L.A.’S TREES ARE NECESSARY INFRASTRUCTURE

By Jeanne McConnell, President of Angelenos for Trees, and Casey Maddren, President of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA).

Trees are crucial infrastructure.  According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, a healthy urban forest will: 1) cool our communities and reduce energy use; 2) improve air quality and lower greenhouse gas emissions; 3) capture stormwater and improve water quality; 4) provide habitat for wildlife.  All of these benefits are increasingly important as the City of LA (and the entire Southwest) continues to become hotter and drier. 

Sidewalks are also crucial infrastructure, and they need to be properly maintained.  Over the past several years we’ve seen LA’s sidewalks deteriorating, and unfortunately trees are one of the causes.  In 2010, a class action lawsuit was filed, Willits v. City of Los Angeles, alleging that the City was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to properly maintain its sidewalks.  In 2016, the City entered into a settlement requiring it to spend $1.4 billion over 30 years to make sidewalks accessible to persons with disabilities.  Not long after, the City began to implement its Sidewalk Repair Program. 

The groups we represent, Angelenos for Trees and United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA), absolutely believe we need to properly maintain our sidewalks.  However, we felt the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) failed to adequately consider the effects of the Sidewalk Repair Program on our rapidly declining urban forest.  The EIR anticipated the removal and replacement of over 12,000 street trees.  We believe this would have caused very real impacts to the environment and to our infrastructure, and that the EIR didn’t properly assess these impacts.  We went to court, and the court agreed with us. 

So where do we go from here?  Well, Councilmembers John Lee and Traci Park took an impressive first step by creating a motion asking the City to explore best practices for sidewalk repairs that would preserve our City's mature street trees.  The motion also asks the City Administrative Officer to report back on the possibility of securing federal funding for our urban forests.

But maybe the most important thing about the motion from Lee and Park is that they refer to our urban forest as infrastructure.  As we said at the beginning of this article, we believe trees are critical infrastructure in our fight to address poor air quality, increased heat, increased flooding and loss of biodiversity.  You can find numerous statements by members of the City Council and our former Mayor emphasizing the importance of the urban forest.  Unfortunately, their statements haven’t been supported by action.  Funding for the Urban Forestry Division, the Office of City Forest Management, and Parks & Recreation has never matched the size of the job that they are tasked with, and whenever there’s a budget squeeze, UFD usually ends up taking a hit.  Staff was slashed during the last recession, and while some positions have been restored since then, UFD and the Office of City Forest Management still doesn’t have the staff or the funding to do what they’re asked to do. 

LA’s mayors have been long on talk, but short on action.  In 2006, Antonio Villaraigosa put forward his Million Trees LA initiative, with the goal of planting a million trees throughout the city.  In 2019, Eric Garcetti revealed a plan to plant 90,000 trees by 2021 as part of LA’s Green New Deal.  Both programs may have been well-intended, and many new trees were planted, but in fact both programs fell far short of their goals. 

In 2018, the City commissioned Dudek Consulting to prepare a report which sets forth the first steps to implementing an Urban Forest Management Plan.  Dudek found that Los Angeles scored a 2 out of a possible 109 in sustainable urban forest management.   Since then, small steps have been taken to implement the plan, but many of the report’s findings have not been addressed and recommendations have not been adopted due to a lack of commitment by the City and the failure to adequately fund these recommendations.

We can’t keep hoping to get by with on-again/off-again funding for our urban forest.  We can’t keep relying on mayors looking to impress us with short-lived programs that aren’t fully funded.  We need a long-term commitment from our City’s leaders to: 1) recognize the urban forest as essential infrastructure, just like sidewalks, roads and power lines; 2) substantially increase annual funding for the urban forest commensurate with its status as necessary infrastructure; and 3) elevate the Urban Forestry Department and the Office of Forest Management so that their status is equal to other City departments that maintain our infrastructure.

We understand that there are always more demands on the budget than can be fulfilled, and we know that structural changes are difficult.  But if the City isn’t going to make these changes, then we should stop pretending that we care about shade inequity, the quality of our air, the loss of biodiversity and the value of trees as green infrastructure, and acknowledge that as a City we are actively participating in the rapid decline of our urban forest.  (Some LA communities have lost more than 50% of their tree canopy over the last 20 years.)  UFD will continue to make decisions based on cost rather than best practices.  Developers will continue to cut down mature trees.  The street trees that clean our air and cool our communities will continue to die whenever lack of funding prohibits adequate care.

We are grateful to Councilmembers Lee and Park for putting this motion forward.  We hope we can work with the City in resolving the issues with the Sidewalk Repair Program.  But we also hope that this will be the first step toward recognizing our urban forest as crucial infrastructure, and then making a commitment to fund it as other large cities do, and as recommended by the Dudek Report.  As Los Angeles continues to grow warmer and experiences extreme drought and flooding due to climate change, we can’t afford to stick with the status quo. 

It is time to recognize that trees are crucial infrastructure.

WHY NOT JUST CALL IT THE FRANK GEHRY RIVER?

You may have thought the LA River belonged to the people of LA.  Not so.  It's becoming increasingly clear that the LA River belongs to a group of powerful insiders who have their own vision for the River, and they have no interest in hearing what the public wants.

Take the recently announced Headwaters Pavillion planned for Canoga Park, designed by Frank Gehry and the landscape architecture firm Olin, the same team that spearheaded the creation of the LA River Master Plan recently adopted by the LA County Board of Supervisors.

The Master Plan was adopted over the objections of Friends of the Los Angeles River, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Heal the Bay, the Nature Conservancy, LA Waterkeeper and the Center for Biological Diversity.  The last two groups filed a lawsuit to stop the Master Plan in July.  Among their objections was that the Master Plan reinforces the view that the LA River is primarily a flood control channel, and that it doesn't prioritize habitat restoration and climate resilience.  These groups also complained that their views, and the views of the communities that border the River, were largely ignored during the process of creating that Master Plan.

So do these groups have a legitimate complaint?  Or are they just a bunch of obstructionist whiners who are angry they didn't get their way?

A quick look at the history of the LA River Master Plan shows that the insiders who have been driving the process were never interested in meaningful input from the public.  Back in 2015 LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and the LA River Revitalization Corp. made the surprise announcement that Gehry's firm had been chosen to create a master plan for the River.  The choice had been made behind closed doors, with no effort made to seek input from stakeholders, including Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR), a non-profit that had already been working for decades to revitalize the River.  FoLAR and other groups were later invited to participate in meetings as part of the planning process, but, as stated above, they believe their input was largely ignored.

This kind of thing is standard operating procedure for Garcetti, who has shown over and over again that he feels no need to listen to LA's communities.  As a city councilmember, Garcetti was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Millennium Hollywood, in spite of widespread community opposition and warnings that it was unwise to build skyscrapers next to the Hollywood Fault.  He stepped in to rescue the troubled Sea Breeze Project, overriding the objections of the local community and his own appointees on the City Planning Commission.  (The developer behind Sea Breeze recently pled guilty to money laundering, having covertly funnelled money to a number of LA politicians, including a group that supported Garcetti.)   When he finally realized how bad LA's homeless crisis was making him look, Garcetti quickly slapped together his A Bridge Home proposal, which was presented with much fanfare.  This badly conceived and inadequately funded program quickly slid into the background, its lack of success seemingly the result of a woeful lack of planning.  When members of a Koreatown community group tried to participate in what had been advertised as a public meeting about A Bridge Home, they were told that their names were on a list of people who were barred from attending. 

This is clearly the way Garcetti prefers to work, making decisions behind closed doors, consulting only with the power brokers who have backed him up for years.  Garcetti and his cadre chose Frank Gehry to guide the creation of the LA River Master Plan.  Garcetti and his cadre pushed for approval of the Plan, in spite of loud objections from the stakeholders who would actually have to live with the results.  The fact that Gehry has been chosen, again, to create a pavilion intended to mark the LA River’s headwaters in Canoga Park should come as no surprise.  He’s already been anointed by the insiders who have controlled the process all along. 

So remember: The LA River doesn't belong to us.  It belongs to Eric Garcetti and the power brokers who surround him.  And they've decided to turn it over to Frank Gehry and his team. 

It makes no sense to keep calling it the LA River, since it clearly doesn’t belong to the people of LA.  Let's just rename it after the man who has been entrusted with the task of planning for the River's future, no matter what the consequences are for the rest of us. 

Let's just call it the Frank Gehry River.  We know he'd be happy with the change. 

UN4LA CORRUPTION ROUND-UP 2021

Corruption is rampant in LA.  Over the past two years LA residents have seen the US Department of Justice (DOJ) hand down numerous indictments alleging criminal conduct by elected officials, along with others in their orbit.  A number of the accused have pled guilty.   One former LA City councilmember has been doing time in a federal prison.  And the beat goes on.  Yet another LA City councilmember was indicted in October.  In November a lawyer who had worked for the LA City Attorney’s Office signed a plea deal that could have far-reaching consequences. 

No one could blame LA residents for being overwhelmed by these developments.  The steady stream of indictments and the number of players involved makes it hard to keep track of everything that’s going on.  So UN4LA presents its 2021 Corruption Round-Up, in the hope that we can untangle some of the threads and clarify some of the issues.

The following list of misdeeds, some acknowledged, some only alleged, may be a depressing read, but our goal is not to encourage cynicism.  The system is imperfect, but the system is working.  Law enforcement agencies and community groups have been working diligently to investigate and expose corruption.  The media has been reporting allegations of misconduct by public officials.  Now it’s up to you.  Your job is to demand that elected officials adhere to the highest standards, and then to make sure that they’re held accountable.  UN4LA hopes that you’ll join us in the fight for honest and responsive government that truly serves the people.

LADWP Billing Scandal

The long and twisted saga of the DWP billing scandal continues to unfold.  You probably haven’t forgotten the agency’s disastrous roll-out of its new billing system back in 2013, where customers were mistakenly overcharged by thousands of dollars and no one seemed able to straighten the mess out.  Many lawsuits were filed.  To wrap everything up quickly, the City agreed to the settlement of a class action filed by a Van Nuys man, Antwon Jones, which conveniently blocked other lawsuits from going forward. 

Unfortunately, the attorney who originally represented Jones didn’t tell his client that he was also working for the City Attorney’s Office, and that the lawsuit was a sham.  That attorney, Paul Paradis, signed a plea deal in November in which he admitted to bribery and laid out the details of a series of complex, interlocking scams which implicate at least one former member of the City Attorney’s Office, a former General Manager of the DWP, and a former member of the DWP Board. 

