MEASURE: Move to Give Planners More Control : Measure Would Give Planners Control Over Targeted Areas

In a move to control rapid commercial growth and chronic traffic problems, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky has introduced a measure that for the first time would give the city power to control all large new construction along major portions of Pico, Westwood and Sepulveda boulevards.

Yaroslavsky’s proposal, outlined to City Council members Wednesday, would give the city Planning Department jurisdiction over several miles of valuable commercial and industrial land where development is now permitted without the approval of city planners. The plan is designed to prevent the unchecked growth of new office buildings and to ward off parking problems like those that have plagued the Westside Pavilion, a huge Westwood shopping mall that opened to widespread neighborhood complaints this spring, Yaroslavsky said.

“Some of the worst traffic problems in our area have been caused by these very popular businesses,” Yaroslavsky said later, citing a series of projects that have been built near already crowded residential areas. “Our problem has been, most of these projects have been built by right (of zoning). . . with no leverage to require adequate parking. The city has not been in the position to impose conditions” on the developers.

Yaroslavsky’s plan, which is expected to draw strong opposition from potential developers, is regarded as a departure from planning policies that have existed since the city began enacting zoning laws in the early 1900s, city planner Don Taylor said. Unlike many smaller cites, Los Angeles has traditionally required public hearings and environmental studies only for projects that do not conform to adopted zoning standards that establish an area’s residential or commercial character, he said.

Laws Challenged

But in recent years, rapid commercial growth and political pressures have focused increasing attention on projects that have been built without planning reviews. In some areas, particularly on the Westside, old zoning laws have been challenged by lawsuits and building moratoriums because highway construction and mass-transit systems have failed to keep pace with new development.

“I think you’re going to see this (approach) applied throughout the city,” Councilman Howard Finn, chairman of the city’s three-member planning committee, said of Yaroslavsky’s plan. “It’s a whole new philosophy. . . . I really feel we should have been doing this all along.”

Under Yaroslavsky’s proposal, which could become law if adopted by the City Council later this summer, developments in targeted areas would require public hearings and conditional-use permits if construction exceeds three stories, 30,000 square feet in floor area or if it leads to an increase in traffic on adjoining streets.

Yaroslavsky said the plan would enable the city to demand more parking than required by current zoning laws and to preserve the character of neighborhoods that could be dramatically changed by uncontrolled growth.

The measure would affect Westwood Boulevard between Pico and Santa Monica boulevards; Pico Boulevard between the San Diego Freeway and 20th Century Fox Studios; portions of Overland Avenue between Pico Boulevard and Ashby Avenue, and the industrial “Sepulveda corridor” bounded by Sepulveda Boulevard, Santa Monica, Pearl Street and the San Diego Freeway.

The construction of the Westside Pavilion, at Westwood and Pico, triggered the proposal because of the new growth it is expected to spawn in surrounding commercial portions of Westwood, Yaroslavsky said. The two-pronged plan also is designed to prevent high-rise office towers from destroying one of the city’s few remaining industrial areas in the Sepulveda corridor, Yaroslavsky said.

“Our experience has been . . . that the entry of a high-profile business into a community tends to inspire other commercial properties to redevelop and to . . . upgrade themselves so that the old hardware store becomes a nouvelle cuisine restaurant, the old bookstore becomes an ice cream parlor,” he said, citing the Westside Pavilion as a project that could promote growth in the same way that the Beverly Center has done outside Westwood.

Parking Concerns

“That’s not bad, but what we’re trying to do . . . is ensure that when the area does redevelop, it does so with adequate parking. We want to deal with parking for the projects we know are going to come down the pipe.”

The law would be intended to resolve traffic problems, but it also would enable the city to scale down troublesome projects or to preserve commercial or industrial uses that are considered desirable in the areas, Yaroslavsky said.

Phil Krakover, a lobbyist who represents many of the city’s largest developers, criticized the plan as a way to take government out of the law books and place it in the hands of the lawmakers who would be forced to judge the merits of various projects. He said in an interview that the plan would cost potential developers thousands of dollars and force them to go through lengthy delays that could discourage many companies from settling in Los Angeles.

“A businessman wants to go in and do something, and he has to pay . . . filing fees . . . to get maps, to get a plan drawn up by an architect, to hire an attorney or someone like me to put an application together. . . (and) it becomes a mess,” Krakover said. “You could spend $5,000 and five months and end up with nothing.”

Different Approach

Krakover said a fairer approach would be to toughen zoning laws throughout the city but allow developers to build in accordance with those laws. “If the rules are tough, but fair, you can deal with them,” he said. “But if they’re arbitrary, you have a hard time.”

Yaroslavsky conceded that developers could be forced to spend substantial amounts of money to meet demands placed on them by the city, above and beyond the $1,500 filing fee for a conditional-use permit. If a developer is asked to put in underground parking, for example, he could be faced with reducing the size of his project or paying perhaps $2 million in additional construction costs, Yaroslavsky said.

But the councilman, a longtime foe of unregulated growth in West Los Angeles, said business owners in Westwood ultimately would benefit from the ordinance because it would ensure adequate parking to accommodate their customers. As parking continues to disappear in surrounding neighborhoods--in many cases, permits are now required to park on residential streets--business owners are becoming increasingly dependent upon their own parking, Yaroslavsky said.

Krakover disagreed, saying most large developers already provide more than enough parking on their project sites.

“Lenders require it,” he said. “Their interest is not protected unless a building is going to work. Knowledgeable builders recognize the need to make a project viable and attractive.”

Under Pressure

The Sepulveda corridor, a longtime haven for industrial firms, auto shops and wrecking yards, has been under increasing pressure for high-rise office development, which is permitted by zoning rights in the industrial manufacturing zone, Yaroslavsky said. He said unregulated high-rise construction would increase rush-hour traffic in the area and leave Westside residents with virtually no place to go for many industrial and manufacturing services.

“We don’t want to lose every lumber yard, every industry we have their,” Yaroslavsky said. “I don’t think people should have to go to Downey or to Chatsworth to get a 2-by-4.”

Industrial services have been disappearing in recent years because developers find it more profitable to build office towers, he said.