthodox Church at 650 Micheltorena. There is wide-spread speculation that Yaroslavsky may run for mayor and on Thursday evening he certainly sounded like he was rehearsing a stump speech. Among other things (his lifelong love for the arts, for instance), he talked about the current political push for "upzoning" in Los Angeles (that's when properties are re-zoned from a lower to a higher use).
"There is," Yaroslavsky said, "not a lack of zoning capacity by any means."
He was also asked about protecting hillside areas (like Silver Lake east of Glendale Blvd.), which are zoned for multi-units, from overdevelopment. Such overdevelopment, he said, is "not appropriate."
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Los Angeles and its "density hawks"
From the LA Weekly, 2008:
"In every city in this country, the zone on the land establishes the value of the land. In Los Angeles, that's not true.
"The value of the land is not based on what the zone says ... It's based on what [the] developer believes he can change the zone to.
"This is disastrous for the city.
"Disastrous.
"Zoning has to mean something in this city."
Goldberg probably wishes she hadn't said that, not necessarily because she got reprimanded by L.A.'s famously vindictive Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, but because Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavksy has repeated her words in public, over and over. Yaroslavsky, who represented the city's affluent Westside District 5 as a councilman until 1994, has been staging a one-man campaign to slow City Hall's feverish promotion of density — a quiet war on the large swaths of suburbia and few hunks of countryside remaining inside the city limits. 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.
Read the rest here: http://www.laweekly.com/2008-02-28/news/bitter-homes-gardens/
City Hall's "Density Hawks" Are Changing L.A.'s DNA
Bitter homes & gardens?
By Steven Leigh Morris
published: February 28, 2008
Said Goldberg, newly arrived here from a similar post in San Diego:"In every city in this country, the zone on the land establishes the value of the land. In Los Angeles, that's not true.
"The value of the land is not based on what the zone says ... It's based on what [the] developer believes he can change the zone to.
"This is disastrous for the city.
"Disastrous.
"Zoning has to mean something in this city."
Goldberg probably wishes she hadn't said that, not necessarily because she got reprimanded by L.A.'s famously vindictive Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, but because Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavksy has repeated her words in public, over and over. Yaroslavsky, who represented the city's affluent Westside District 5 as a councilman until 1994, has been staging a one-man campaign to slow City Hall's feverish promotion of density — a quiet war on the large swaths of suburbia and few hunks of countryside remaining inside the city limits. 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.
Read the rest here: http://www.laweekly.com/2008-02-28/news/bitter-homes-gardens/
Zev Yaroskavsky's gentler, kinder, less-dense Los Angeles
Published in The Los Angeles Times, 2008:
Don't be dense
The growth policies favored by some city officials threaten L.A.'s livability.
The debate about the availability of housing in Los Angeles and the city's development policies has been testy but long overdue. Fueling public outrage over growth policies that would significantly increase density are well-grounded fears that, in the clash between overdevelopment and neighborhood preservation, the developers will prevail.
Urged on by some elected officials, city planners have decided that the "smart" and "elegant" way to grow the city's housing stock is to double the allowable size of new buildings, bust through established height limits and reduce parking-space requirements -- effectively rolling back more than two decades of neighborhood-protection laws.
Urged on by some elected officials, city planners have decided that the "smart" and "elegant" way to grow the city's housing stock is to double the allowable size of new buildings, bust through established height limits and reduce parking-space requirements -- effectively rolling back more than two decades of neighborhood-protection laws.
There is nothing smart or elegant about such growth. On the contrary. It's development run amok and with an utter disregard for how it affects the livability of the city's neighborhoods. Should these efforts -- the city's version of a state law encouraging greater density; ad hoc zoning changes to double the size of residential development on commercial property to facilitate more density; widespread approval of zoning variances for parking, height and property-line setbacks -- succeed, they will irreparably harm some of our most cherished neighborhoods and diminish our traditional sense of place.
Read the rest here: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-yaroslavsky13
Read the rest here: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/opinion/op-yaroslavsky13
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