Attorney Agrees to Plead Guilty to Bribery in Kickback Scheme Tied to DWP Billing Case

This would all appear to make City Attorney Mike Feuer look pretty bad.  But Feuer denies he was involved in any wrongdoing, and is pressing ahead with his campaign to become LA’s next mayor.  This should be interesting, since he’s currently under investigation by the State Bar, and will probably have to answer a lot of questions about this situation on the campaign trail.  In an effort to unravel this sordid mess, the court appointed a Special Master to investigate and prepare a report.  Unfortunately, the Special Master wasn’t able to come to a conclusion about Feuer’s involvement, because notes taken by a chief deputy were destroyed and Feuer apparently was suffering from severe memory loss when he was deposed.  He repeated the sentence “I do not recall” over 60 times in the course of the deposition.

Mike Feuer Under State Bar Investigation According to Bar Documents and Sources

Mayor Eric Garcetti

While some might question whether it falls under the label “corruption”, the sexual harassment scandal involving a former aide to Mayor Eric Garcetti raises important questions about accountability within the Mayor’s office, in addition to undermining Garcetti’s personal credibility.  LAPD Officer Matt Garza has sued the City of LA, charging that Garcetti aide Rick Jacobs made repeated inappropriate sexual advances and that the Mayor failed to do anything about it.  Garcetti has denied any knowledge of inappropriate behavior by Jacobs, but a number of people have come forward with statements that appear to confirm Garza’s allegations.  What’s more, they say the Mayor knew about Jacob’s behavior and did nothing. 

Eric Garcetti’s Top Aide Was a Serial Harasser, According to Multiple Accusers

LA City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas

Prominent figures on LA’s political scene expressed shock when the DOJ handed down a 20-count indictment of LA City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas, but actually people had been asking for a while how his son had landed in a cushy position at USC.  Sebastian Ridley-Thomas had been a member of the State Assembly before resigning in 2017 after allegations that he was guilty of sexual harassment.  It seemed like an incredible stroke of luck that he should then snag a faculty appointment at USC, along with a full scholarship to grad school.  Maybe not so lucky after all.  The DOJ alleges that, while he was serving on the LA Board of Supervisors, Mark Ridley-Thomas conspired with the Dean of USC’s School of Social Work to get Sebastian the job and the scholarship, in return for steering County contracts to the school. 

Mark Ridley-Thomas denies any wrongdoing, but has been suspended from the LA City Council.

Mark Ridley-Thomas Charged Along with Former University Dean in Grand Jury Indictment

Former LA City Councilmember Jose Huizar

It would take more space than we have here to go into the lengthy list of allegations against former LA City Councilmember Jose Huizar, so we’ll try to stick with the greatest hits.  In June 2020, the DOJ filed a complaint against Huizar alleging that he was part of a criminal pay-to-play scheme, whereby developers offered money in return for the Councilmember’s help in getting project approvals.  The charges include bribery, extortion and money laundering.  According to the DOJ, Huizar agreed to accept at least $1.5 million in illegal benefits.

Huizar is no longer on the City Council, but denies any wrongdoing, and in a court filing earlier this year his lawyers claimed that the DOJ is guilty of overreaching.  According to Huizar’s lawyers, the Councilmember only engaged in activities that were a routine part of promoting development.  They say his actions did not meet the threshold for prosecution under federal law.

Huizar Seeks to Gut Corruption Case, Says Alleged $1.5 Million in Gifts Were Not Bribes

Former Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan

In addition to the charges filed against Huizar, the DOJ also alleged that real estate consultant Raymond Chan was involved in the pay-to-play scheme that allowed developers to secure project approvals.  Chan was formerly one of Garcetti’s top deputies, and also served as General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.  Prosecutors allege that he arranged indirect bribes for city officials, using their family members to channel illicit funds.  Chan insists he did nothing wrong.  His case is scheduled to go to trial in May 2022.

‘Indirect Bribes’ Went to Family Members of Officials in City Hall Corruption Case

Guilty Pleas

In the course of their investigation of pay-to-play corruption at LA City Hall, the DOJ obtained guilty pleas from the following persons:

• Real estate appraiser Justin Kim pled guilty to one count of bribery.  Kim acknowledged that he played a part in arranging a $500,000 payment by a developer to avert a challenge to one of the developer’s projects. 

• George Chiang, a real estate consultant, agreed to plead guilty to violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act.  According to the plea deal, Chiang was part of a conspiracy in which developers bribed public officials to obtain project approvals.

• One of Jose Huizar’s former staffers, George Esparza, also pled guilty to a racketeering charge as a result of his role in the same pay-to-play scheme.

• Lobbyist Morrie Goldman signed a plea deal where he admitted to helping a client obtain favors from Huizar in exchange for campaign donations. 

But the City of LA isn’t the only municipality where public officials have faced allegations of wrongdoing.  In the past year both Inglewood and Compton have been roiled by charges that elected officials violated the law….

Inglewood Treasurer Files Lawsuit Claiming Retaliation

Wanda Brown has served as Treasurer for the City of Inglewood for over 30 years, but she claims her salary was slashed and her staff were locked out of their offices after she started raising questions about the City’s financial health.  One of the issues she brought up involved an alleged overpayment of $77,000 to a contractor.  Brown has filed a lawsuit against the City, and seeks $10 million in damages.  Mayor James Butts and the members of the City Council claim they have done nothing wrong. 

Inglewood Treasurer Files $10 Million Claim against City, Mayor and Council

Compton City Councilmember Isaac Galvan

In August of this year the LA County District Attorney’s Office charged Compton City Councilmember Isaac Galvan and five other people with conspiring to commit election fraud.  According to the complaint, Galvan and Jace Dawson, a former candidate for the council seat, conspired with four other people in a scheme to cast votes illegally.  Galvan beat runner-up Andre Spicer by one vote.  Galvan has also been charged with attempting to bribe an employee of the registrar’s office while votes were being counted on election night. 

Compton Residents Call on City Councilman Accused of Election Fraud to Resign

PROCESSES & PROCEDURES: BETTER PLANNING OR MORE PROFITEERING?

The City of LA's re-write of the Zoning Code continues to move forward, albeit in a confusing, piecemeal fashion.  On June 1, the Planning & Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee voted to recommend approval of the Processes & Procedures Ordinance, which is actually just one chapter (Chapter 13, Administration) of the proposed New Zoning Code.  According to the Department of City Planning, the Ordinance is, "One key component of a larger effort to comprehensively revise the City's Zoning Code to become more responsive and accessible to the public."  But some members of the public who have studied the Ordinance believe that it actually does the opposite.

Since we’re on the subject of being “responsive and accessible to the public”, it might be a good idea to talk about the meeting where the PLUM Committee gave the Ordinance a thumbs-up.  It started off with Chair Marqueece Harris-Dawson announcing that the committee would allow 60 minutes for public comment, but in fact, Harris-Dawson cut off public comment after only 53 minutes, when there were still a number of commenters in the virtual cue, some of whom had called in specifically to talk about the proposed Ordinance. 

It’s also hard to see how this “reorganization” will make the project approval process more accessible to the public when it moves some land use authority from elected officials to the Department of City Planning.  Under the proposed Ordinance, unelected bureaucrats will make decisions regarding project “adjustments”, “alternative compliance”, CUPs and HPOZs.  It contains no requirement to notify Neighborhood Councils of new project applications in their area, and only requires that NCs be notified of public hearings, of which there will be far fewer once the New Zoning Code is adopted.  Far from making the approval process more accessible to the public, the Ordinance seems designed to help developers push their projects through more quickly.

You might ask why this one chapter is being pushed to adoption in advance of the rest of the New Zoning Code.  City Planning will tell you it’s all about being more “responsive and accessible to the public,” but some observers believe it has more to do with streamlining project approvals.  Aside from asking why this chapter is being prioritized over the rest of the New Zoning Code, you might ask why City Planning is updating the Code when it hasn’t bothered to update parts of the General Plan that were adopted decades ago.  Many elements of the General Plan are over 20 years old, including Air Quality (1992), Safety (1996), Infrastructure (1972), Open Space (1973), Public Facilities & Services (1969), and Noise (1999).  In other words, while the City of LA’s continued growth is exacerbating inequality, putting greater burdens on our infrastructure and further straining public services, City Hall hasn’t even bothered to address planning fundamentals. 

If the Department of City Planning has failed to update the elements of the General Plan that should provide the foundation for all land use decisions, how can the New Zoning Code provide a credible framework for future development?  Is the Processes & Procedures Ordinance really about being more responsive to the needs of the public?  Or is it, in fact, about being more responsive to the needs of developers?

DIGITAL BILLBOARDS AND DATA COLLECTION

In LA there's been a lot of talk about digital billboards, and many have voiced concerns about distracted drivers and visual blight.  But there's another side to digital out-of-home advertising that's even more disturbing.  In many cities these billboards now contain cameras and wireless devices that collect data from people passing by.  Both the City of LA and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) are now considering proposals to build vast outdoor networks that would enable advertisers (and probably others) to keep an eye on us 24/7.

In April the MTA Board approved a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for what was labelled the Transportation Communication Network (TCN) Program.  While the MOA portrays the Program as a win-win, offering real-time updates for both transit riders and drivers, it actually raises more questions than it answers.   For instance, an extensive network of cameras and transmitters will apparently be installed, but an MTA presentation says there will be no impact to the budget and no capital outlay required.

So who’s paying for this infrastructure if not the MTA?  And who will be installing this vast network?  Is it a private for-profit entity?  If so, this raises the question of who will actually be handling the data collected.  There’s nothing in the MOA that talks about privacy concerns, which is especially troubling, since it says the info will be shared with law enforcement agencies.  It’s also troubling that the working draft of the MOA Term Sheet is marked “PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL”, and the matter was rushed through the approval process in just over two months.

At the same time, the City of LA is speeding forward with its Sidewalk and Transit Amenities Program (STAP).  In this case the proposal is to have an outdoor advertising company maintain and enhance the street furniture used by transit riders and pedestrians.  In return, the company would be able to install digital ad displays, again with cameras and wireless devices to collect data from people passing by.  While the City’s proposal claims to address privacy concerns, in reality it does nothing of the sort.  A presentation states, “Data collected will adhere to CA Consumer Privacy Act,” but since the data will actually be gathered by a private company, there’s no way for the City to enforce this.  The same presentation also says, “None of the data collected under the program will be made available to any third-party without the approval of the City.”  In other words, the data can be accessed by a third-party, and there’s no explanation of how approvals would be handled. 

The odds are that at least one of the apps on your smart phone, and probably more than one, is continuously transmitting signals that give info about your location, interests and spending.  This data can easily be linked to other data sets that contain info about your education, credit history and political affiliation.  Do you really want to give advertisers, or law enforcement, or anyone else who’s interested, access to all that info?  This article from Consumer Reports makes it clear how much data advertisers are already collecting, and how few controls there are over how it’s used. 

Digital Billboards Are Tracking You

Transit Communication Network Program MOA from LA Metro

Sidewalk and Transit Amenities Program Presentation from Streets LA

IT’S TIME TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST CORRUPTION AT L.A. CITY HALL

While the recent string of corruption indictments is beyond anything the City of LA has seen in decades, it's no surprise to thousands of residents who have known for years that project approvals are for sale. For a long time community members across LA have been voicing accusations that the so-called "planning process" was actually a play-to-play game, set up to benefit developers and the politicians who serve them. Now we have proof. Before last week we had already seen four guilty pleas, including from a former Councilmember, a former member of the City Planning Commission, a former CD 14 staff member, and a development consultant. On Tuesday, June 23, Councilmember Jose Huizar, who represents CD 14, was arrested by the Department of Justice (DOJ). He's charged with participating in a long-standing and widespread conspiracy that involved shaking down developers in return for project approvals. At the time of this writing, Huizar has not yet entered a plea.

There have been expressions of alarm and disgust from some Councilmembers, and after Huizar's arrest the Council voted to suspend him. But really, this is way too little, way too late. Huizar may have gone farther than his colleagues in trading project approvals for favors from developers, but he's certainly not alone. All you have to do is compare campaign contributions logged on the Ethics Commission's web site with a list of major projects that have been approved in recent years to see that there's a close correlation between the two. Also note that almost all projects receive unanimous approval by the members of the City Council, owing to the unspoken agreement that "I'll approve your project if you'll approve mine." There's rarely any discussion of a project's actual merits or flaws, and any talk of planning is limited to repeating a set of familiar sound bites that have nothing to do with reality.

The only Councilmember who has been consistently talking about reform since he was elected is David Ryu. The Councilmember's interest in reform may have been sparked in part by personal experience. When Ryu took office back in 2015, he was surprised to find that his predecessor, Tom LaBonge, had destroyed the vast majority of the records kept by the Council District 4 office, including records related to budgets, land use and community issues. We can only guess what LaBonge was trying to hide, but it seems clear that he'd been engaged in activities that he didn't want anyone outside the office to know about. Ryu put forward his first motion related to campaign finance reform the year he was elected. You probably won’t be surprised that not one of his colleagues on the Council was willing to second the motion.

But after the string of guilty pleas and Huizar's arrest, all of a sudden the members of the LA City Council are desperate to show how concerned they are about ethics. So the climate has changed, and Ryu has introduced a pair of new motions to address corruption at City Hall. Both motions were seconded by Councilmember Paul Koretz.

Ryu’s first motion would create an independent body to provide oversight of land use, development and construction processes and to investigate allegations of corruption (The Office of Anti-Corruption and Transparency). The second motion would place a measure on the November ballot to remove Section 245 from the City Charter. Section 245 allows the Council to override decisions made by the City Planning Commission or Area Planning Commissions, and Ryu’s reasoning is that this gives Councilmembers too much power in land use approvals.

UN4LA strongly supports the first motion. Recent events have shown that LA desperately needs an independent office tasked with fighting corruption. The motion was approved by the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee on June 30, but the road to approval by the full Council will probably be difficult. Ryu previously pushed for an ordinance aimed at campaign finance reform, but the final version approved by the Council was seriously watered down.

UN4LA does not support the second motion. While Ryu’s take on Section 245 sounds logical, we have heard from numerous community members who see it as a valid tool to overturn problematic decisions made by the Department of City Planning (DCP). A perfect example is the current situation with the Mulholland/San Feliciano Project, in which a developer plans to construct 19 single family homes in an oak woodland adjacent to Mulholland Drive, removing 15 protected trees in the process. After approval by the DCP, a number of individuals and groups filed appeals. When the pandemic hit, the Area Planning Commission meeting at which the appeals would have been heard was cancelled, and the developer refused to grant a continuance, meaning that the appeals were “deemed denied”. The appellants were understandably grateful when Councilmember Bob Blumenfield used Section 245 to bring the matter before the Council.

Ryu’s efforts should be applauded, but we need more. It’s clear from the lack of real action that the majority of Councilmembers are quite happy with the status quo, and that they see no reason to rock the boat. Now that Huizar has been arrested we’re hearing cries of dismay, but without continued pressure for reform, you can bet that the LA City Council will slide back into its old ways. And really, at this point nothing has changed. Last year the LA Times reported that Onni Contracting (California) had given $50,000 to a campaign committee with ties to Huizar just two months before an important hearing. Onni Group had submitted an application to tear down part of the LA Times building in order to build a pair of residential towers on the site. Huizar sent an aide to the hearing, who testified that the part of the building to be demolished was not historic. The Council sided with Huizar, and rejected the designation for that part of the site. Now, in spite of the suspicious donation, and in spite of the fact that Huizar has been charged by the Feds with taking money in exchange for helping developers, the project is going before the City Planning Commission on July 9. The City Council has made no effort to investigate Onni's actions.

So what are we going to do about it? UN4LA believes that David Ryu's effort to create an independent office tasked with fighting corruption is a good start. But at the same time, the citizens of Los Angeles need to make it clear that the City Council must change its ways. We can no longer accept a project approval process that has little to do with planning and everything to do with campaign contributions.

The DOJ has four guilty pleas so far, and Huizar could make five. It's time for Angelenos to say we will not accept corruption at City Hall.

L.A. IS LOSING ITS TREES

LA is losing its trees. While elected officials talk about the importance of the urban forest and pay lip service to sustainability, we're rapidly losing one of our most valuable resources. Trees are crucial to keeping urban temperatures down, recharging our underground aquifers, and keeping our air clean. But LA’s urban forest is facing unprecedented threats from many different sources. A 2017 report from Tree People states plainly just how serious the threat is….

The urgency of protecting the urban forest has risen sharply as drought, pests, disease, climate impacts and budget cuts lead to rapidly rising tree mortality. In the coastal Southern California region, which includes much of Los Angeles County, the US Forest Service estimates that 33.5 percent of trees are at risk of dying from just one pest: the polyphagous shot hole borer. In the greater Southern California area, that number rises to 38 percent, or 27 million trees, and the estimated cost of removing and replacing those trees is $36 billion. Threats to mortality extend beyond this one pest.

Yes, there are many threats other than the shot hole borer. The Los Angeles Unified School District plans to cut down 48 trees at Grant High School as part of a campus upgrade. Ninety mature trees will be felled as part of a makeover of the Sportsmen's Lodge. Harvard-Westlake School plans to remove scores of trees as part of its plan to turn the former Weddington Golf Course into an athletic facility. And Universal Studios continues to bulldoze hundreds of trees, including protected native species, in the course of its years-long expansion plan. While the plans for most of these projects talk about planting replacement trees, there are usually few specifics and little oversight. It came to light recently that replacement trees paid for by developers were sitting in a City storage facility for so long that they were no longer viable.

Beyond large projects like these, our communities are losing tree canopy and green space as houses grow bigger and bigger. A 2017 study from USC shows that from 2000 to 2009 tree cover decreased an average of 13.6% in neighborhoods across LA County just because people are building larger homes. And many of our trees die simply from poor care or neglect. In LA there have been numerous complaints that crews hired by the City for pruning are too aggressive and end up doing more harm than good. A number of trees die each year because no one takes the time to water them. Many cities in LA County have plans and policies in place to maintain their urban forest, but too often there's no funding to support them. Plans are meaningless if they just sit on a shelf collecting dust.

So what do cities need to do? The steps are pretty straightforward:

1. Complete a comprehensive tree inventory.

2. Create an Urban Forest Management Plan.

3. Develop agencies with the personnel and the funding to execute the plan.

Of course, the obvious problem is the lack of funding. And this is tied to an even deeper problem. Lack of will. Politicians often talk about the importance of our urban forest, but rarely take any meaningful action to protect it. And as individuals we generally take trees for granted. We may think they look nice, and on hot days we're glad to have their shade, but few of us are actively engaged in advocating for trees or caring for them.

If we don't take action, we'll all pay the price. The region will keep getting hotter, water will grow more scarce, and the air we breathe will become dirtier. The recent drought has ended, but it may have been just a taste of what's in store for us. If we don't start caring for our urban forest, LA could get a whole lot harder to live in.

If you want to get involved, there are groups that you can join to take action.

Angelenos for Trees

Tree People

CUTTING OFF THE CAMPAIGN CASH: IS THE CITY OF L.A. FINALLY GOIGN TO TAKE ACTION?

Last November FBI agents raided Councilmember Jose Huizar's home and office. On the day of the raid local news stations broadcast images of Federal agents leaving Huizar's house carrying boxes and bags filled with documents and other media. Over the next few months it became clear that the raid was part of a wide-ranging corruption investigation focussed on the activities of over a dozen LA City officials. A warrant issued in conjunction with the probe names Councilmember Curren Price, former Garcetti deputy Ray Chan, and Herb Wesson's chief of staff, Deron Williams. No indictments have been handed down yet, but the warrant mentions charges including bribery, extortion, and money laundering.

For many Angelenos, it was no surprise to hear reports of alleged corruption at City Hall. The only surprise was that someone was finally taking action. Evidence of the the pay-to-play culture that pervades City Hall is readily available. All you have to do is scroll through the list of campaign contributions on the LA Ethics Commission web site to see that developers and real estate interests are very generous to our elected officials. And in many cases it's easy to match up the timing of contributions with approvals handed out by the City. One particularly egregious example was the Sea Breeze project, where developer Samuel Leung is alleged to have surreptitiously given over $600,000 to LA area officials while the City was considering an apartment complex he had filed an application for. Or there's the $50,000 that Paramount Pictures gave to the Mayor’s Fund in 2015 as it was in the process of seeking approvals for a massive makeover of the studio's production facilities. And it's hard to even calculate the many thousands of dollars given to elected officials by Rick Caruso, his family, and employees, during the period the developer was pushing for approval of a residential tower on La Cienega. There are many more examples, too numerous to mention here.

So it was welcome news when earlier this year six LA City Councilmembers proposed a bold ethics reform package. David Ryu, Paul Krekorian, Nury Martinez, Paul Koretz, Mike Bonin, and Joe Buscaino deserve credit for taking action on this issue. We need reform now. Earlier this year the LA City Ethics Commission sent a set of recommendations to the City Council. They include:

• Prohibiting campaign contributions from developers who have business before the City.

• Prohibiting elected officials from seeking behested contributions to charities from developers who have business before the City.

• Prohibiting campaign contributions from non-individuals.

UN4LA believes reform is long overdue. We desperately need to rein in the pay-to-play culture that has wreaked havoc on LA's communities and made the planning process a joke. The City Council needs to act quickly and pass an ordinance based on the recommendations from the Ethics Commission. We can't allow this ordinance to be watered down or left to languish.

We need action now.

LA City Ethics Commission Recommendations:
Campaign Contributions and Behested Payments

ARE ACCUSATIONS OF CORRUPTION AT CITY HALL NOTHING MORE THAN “HYSTERIA”?

The room was packed and emotions ran high at the January 15 Planning & Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee hearing where the massive Crossroads Hollywood project was on the agenda. While representatives of business and labor groups spoke in support of the project, there were a number of people who spoke against, and many of those opposed brought up the FBI investigation that has raised serious ethics concerns about the way business is done at City Hall. The home and offices of the former PLUM Chair, Councilmember Jose Huizar, were raided by the feds last year, and Huizar stepped down from the Committee shortly afterward. He was replaced by the current PLUM Chair, Councilmember Curren Price.

There was an especially contentious moment when Miki Jackson, of the Coaliton to Preserve LA, stated that some PLUM members were mentioned in a recent warrant tied to the federal investigation into bribery, extortion, and money laundering. Acting PLUM Chair Marqueece Harris-Dawson seemed to take offense, stating, "Say who you're talking about or don't besmirch all of us." Jackson then clarified, saying that the warrant mentioned former PLUM Chair Huizar and current PLUM Chair Price. Price was not at the hearing, probably because his wife, Del Richardson, has been working with Crossroads developer Harridge Group to move tenants out of existing apartments on the project site. These rent-stabilized units will be demolished if the project goes forward.

Others on the PLUM Committee were bothered by accusations of corruption. The LA Times quoted Councilmember Gil Cedillo complaining about the "hysteria" surrounding the FBI probe. According to the Times story, Cedillo went on to say “It’s like ‘The Day of the Locust’ here at City Hall now."

So is it just "hysteria"? Is a confused public lashing out blindly at City Hall, hurling unfounded accusations at innocent Councilmembers? Well, let's start by taking a look at campaign contributions received by Cedillo to see if there might be any possible improprieties. Interestingly, the LA Ethics Commission web site says that $1,400 in campaign contributions were made to Cedillo by businessman George Chiang, who was mentioned in the warrant tied to the FBI investigation. Cedillo has also received campaign contributions amounting to $1,200 from Liner LLP, a lobbying firm that represented Harridge Group until it merged with DLA Piper, which is currently representing the Crossroads project. But the most interesting number that comes up in connection with Cedillo on the Ethics site is the $4,700 he's received from employees of Harridge. Of the total from Harridge, $2,100 was given on a single day, December 31, 2015. Could these contributions have possibly influenced Cedillo's vote on the project? Undoubtedly the Councilmember would say such accusations are simply the result of "hysteria". (Apparently Cedillo later returned $700 he received from David Schwartzman of Harridge.)

So let's take a look at current PLUM Chair Curren Price. Are you surprised that Price also received campaign cash from George Chiang, of FBI investigation fame? It was only $700, but it's worth mentioning that Price got another $1,400 from employees of Concord Realty, a firm that Chiang worked for. But the most interesting fact about the Chiang contribution is that the date given, December 30, 2015, is the same day that David Schwartzman, James Hearn, and Brad Woomer, all Harridge employees, kicked in a total of $2,100 for Price. And it gets even more interesting when you realize that this was one day before the same three Harridge employees gave exactly the same amount to Cedillo's campaign.

Since PLUM Vice-Chair Harris-Dawson was the one who bristled at accusations that members of the PLUM Committee might be corrupt, let's take a peek at his campaign contributions. And once again, there's a connection to George Chiang. Turns out back in 2017 Harris-Dawson got $800 from Synergy Alliance Advisors, which listed Chiang as its CEO. As for tie-ins with the Crossroads project, Harris-Dawson also received $1,500 in campaign cash from Harridge CEO David Schwartzman, with $800 of that arriving on December 27, 2018, just weeks before the PLUM hearing on Crossroads.

It's worth noting that since 2013 Harridge employees have contributed $21,850 to the campaigns of current Councilmembers or candidates running for City Council. Of that total, $2,400 went to Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell, in whose council district the Crossroads project would be built; $1,900 went to Council President Herb Wesson; and $1,300 went to Mayor Eric Garcetti. You might also find it interesting that Garcetti, Wesson and former PLUM Chair Jose Huizar all received campaign cash from companies or persons associated with George Chiang, the man named in the FBI warrant.

So is it all just hysteria? Is it just that members of the public have been whipped into a frenzy by media reports of an investigation into corruption? Are Hollywood residents unfairly venting their anger at innocent politicians who would never think of approving projects in exchange for campaign cash? Are developers and lobbyists showering our elected officials with thousands of dollars out of sheer generosity, with no expectation of favors in return?

Or has the planning process in LA become completely corrupted by a culture where project approvals are awarded on the basis of how much campaign cash our Mayor and Councilmembers have received? UN4LA believes it's the latter. And we only hope that the federal investigation expands beyond Downtown to look at some of the shady development deals that are happening all over Los Angeles.

THE WILSHIRE COMMUNITY PLAN MUST COME BEFORE THE T.N.P.

Recently the Department of City Planning (DCP) informed residents of the Wilshire District that it was initiating work on the Purple Line Transit Neighborhood Plan (TNP) in anticipation of the completion of the Purple Line. Area residents, already angry at being left out of the loop, are also puzzled by the rush to implement the TNP when work on the Wilshire Community Plan Update is scheduled to begin in 2021. UN4LA must side with Wilshire residents. Below is a copy of a letter we sent to Councilmembers Wesson, Koretz, and Ryu, and to Planning Director Bertoni.

* * *

November 27, 2018

Honorable Herb Wesson
Honorable Paul Koretz
Honorable David Ryu
Director of Planning Vince Bertoni Los Angeles
City Hall
200 N. Spring St., 5th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Re: Purple Line Transit Neighborhood Plan
Case Number: CPC-2018-3731-ZC-GPA-HD-CDO; ENV-2018-3732-EIR
Alternative Proposal by UN4LA

Dear Councilmembers Wesson, Koretz and Ryu, and Director Bertoni,

United Neighborhood for Los Angeles (UN4LA) is an organization working with community groups throughout Los Angeles to promote better planning and better governance.

We have carefully studied the proposed Purple Line Extension Transit Neighborhood Plan (TNP) and concluded that, as now formulated, it will not work. At best, it will not meet its expressed goals of building affordable housing, increasing transit ridership, and reducing the generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs).

At worst, the current TNP proposal will upzone the Miracle Mile, San Vicente, Fairfax, and La Brea corridors, further reduce bus and subway ridership, decrease the supply of affordable housing, and expand the generation of GHGs. This is because the proposed Purple Line Extension TNP awards property owners unconditional bonuses to increase the height, size, and density of new residential buildings, without affordable housing requirements. Unless blocked by the courts, this approach might result in more apartment and commercial construction, but these buildings and their rentable units will be limited to the upper end of the rental market. This is exactly the population that owns and drives cars, while seldom riding buses or subways.

Furthermore, the existing problems faced by the Purple Line TNP area have no connection to zoning since these neighborhoods currently have an enormous amount of unused zoning capacity. Additionally, the Miracle Mile corridor has suffered long term time decline because of inadequate infrastructure and prior approvals of four new regional centers north of Wilshire Boulevard: Cedars-Sinai Hospital, the Beverly Center, the Beverly Connection, and the Grove shopping center.

Instead, we recommend a transit program that addresses the actual problems faced by the TNP neighborhoods. The revamped Purple Line TNP should be modeled after the recently completed Crenshaw Light Rail TNP, which entirely focused on public improvements. To best make this change, the Purple Line TNP should be folded into the forthcoming update of the Wilshire Community Plan and then fully implement two manuals posted on City Planning’s web site: Mobility Hubs and Complete Streets Guidelines. This approach also has the advantage of relying on the Wilshire Community Plan Update’s community analysis and extensive outreach efforts.

We are including attachments that provide further analysis to support our recommendations. If you would like more information on our proposal, UN4LA would be happy to meet with you to discuss these issues further.

Sincerely,
Casey Maddren, President
United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles

* * *

ATTACHMENT 1

UN4LA Alternative to Purple Line Extension Transit Neighborhood Plan

UN4LA proposes that the Purple Line Extension Transit Neighborhood Plan and its Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) be incorporated into the impending the Wilshire Community Plan Update. We consider this the best way avert litigation and also ensure a high quality planning product. In order to create truly livable, sustainable communities, any planning program must be a holistic effort which engages a range of stakeholder groups in a comprehensive process of assessing the community's current state, and imagining a vision for
the future. Instead of pursuing true community engagement, City Planning has insisted on pressing forward with a process that is narrowly focussed on upzoning near transit.

City Planning’s efforts to jam through this ambitious up-zoning scheme, using two new Purple Line subway stations as an excuse, have galvanized all local communities, including thousands of area residents. One local organization, the PICO Neighborhood Council, was, like other local groups, excluded from public participation. It nevertheless organized a large public meeting with City Planning in late September 2018. There was a standing room only crowd at this meeting. Local residents made clear that they oppose the Purple Line Transit Neighborhood Plan for the following reasons:

1. Lack of meaningful public outreach.

2. The assumption that high-density development will increase transit ridership. The City has been claiming for at least 15 years that it is promoting Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), yet transit ridership is lower than it was 30 years ago. Metro ridership has declined every year since 2013. [See Attachment 1A.]

3. Broad upzoning eliminates incentives to build affordable housing. Currently projects must include affordable units to receive density bonusses. Upzoning the Wilshire Corridor will allow developers to build what they like with no motivation to incorporate affordable housing.

4. Infrastructure is degraded, and cannot support the level of development City Planning proposes. The area experiences frequent power outages. Bursting water mains are a common problem. [See Attachment 1B.] Roads and sidewalks are in need of repair. Congested streets are already at gridlock, particularly Fairfax Avenue. Promises that new development will fund necessary upgrades are not based on a realistic assessment of needs.

5. Insufficient police and emergency services. Violent crime has risen dramatically in the area [See Attachment 1C.], and the LAPD is understaffed. Promises that new development will fund increased services are not based on a realistic assessment of needs.

6. Harmful impacts of large new buildings on fragile surrounding neighborhoods and existing businesses.

7. Displacement of teachers, nurses, office workers, and other middle class, working class, and fixed-income residents.

8. Lack of municipal accountability relying on tracking and monitoring to determine the impacts of proposed plans, like the TNP.

Neighborhood input is essential to the planning process, and in the case of the Purple Line Extension Transit Neighborhood Plan, it was ignored. Had it been solicited, the Department of City Planning would have learned that its upzoning proposals exceeded the capacity of local infrastructure and displaced existing affordable housing, transit users, and small businesses. Unlike Beverly Hills’ fixed approach to the Wilshire/LaCienega station, Los Angeles is using the Purple Line Extension subway as an excuse to increase the height, size, and density of privately owned properties zoned for apartments and commercial uses in the neighborhoods surrounding the Wilshire/La
Brea and Wilshire/Fairfax subway stations.

Community planning processes that address transit must also consider data on local land use and supporting infrastructure. This is why City Planning’s Transit Neighborhood Planning approach for the Purple Line Extension is fundamentally flawed. For example, it neglected to consider the constraints of local infrastructure and the adverse impact of taller, larger, denser buildings on surrounding residential
communities. The San Vicente/Pico, Fairfax, Wilshire, and La Brea corridors that comprise the greater Miracle Mile area do not have sufficient infrastructure, public services, or community support to become high density, luxury neighborhoods.

Transit Neighborhood Plans must also be based on California’s mandatory Complete Streets law, City Planning’s Mobility Hubs and Complete Streets Guidelines, and METRO’s First-Last Mile Strategic Plan. Nearby neighborhoods urgently need their sidewalks and intersections repaired and upgraded, their missing shade trees planted and maintained, and their street furniture, bicycle infrastructure, bus shelters, kiss ‘n ride, and park ‘n ride installed.

In local neighborhoods, new developments, even those based on existing zoning, have already displaced rent stabilized apartment units. Once dislodged, these residents cannot afford the rents of new, expensive apartment buildings, a preview of things to come if the City Council adopts the TNP. City Planning’s claims that this upzoning ordinance will produce affordable, transit-oriented apartments are
not credible. New residential developments in the TNP area and the surrounding DEIR study area are already expensive, up to $4,500 per month for a one-bedroom unit. New apartments will be priced similarly or even higher. Because the TNP grants developers upfront increases in building height, size, and density, along with reductions in parking requirements, developers will no longer require SB 1818
and TOC density bonuses to obtain these entitlements.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, UN4LA believes that the best way to create affordable housing in this area is to pursue downzoning. This would force real estate investors to include affordable rental units in their buildings in exchange for additional height, building mass, density, and/or reduced parking. No data exists forecasting a population boom or shortage of developable land in the Wilshire Community
Plan or its Transit Neighborhood Plan sub-area. The TNP area’s existing zoning has permitted many new, high density, by-right commercial and residential buildings over the past two decades. This is the intended outcome of the 389-page upzoning ordinance that the Department of City Planning appended to the 2002 Wilshire Community Plan.

If the Wilshire Community Plan’s current zoning was fully built-out through by-right real estate projects, the plan area’s population would reach 573,000 people. If these projects then incorporated SB 1818 or TOC density bonuses, the buildout population would soar to 770,000 people. In comparison, according to City Planning’s most recent population estimate, the Wilshire Community Plan housed only 293,000
people in 2015. The plan area’s most optimistic population forecast was SCAG’s estimate for 2010, 337,000 people, or nearly 500,000 people less than the plan area’s maximum build-out population.

These data reveal that all construction and population scenarios can be met by existing zoning. In fact, this zoning is already producing the new commercial and residential buildings that the TNP planners claim could only appear through up-zoning. UN4LA believes City Planning's current efforts to push through the Purple Line TNP will fail because:

• The TNP will have no connection to local neighborhoods because stakeholders were excluded from its minimal public participation process.

• The TNP will have no relationship to transit because it does not contain any transit-related public improvements.

• The TNP will have no relationship to planning because the ordinances that implement it would be separate from the forthcoming update of the Wilshire Community Plan.

For these reasons, UN4LA proposes that the current TNP planning process to be integrated into the forthcoming update of the Wilshire Community Plan. Beginning in 2021, it should conclude when the subway opens in 2023.

Conclusion: To avoid lengthy, costly and divisive litigation, City Council Districts 4, 5, and 10 must make it clear to the Department of City Planning that this plan should be deferred until all transit projects in this area can be properly considered through the forthcoming update of the Wilshire Community Plan. The real barriers to growth in this area have nothing to do with zoning. The Wilshire Community currently
suffers from degraded infrastructure, inadequate public services, a lack of truly integrated transit planning, and displacement due to the City's failure to preserve existing RSO apartments and prioritize affordable housing. These problems can only be addressed with the public’s participation in creating a comprehensive new Wilshire Community Plan.


ATTACHMENT 1A

Why Is L.A. Expanding Transit—and Losing Riders? from CityLab, Feb. 1, 2018
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/02/why-la-is-expanding-transit-and-losing-riders/551960/

[excerpt]

The city is losing once-loyal lower-income patrons: They’re driving themselves.

Happy transit systems are all alike; every unhappy transit system may be unhappy in its own way. Case in point: Southern California.

Los Angeles County, the most populous in the country, has been dramatically expanding rail transit connections for its 10 million residents. Yet across L.A. and five other counties that make up the heavily urbanized Southern California region—Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Imperial—ridership on public transportation systems has mostly declined since 2007, and quite steadily since 2013. That’s counting passenger increases on some of the new rail lines.


ATTACHMENT 1B

WILSHIRE WATER SYSTEM BREAKS

Infographic produced by LA Times covering 2010 through 2014.
http://graphics.latimes.com/los-angeles-pipe-leaks/

Go to "Search" box. Type in "5905 Wilshire Blvd.", and press "Enter".

According to Times map, majority of pipes in the area appear to be between 75 and 100 years old.


ATTACHMENT 1C

LAPD CRIME STATS FOR WILSHIRE DIVISION, YTD 2016 - YTD 2018
COMPSTAT Wilshire Area Profile 11/10/18 - EXCERPT

Violent Crime

YTD 2016: 730

YTD 2018: 937

Increase: 28.4%


Property Crime

YTD 2016: 4,519

TYD 2018: 5,394

Increase: 19.4%

WE NEED TREES AND SIDEWALKS

You may have seen an item on local news broadcasts back in August where a group of activists staged a protest to prevent the removal of 18 mature trees on the 1200 block of Cherokee in Hollywood. The City had determined that the trees needed to be removed as part of its Sidewalk Repair Program (SRP). Lawyers working with UN4LA and the Eastside Nature Alliance asked a judge to grant a temporary restraining order to prevent the removal of the trees. By the time the hearing was held, the City had offered to hold off on cutting the trees down, and so the restraining order was denied.

You may be wondering what all the fuss was about. If you've been living in LA for any length of time, you know that a lot of our sidewalks are in bad shape, and you may be asking why UN4LA would stand in the way of getting them fixed. Even if you care about trees, you may be thinking that broken sidewalks are a safety risk, and that they create barriers for the disabled, and that we need to resolve the problem even if it means losing a few trees.

You'll be glad to know that UN4LA agrees with you on almost all those points. LA's sidewalks are in terrible shape. They do create safety risks. They do constitute a barrIer for the disabled. We do need to fix them.

The problem for us arises when we talk about cutting down trees. But let's do a little review....

LA's sidewalks have been getting worse for years, and in 2010 a class action lawsuit was filed, Willits vs. City of Los Angeles, to force the City to fix them. A settlement was finalized in 2016 which required the City to spend about $1.3 billion over 30 years to address a number of issues related to pedestrian access. There were a number of projects included in the agreement, and one of the priorities was fixing sidewalks that had been damaged by tree roots.

The City knew that repairing sidewalks could mean cutting down a lot of trees, and so in 2017 it started the process of preparing an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). The idea was to look at the impacts of potentially removing thousands of trees, to offer possible alternatives to removal, and when removal was necessary to evaluate the best approach to replacement.

The problem is, the City hasn't even released a Draft EIR, but they've already started cutting down trees.

That's why UN4LA got involved. Sidewalks are a crucial component of our infrastructure. And so are trees. If you think fixing our sidewalks is more important than maintaining our urban forest, think again. We'd like to point out that City officials have repeatedly emphasized the many benefits that trees offer, including lowering the temperature, capturing stormwater, and keeping our air clean. As LA's climate grows hotter and drier, we're really going to need a robust urban forest to keep this city livable.

You see, this is a lot more serious than cutting down a few trees here and a few trees there. Our urban forest is already declining rapidly. A 2017 study from USC showed that from 2000 to 2009 urban green cover declined 14% to 55% in cities across the LA basin, primarily because of the growing size of single family homes. But that's only the beginning. Researchers with the US Forest Service say insect infestations could kill millions of trees throughout Southern California.

So we need every tree we can get, including the ones that are being removed under the SRP. The City has argued that there's no net loss because they plant replacement trees at a ratio of at least 2 to 1, but there's no scientific basis for this formula. Some believe that the City arrived at this number because they see about half of newly planted trees die off, but as our winters get drier and temperatures continue to rise it's going to become more challenging for trees to survive. And since it's usually not feasible to plant 20 trees on a parkway that originally held 10, there's a good chance that replacement trees won't end up in the same neighborhood.

But let's get back to the sidewalks. Don't we need to have safe sidewalks, especially for the elderly and disabled? For a senior citizen a relatively minor fall can cause serious problems. But there are also very real health risks related to the loss of our urban forest. Anybody who spent this past summer in LA knows that we went through a nasty heat wave, with temperatures reaching record highs in some places. According to the Centers for Disease Control , extreme heat in US cities is responsible for more deaths than all other weather events combined. And as air quality in Southern California gets worse, we'll see more more children and seniors suffering from respiratory problems. Maintaining a healthy tree canopy will help keep our air quality from degrading further.

So while we need to fix our sidewalks, we also need to preserve our urban forest. UN4LA wants the City to do both these things. That's why we believe it's necessary for the City to complete the EIR before doing any more tree removals. We need to have a well-thought-out plan in place to minimize the impacts of the SRP. This will cause some delay, but in the long run the results will be worth it.

This isn't an either/or situation. We need to have safe sidewalks and a healthy urban forest. We can have both. Let's take the time to do the job right.

TOO MANY TAX BREAKS

New construction is springing up all over Downtown LA, and developers are creating assets that promise high rates of return on their investment. Why, then, is City Hall giving away huge tax breaks on projects that look to be extremely profitable? Earlier this month, UN4LA sent the following letter to LA's elected officials.


Dear Mayor Garcetti and Members of the City Council,

The Board of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) wishes to express its deep concern over the scale of tax breaks that the City is offering to real estate developers. While tax breaks can be a useful tool to encourage investment and produce benefits to the City, they must be used judiciously. CityWatch has published a series of articles on this issue by Jack Humphreville, and the details he reveals have led us to the conclusion that City Hall is abusing this practice.

The City’s Annual Report shows that in 2017 alone Los Angeles entered into six Development Incentive Agreements that waived a total of $850 million in revenue. Recently the City entered into two additional agreements for another $126 million in tax breaks, increasing the grand total of lost revenue to the City to the tune of nearly $1 billion.

We are concerned that, rather than using tax breaks judiciously to spur development and create jobs, the City is giving away badly needed tax dollars to increase the developers’ profit margins on projects that are extremely profitable without incentives.

To give an example, let's look at the proposed Fig + Pico hotel complex that will rise directly across from the Convention Center. While adding hotel rooms to this area is certainly a desirable goal, it is hard to imagine how the City can justify subsidizing this project with $103 million in front-end loaded tax breaks. Even without the tax incentives, an analysis of the information provided to the City by developer Lightstone Group makes it look like the project will be extremely profitable. With no additional tax incentives, Lightstone would realize an annual cash return of around 14%. If the property is sold or recapitalized within the next seven years, the return on equity would be over 100%.

How, then, does the City justify offering the for-profit developer tax incentives totaling $103 million? This puts the developer’s annual cash return in the range of 20%, and, if the property is sold or recapitalized, the return on equity would exceed 200%. As if this weren't enough, the agreement includes the sale of a City-owned parcel on Figueroa for a paltry $9.6 million, which is less than half of the property's current fair market value. It is laughable that, as part of the deal, Lightstone has agreed to pay $1 million to the City for projects to improve the neighborhood. This only highlights the ridiculous imbalance we see in comparing the benefits received by the developer to the benefits received by the people of Los Angeles.

While City Hall’s generosity is troubling in itself, this trend becomes truly disturbing when placed against the backdrop of the City’s Structural Budget Deficit. The Mayor and the City Council have been using accounting sleight-of-hand to patch together a “balanced” budget, but in reality rising pension contributions and other personnel costs are an ever-increasing and unsustainable burden on City coffers. Even with revenue as high as it is, the City is struggling to cover its costs. Why, then, are we giving away enormous sums of tax revenue to subsidize projects that are already profitable?

UN4LA believes that the City should put a stop to this unconscionable practice immediately. It is an irresponsible giveaway that puts the interests of real estate developers over those of Angelenos. Tax incentives should be used judiciously to spur development that might not otherwise happen. They should not be used to increase developer profits at the expense of the people of Los Angeles.

DOES DOWNTOWN REALLY REPRESENT THE BEST WE CAN DO?

The following post was published as a rebuttal to a piece by Steven Sharp that appeared in the LA Times last month (Downtown has a high apartment vacancy rate? The rest of L.A. should be so lucky, LA Times, 2/13/2018). In it, Sharp responds to critics who expressed alarm over high vacancy rates reported in Downtown LA last year, and cites figures from CoStar to show that the number of empty units has declined.

Our response is based on skepticism about the way Downtown developers are dealing with high vacancy rates. In 2017, both the LA Weekly and Curbed reported that Level Furnished Living (LFL), a building approved by the City for residential use, was now advertising units that were available for stays as short as a single day. Essentially this means that a building that was approved as a residential tower is now functioning as a hotel, and that 303 units meant for people to live in are now available for overnight visitors. If the Downtown property market is as hot as Sharp claims, it seemed odd to us that the building's owners would be converting housing into hotel rooms. It also seemed like the conversion would be an easy way to remove vacant units from the market.

But after our post was published, a reader alerted us to the fact that LFL had been functioning as corporate housing, or an extended stay hotel, pretty much since it opened. (Developer plans fully furnished apartments in downtown L.A., LA Times, 2/25/2015) Have the owners illegally engineered a change of use? Or has LFL always been a hotel?

The July 30, 2013 determination letter from the Department of City Planning (DCP) says that the approved project consists of 303 residential condominiums and 7 commercial condominiums. A search on ZIMAS, LA's on-line zoning information system, shows no subsequent approvals that alter the building's use. The City has argued that the extended stay use was permitted, because visitors would be residing at LFL for longer than 30 days. But it's clear that since last year, folks are invited to stay at LFL for a lot less than 30 days, and LA's zoning code clearly prohibits this. A spokesman for LFL's owner claims that they've been working with the City to create a transit occupancy permit for the building, but the City has not offered any comment.

Since our response to Sharp's piece is based on the estimation of Downtown vacancy rates, this does make the situation more ambiguous. Were LFL's empty units included in vacancy numbers prior to 2017? Were they ever included at all, since it seems that the building has functioned as a kind of hotel ever since it opened? What is clear, though, is that the DCP approved 303 units as residential condos, and that these units are now being offering as hotel rooms.

LFL aside, our point is that across LA housing is being converted to hotel rooms. And it's clear that City Hall is complicit in the process. Not only has the City failed to enforce existing laws, but it has willingly allowed at least one other property (The Metropolitan in Hollywood) to change from an apartment building into a hotel.

How is it possible to come up with accurate vacancy rates when property owners are taking units that were intended for housing and posting them on-line for tourists? And how is it possible that City Hall has still failed to pass an ordinance that would legally clarify the difference between the two uses? An even more disturbing question is, how is it possible that at a time when renters are being evicted so that landlords can convert units to short-term rentals, the City has done almost nothing to enforce laws that are already on the books?

* * *

In Steven Sharp's recent Los Angeles Times op-ed, "Downtown has a high apartment vacancy rate? The rest of L.A. should be so lucky." the author responds to critics of real estate trends in the Downtown LA. While many critics, like us, have questioned the need for so many luxury high-rise apartment buildings in the central city, Sharp claims that widely cited statistics on their high vacancy rates are misleading. In his view the new, expensive units are necessary to meet demand, and this trend should be emulated in the rest of Los Angeles.

We sharply disagree with his conclusions for the following reasons.

The real estate research firm CoStar caused a stir last year when it reported a 12.4% residential vacancy rate in Downtown LA. Sharp notes that CoStar's data showed a drop to 10.3% in January 2018. He then says the vacancy rate has declined further to 8.1%, and 4.7% for buildings that have been open for one year or more. Looking at these numbers out of context creates the impression that developers have been right all along. Their bet on high-priced housing paying off, and it was only a matter of time until the real estate market absorbed their expensive units.

But do these numbers tell the whole story? Hardly.

In September 2017, KPCC reported that more than 2,000 of the over 21,000 market rate apartments in the Downtown were vacant. And in November 2017, the LA Weekly reported that the owner of Level Furnished Living (LFL), a high-rise apartment building at 9th and Olive, converted its building to an extended stay hotel.

Where LFL led, by converting 303 apartment units into hotel rooms to protect its bottom line and reduce the residential vacancy rate, others will soon follow. In fact, The Metropolitan in Hollywood also pulled the same stunt, all with City Hall help. The owners of The Metropolitan asked the Department of City Planning to grant a Transit Occupancy Residential Structure (TORS) overlay. They got their wish, and are now in the process of converting over 50 apartments into hotel rooms.

Meanwhile, many apartment building owners are not waiting for City Hall’s blessing to make the same changes. Since the City Council has failed to pass an ordinance regulating short-term rentals and since the Department of Building and Safety does not enforce existing laws barring this practice, there are numerous reports of local landlords converting also their residential units into short-term rentals.

But, even if we accept Sharp’s numbers as accurate, it’s important to test his supply-side argument through Downtown LA’s real estate market. He says, “Downtown's growth has created competition among landlords for residents. Prices have leveled accordingly, and many property owners have resorted to incentives, such as free parking or discounted rent in order to lure tenants.” It is true some downtown rents have plateaued, but we need to look at the words “discounted rent” carefully. What landlords are actually doing is offering one or two months of free rent when prospective tenants sign a lease for expensive apartments. While tenants are getting a short-term discount of between 8 to 16 percent for one year, the rent is remaining the same because the owners cannot afford to make significant long-term rent reductions.

Their projects are financed by global investors enticed to Los Angeles by a high rate of return on their money. For them, these aren’t just residential buildings; they’re financial assets. In order to retain their value, their rents must remain high to assure a handsome profit. Supply-siders repeatedly argue that if City Hall aggressively green lights new residential construction, housing costs will fall. But will these become affordable for the average Angeleno family? In 2017 the Zumper real estate site reported the median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Downtown Los Angeles was $2,500. The median household income in Los Angeles is around $55,000 a year. The standard formula dictates a household should spend one-third of its income on rent, which comes out to $1,500 a month. There’s no way the rent for these new units will permanently fall by 40% or more to this level. As a result, middle-income and low-income households are priced out of the Downtown, assuming they could even squeeze a family into a one-bedroom apartment.

Sharp insists that “supply and demand” is a fundamental law of nature, like gravity. But his strict supply-side view is hardly a natural law, and it cannot explain 21st century urban real estate markets. These markets are now global. Companies most of us have never heard of pour billions into lucrative real estate projects that are nothing more than a prospectus for distant investors. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) buy and sell assets, like high rise apartment buildings in downtown Los Angeles, based purely on profit projections. Such immediate consequences as pollution, displacement, overcrowding, and gentrification are irrelevant to them.

Furthermore, the emergence of short-term rentals means that many property owners, like LFL, have realized that a “hotel” is far more profitable than an apartment building. A number of the city's hottest neighborhoods are seeing badly needed supply taken off residential market so landlords can please investors by renting empty units to tourists.

Sharp finishes his article with, “Downtown isn't a case study in what's wrong with development in Los Angeles. It's the best model we have for what's right.” This is a truly startling statement; one that makes clear how completely disconnected his view is from reality. While City Hall has had important successes in revitalizing DTLA, the same area continues to be plagued by exorbitant housing prices, rampant homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, and rising crime rates. Transit ridership continues to fall, as traffic congestion grows worse. And in spite of all the talk about creating livable communities, local government still has not even found a permanent home for the Downtown’s only elementary school.

If Downtown is the best model City Hall has to offer, we are in deep trouble.

SB 827: SACRAMENTO PUSHES TO OVERRIDE LOCAL PLANNING

Over the past year or so our legislators in Sacramento have let it be known that they aren't happy with the pace of development in California's cities. As housing prices continue to rise, traffic continues to worsen, and the reality of climate change becomes ever more apparent, the Senate and Assembly have decided that local jurisdictions aren't doing their job and that the State needs to intervene. In 2017 the Legislature worked feverishly to pass bills that would restrict local authority over land use. Now they're starting off 2018 with SB 827, a radical effort to override local planning, claiming it will ease the housing crisis and get more people riding public transit. In reality it will do niether.

SB 827 is the brainchild of State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). It would exempt residential projects that include a percentage of low-income housing from local zoning restrictions if the project is within 1/2 mile of a major transit stop or 1/4 mile of a high-quality transit corridor. This means that local requirements regarding height, density, floor area ratio, and design review would no longer apply. The idea is to promote high-density residential construction along transit corridors. Wiener, and many others, argue that this would not only ease the housing crisis by producing new units but would also encourage transit ridership, thereby reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

SB 827 is meant to further Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), a policy that state agencies and local jurisdictions have been pushing for years. In theory, TOD seems like a great idea, and the fundamental principle is sound. If you focus residential development along transit corridors it makes access to trains and busses easier, thereby taking cars off the road and cutting GHG emissions. What's not to like?

But there's a big difference between theoretical outcomes and cold, hard reality. The Los Angeles Department of City Planning (DCP) embraced TOD long ago, and invokes it frequently when arguing for high-rise projects anywhere near a transit corridor. So how has that worked out? Not so good. In spite of the fact that thousands of new units have been built along LA's transit corridors over the past decade, transit ridership is lower than it was 30 years ago, and it has declined for the past 3 years running. This is especially disturbing when you realize that LA County (the area served by the MTA) has added over one million residents during that same period. It's not just that transit ridership hasn't increased, it hasn't even kept pace with population growth.

Don't take our word for it. Check out the recent report released by UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies, Transit Ridership Trends in the SCAG Region. (SCAG stands for Southern California Association of Governments.) While the report covers all of Southern California, the data show that LA is leading the region in lost transit ridership. So as City Hall approves one skyscraper after another, making the claim that TOD will save us all, the number of people actually taking busses and trains has plummeted.

The report provides much valuable insight into what's actually happening on the transit landscape. While local and regional officials have enthusiastically promoted large scale development, claiming that these projects are transit friendly and will reduce traffic, in reality per capita vehicle ownership in the SCAG region has risen dramatically since 2000. During the 1990s the region added 1.8 million people and 456,000 household vehicles, or 0.25 vehicles for every new resident. But from 2000 to 2015 the region added 2.3 million people and 2.1 million household vehicles, or 0.95 vehicles per new resident.

But that's just Southern California. Maybe things are going better up north? Not really. With the fervent support of Bay Area officials, developers have been having a field day in San Francisco and beyond, building thousands of new units and claiming the increased density will boost transit ridership. But here's a quote from Vital Signs, a web site maintained by regional agencies which provides info on Bay Area transit....

"While featuring one of the nation’s most extensive public transit systems, the Bay Area has not experienced significant growth in transit ridership over the past few decades – with residents primarily shifting between bus and rail modes. This has resulted in crowded conditions on BART and Caltrain, while suburban buses have lower utilization than in years past."

The site highlights the fact that per capita transit ridership in the Bay Area has declined by 11% since 1991. And while many have touted the fact that an increasing number of San Francisco households are car free, that doesn't mean people aren't using cars. A recent report from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority showed that people are making 170,000 trips via Uber and Lyft on weekdays. This amounts to 570,000 vehicle miles driven by Uber and Lyft cars on a typical weekday. Bottom line, in spite of all the TOD boosterism by San Francisco officials, lots of people are still using cars to get around.

So while state and local officials have been telling us for years that that high-density development will get people out of cars and onto transit, that hasn't happened. But what about housing? Even if SB 827 might not deliver on transit ridership, wouldn't it still ease the housing crisis by generating lots of new units?

We do need to build housing, but creating new units isn't going to ease the crisis unless they're accessible to middle-income and low-income Californians. While SB 827 makes the inclusion of affordable units one of the criteria for removing restrictions, the percentage of affordable units isn't likely to make a significant difference. Generally speaking density bonus incentives are offered on projects that include between 10% and 20% affordable housing. This means that the rest of the units are "market rate" (i.e. really expensive) and most likely to attract the demographic that owns and drives cars.

To make things even worse, research is showing that new development along transit corridors has been causing gentrification and displacement. The Urban Displacement Project, a joint effort by UCLA and UC Berkeley, recently released a gentrification map of LA. This research shows that high-density development near transit lines has pushed housing costs up and pushed low-income residents out of Chinatown, Highland Park, East LA and Hollywood. And anyone following the LA real estate scene knows that as soon as the MTA's Crenshaw/LAX Line was approved investors started diving into communities like Leimert Park and Inglewood. The result? More gentrification and displacement.

Putting all this together, it's hard to see how SB 827 will deliver any benefits either in terms of housing or transit ridership. And it's important to be specific about the reason why. It's not that TOD is a bad idea in itself. The problem is that in spite of all the talk, state and local policy has not been geared towards producing new housing that will increase transit ridership. In reality, what local governments have been doing is using the TOD argument to promote unchecked development. In LA City Hall has been shredding local zoning and offering developers generous entitlements while arguing that this will ease the housing crisis and promote transit ridership. The DCP has been telling us that they're planning for a new TOD era where people won't need cars. But what they've actually produced is a tangle of new planning initiatives, none of which mean anything because the City Council will sweep aside any zoning regulations in place for developers that have enough clout at City Hall. And the bottom line is that housing costs continue to rise while transit ridership continues to fall.

SB 827 will only exacerbate the situation. In cities across California we're seeing high housing costs, homelessness, worsening congestion, and declining transit ridership. The only way to solve these problems is through real planning. Creating plans that will actually serve the needs of our urban communities is difficult, complex work. It means starting with hard facts rather than wishful thinking. It means doing neighborhood outreach instead of backroom deals. And it means engaging with communities in long, difficult discussions where all stakeholders have a chance to be heard.

The folks in Sacramento want us to believe we can forget about doing the hard work that planning demands and solve our problems with a quick and easy shortcut. Don't believe it. SB 827 will not solve the housing crisis or get more people on transit. It will only continue to fuel the speculative development binge that's crippling California's cities.

If you have a problem with Sacramento overriding local planning control, better contact your representatives in the State Senate and Assembly quickly. If last year's legislative session is any indication, developers and their lobbyists will be pushing hard for the passage of this bill. And it couldn't hurt to also call your local city officials to tell them you oppose SB 827. There's only one way for California to solve its problems, and that's through real planning. There are no shortcuts.

NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS ARE NOT TO BLAME FOR THE HOUSING CRISIS: AN OPEN LETTER TO KEVIN DE LEON

Last month on NBC’s News Conference, State Senator Kevin de León made some inaccurate and insulting remarks regarding Neighborhood Councils (NCs) and the development process in Los Angeles. He equated NCs with NIMBYism, and claimed that they have the power to shut down projects they don’t like.

United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) finds it surprising that Senator de León, who represents a large portion of Los Angeles, does not seem to understand how the City’s Neighborhood Council system works. The NCs have no power to stop anything. They are purely advisory bodies, and even if an NC votes unanimously to oppose a project, that does not stop the project from moving forward.

UN4LA feels Senator de León has been grossly unjust to LA’s Neighborhood Councils, and that he owes them an apology. We have written an open letter to him, telling him he needs to apologize to the NCs. We also ask that he educate himself about NCs and how they function, since his misunderstanding of the role they play seems to have been a factor in his support for SB 35, a bill that eliminates public input on some development projects. Here is our letter….


Dear Senator de León,

We are writing to you to express our deep disappointment regarding comments you made recently on ​News Conference hosted by Conan Nolan. In talking about the California ​L​egislature’s recent attempts to deal with the housing crisis, Nolan made the claim that Neighborhood Councils (NCs) are somehow obstructing the construction of affordable housing. Allow us to quote your response….

"You're making reference to NIMBYism, of course, Neighborhood Councils, whether it's in Los Angeles or elsewhere, they're gonna stop any type of project if they don't like that project.”

This statement is not only insulting, it reveals a disturbing lack of understanding of LA’s NC system and the development process in general.

For your information, the Neighborhood Council system was created by the Los Angeles City Charter. There are currently 97 NCs throughout LA, made up of elected stakeholders who give their time to work on issues affecting their communities and the City at large. They are engaged in a wide variety of activities, including disaster preparedness; public art projects; sponsoring events for youth and children; health and safety education; expanding access to parks; and a range of other endeavors. They do all this without compensation, many of them spending hundreds of hours per year, with the goal of making Los Angeles a better place to live.

Yes, Neighborhoods Councils also review and comment on ​projects that require some form of discretionary approval by the City. But your claim that “they're gonna stop any type of project if they don't like that project,” shows how sadly uninformed you are about the NC system. In reality, they have no power to stop anything at all. They are advisory bodies​,​ and their input cannot make or break a project. The Department of City Planning has often voted to approve projects that were opposed by NCs. Your comment quoted above completely misrepresents the reality of the situation, and gives a wildly inaccurate picture of Neighborhood Councils and how they function.

It is also disturbing that you apparently believe NCs are synonymous with NIMBYism. The word “NIMBY” is a derogatory term thrown around frequently these days by developers and politicians to disparage anyone who objects to a project for any reason. It has become commonplace to blame so-called NIMBYs for the housing crisis, with many claiming that the housing shortage has been caused entirely by self-centered, shortsighted people whose only concern is protecting their property values.

But the members of the UN4LA board know many people who serve on NCs, and some of us have also served. Our experience is that the vast majority of NC members are dedicated, unselfish people who have volunteered to spend hundreds of hours serving their communities. Yes, they sometimes oppose projects, and you might be surprised to learn that in many cases they have legitimate concerns, including the loss of rent-stabilized housing, inadequate infrastructure, overstressed public services, safety issues, reduction of open space, and the destruction of our urban forest.

While you dismiss these people as NIMBYs, if you were to take the time look closer, instead of the stereotypical suburban homeowner looking to preserve property values, you would find people who are deeply concerned about the negative impacts that reckless development is having in terms of displacement, damage to the environment, and overburdened public services. You would also find people who actually work in the field of real estate and development. Do you include them among the ranks of obstructionist NIMBYs who are opposed to new housing? It is depressing for those of us who have served on NCs to have our efforts disparaged by someone who should know better than to make such sweeping generalizations.

We do thank you for your honest account of your interactions with hypocritical politicians who say one thing to the public and then pursue another course behind closed doors. Of course, we're well aware that some of them are dishonest, but it’s refreshing to hear someone from the State Legislature openly acknowledge that there are people on the City Council who we simply cannot trust. They tell us they want to preserve affordable housing, and then approve generous entitlements for developers who demolish RSO units. They tell us they’re planning transit-oriented development, and then approve luxury skyscrapers designed for a demographic that's more likely to drive expensive cars. They tell us they want to create healthy communities, and then dump liquor permits on neighborhoods that are already awash in alcohol, and where violent crime is rising.

In public our elected officials tell us they're working to make the City a better place. But we see the results of the policies they're actually pursuing behind closed doors: housing prices keep climbing, evictions are rampant, homelessness is skyrocketing, crime is spiking, and congestion is worse than ever. The only thing going down is transit ridership, which is lower than it was 30 years ago, in spite of the fact that the County (the area served by the MTA) has added over a million residents during that period.

We feel you owe LA's Neighborhood Councils an apology. Your inaccurate and insensitive remarks have offended many of the people who give their time and energy to make Los Angeles a better place. The citizens who serve on our NCs don't expect to be rewarded, but they deserve to be respected. By lumping them all together and dismissing them as selfish NIMBYs out to sabotage development, you have done them an injustice. You have wronged them.

And beyond an apology, we hope that before the legislature reconvenes you will think more deeply about your efforts to "reform" the development process. Many community members were angered by the passage of SB 35, which will prevent them from having a voice in the debate over some projects. The spectacle of you and Senator Scott Wiener celebrating this “accomplishment” was baffling to those of us who have seen the damage done by reckless development. But it now becomes clear that in your view we are simply selfish NIMBYs, and that you believe shutting us out of the process is a necessary part of your “reform” agenda.

Before the next legislative session begins, we hope you will take the time to educate yourself about LA’s Neighborhood Councils, the people who serve on them and the many ways they help the community. We hope that as you work to shape your legislative agenda, that instead of crafting bills that reduce public participation, you will think about the importance of maintaining and possibly encouraging greater public participation in the development process.

In your appearance on News Conference you said, "We have to work together if we're going to deal with this housing crisis." UN4LA strongly agrees with this sentiment, and we believe the vast majority of Neighborhood Council members would also agree. We would love to work together with you. If you’ll allow us to.

Very Sincerely,
Casey Maddren
President, UN4LA

WHY IS CITY HALL AFRAID OF PLANNING?

United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) declares its strong support for Measure S, and asks citizens who care about the future of Los Angeles to vote Yes on S on March 7.

UN4LA has chosen to back Measure S because it is consistent with the group's guiding principle, community-driven planning. For too long, communities have been left out of the loop when it comes to envisioning LA's future. City Hall has shown a complete disregard for basic planning principles as the Department of City Planning (DCP) pursues a reckless, ad hoc approach to development. Spot-zoning should be the exception, not the norm. Sadly, recent news stories have only served to confirm the suspicion that local politicians are willing to trade project approvals for campaign cash.

Los Angeles continues to grow, and development is necessary to ensure the city's economic health. But in order for development to benefit all Angelenos, it must be based on careful planning, and the planning process must start in our communities. We must begin by listening to the people who actually live in LA's neighborhoods, and build for the future based on their vision for the city. We must also insist that the environmental assessments required by the State of California are based on actual data, and that they are prepared by professionals with no financial interest in the outcome.

Measure S is not anti-development, it’s pro-planning.

It will not shut down new development. It does not ban new housing. It will not bring about economic Armageddon in Los Angeles. Measure S will compel City Hall to start planning for the future. It REQUIRES that the City update the General Plan and the Community Plans. It will impose a two-year moratorium on spot-zoning while these updates are completed. It will also REQUIRE the City to be responsible for preparing Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs), instead of allowing developers to choose who prepares these important assessments.

UN4LA believes that Measure S will empower citizens to participate in community-driven planning which will benefit all Angelenos. We look forward to partnering with communities in this process, and helping to provide the tools they need to create a healthy, prosperous future.

THE MAYOR’S SHADY HOUSING NUMBERS

Mayor Garcetti knows his record on housing looks pretty bad. The fact that his administration has bent over backwards to help developers build luxury units while affordable housing becomes ever more scarce has made him the focus of intense criticism. With his bid for re-election coming up next year, Garcetti is anxious to make it look like he's doing something to address the situation.

The first step was to issue Executive Directive 13, entitled Support for Affordable Housing Development. And to follow up, the City published a report in August that has lots of beautiful graphics that show what a great job the Mayor's doing. If you take the report at face value, it looks like we've turned the corner and that everything's going great. Take this statement, for instance.

From July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2016 there were 5,982 affordable units financed or incentivized in the City. Of those, 5,774 were affordable to low-income households, reaching 38% of the Mayor’s 15,000 unit goal.

Wow. That's gotta be good. It says we've created almost 6,000 affordable units since July 1, 2013. Or does it? Let's go on to the section titled Details of Affordable Units....

Of the affordable units financed or incentivized in the City from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2016, 1,488 were at-risk, low-income units preserved from losing their affordability status.

Okay, then apparently 1,488 of the Mayor's total were actually existing units that the City preserved. So even though that brings us down to about 4,500 new units, that's still not bad. And we should encourage the Mayor to preserve affordable units, since his policies have led to thousands of units covered by the rent stabilization ordinance (RSO) being taken off the market.

And since we're talking about RSO units, why don't we take a look at how many we've lost in recent years. According to a report issued by HCIDLA in April of this year, from 2013 through 2015 over 2,600 rent stabilized apartments were taken off the market under the Ellis Act. In many cases the landlords who invoked Ellis were encouraged to do so by the generous entitlements that the City hands out to developers looking to squeeze more money out of their property.

So if we subtract the 2,600 RSO units lost under Ellis from the remaining 4,500 units that Garcetti's crowing about, that brings us down to a net gain of 1,900 new units. Suddenly the Mayor's housing numbers ain't looking so good. But if you've got the stomach for it, let's keep going....

Beginning in 2014, HCIDLA and the Housing Authority of the City of LA (HACLA) established a goal to provide financing for 300 units of permanent supportive housing (PSH) for the homeless each year. From July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2016, the City has fallen short of this goal, producing on average 227 homeless units per year. However, through new land-use reforms and new revenue sources, the Mayor expects to increase annual production to 1,000 PSH units in the years to come.

Okay, well, at least this part is honest. The City admits that they haven't even been able to reach their decidedly modest goal of creating 300 PSH units per year. Over three years, they've only built 681 units. I guess that's something. Unless you also take into account that in 2015 alone the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority cut funding for about 2,000 beds that served people needing transitional housing. This wasn't Garcetti's doing. It's part of a shift in the way the federal government is trying to address homelessness. But the upshot is that the number of people actually living on the street has increased by over 1,000 since 2015. So the 681 PSH units the City has built over the past three years aren't even sufficient to accommodate the increase in people on the streets over the past year.

Still, the Mayor says he's going to increase the production of PSH units to 1,000 a year. How? Take another look at the last sentence from the paragraph above.

However, through new land-use reforms and new revenue sources, the Mayor expects to increase annual production to 1,000 PSH units in the years to come.

What new revenue sources? Is the City finally going to start charging developers the same fees that many other major cities charge routinely? Let's hope so. The City Council has been talking about it for years, and still hasn't taken any action on this issue. But the most important phrase in that sentence is "new land-use reforms", because that tells you what the Mayor's real agenda is.

No doubt "new land-use reforms" refers to re:code LA, which is the Mayor's attempt to re-write the City's zoning code. There's no question the code is outdated, but re:code is basically a giveaway to development interests. In spite of the City's claim that they've done extensive public outreach, in reality re:code has been largely written behind closed doors. For the most part, the public workshops have been a PR sham, dealing in vague generalities rather than offering information about how communities will actually be affected. And while the public can attend Zoning Advisory Committee meetings, they haven't been allowed to comment. When the Mayor talks about "land-use reforms" he really means letting developers do whatever they want.

And going back to the Mayor's Executive Directive 13, he says that he's going to speed up the approval process for affordable housing. But he also says he's going to speed up the approval process for all housing development. In other words, he's going to accelerate the pace of reckless overdevelopment geared towards serving the wealthy. He's going to give even more freedom to the anonymous LLCs that have taken thousands of RSO units off the market. He's going to ramp up the construction of apartments that start at $3,000 a month, while telling us the tenants will ride the bus to work. Bottom line, he's going to solve the housing crisis by pushing harder on the same policies that helped create it.

United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) believes that instead of pushing bad projects through faster than ever, we need to slow things down and start doing some real planning. We also need to bring communities into the planning process so that they can find solutions that will work for their area. The affordable housing crisis impacts all Angelenos, directly or indirectly. Shouldn't we let the people who are most affected by this problem have a voice when it comes to solving it?

STABBED IN THE BACK

The people of West Adams, Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park have been working for years to create a new Community Plan in order to provide a framework for future growth in these areas. In May of this year they released the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) for the plan. That should have been a time for celebration. But far from celebrating, many community members felt betrayed when they learned that the City Council was working feverishly to approve a massive project that violated the Community Plan in a number of ways.

The proposed Cumulus project would dump nearly 2 million square feet of new development, including a 30-story skyscraper, at the already congested intersection of La Cienega and Jefferson. It goes far beyond what would be allowed under the new Community Plan, and renders meaningless the years of hard work that local residents invested in creating it.

This is just one more instance where the City Council has shown its total contempt for the planning process. Once again, City Hall has chosen to empower developers with deep pockets, while cutting the community out of the decision-making process.

As a result of the City Council's actions, the Crenshaw Subway Coalition and Friends of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative are jointly suing the City Council and the developer to stop the project. Follow the link to read their press release.

Crenshaw Subway Coalition

LET’S CLAIM OUR PLACE AT THE TABLE

If you've been following local news over the past few years, you know that a lot of people are angry about the City of LA's current approach to development. Unfortunately, the media often frames the argument in terms of pro-density developers and city officials with a vision for the future against aging white homeowners who want to cling to the past.

The problem with this view is that it doesn't begin to deal with the scope and complexity of the problems we're facing. The simplistic pro-density vs. anti-density trope makes it look like City Hall and developers are fighting to bring LA into the future, without taking into account the reality of what's happening as a result of the current building binge. For years the City has been building residential complexes along transit corridors in the belief that it would get people out of cars, but transit ridership is down and congestion is worse than ever. The Department of City Planning incentivises the eviction of low-income tenants by offering zone changes and other variances to landlords. City Hall has been successful in luring businesses and residents to "revitalized" communities, but hasn't addressed LAPD staffing shortages, causing huge spikes in crime. And while our elected officials will move heaven and earth to push a luxury housing complex through the approval process, they have yet to create a credible plan to solve the homeless crisis.

Let's face it. The development process in LA is completely, utterly broken. The Mayor and City Council routinely hand out zoning changes and major variances to developers who have contributed thousands of dollars to their campaigns. The Mayor blithely overturns unanimous decisions made by the City Planning Commission. The DCP has greenlighted numerous luxury skyscapers in its push for higher density, while thousands of affordable units are taken off the market. LA's water resources continue to shrink, and yet the City refuses to undertake a cumulative assessment of the demands planned construction will make on our water supply. And why are we even talking about updating our General Plan and Community Plans, when it's clear that City Hall has zero interest in monitoring and enforcement?

So what we do? It's clear that many Angelenos feel they have no voice in planning for the future of their community, and there are a number of groups that have organized to fight individual projects. But wouldn't our efforts have a greater impact if we were all working together? United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) was created to give Angelenos a unified voice. If we can come together to press for better planning, we have a better chance of getting City Hall to pay attention. UN4LA will fight for:

• Projects that are designed to enhance, not exploit, your community.

• Water, power and transit infrastructure that you can rely on.

• Consistent enforcement of zoning and building codes.

If you're interested in working with us, or if you just want to learn more, follow this link to our Contact page:

Contact
http://un4la.com/contact.html

The City of LA is facing numerous challenges right now, but we believe that we can meet these challenges and overcome them. We've seen the disastrous results of short-sighted policy decisions made by politicians and developers acting out of self-interest. It's time for our communities to come together and demand a role in shaping the city's future. UN4LA believes that better planning means a better Los Angeles.

If you feel the same way, let's talk.