UN4LA News - July 2018
A monthly newsletter published by United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles.
UN4LA's mission is to bring communities together to plan for a sustainable future. This city's growth must be shaped by community engagement, not developer dollars.
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EVICTIONS CONTINUE AS CITY HALL DELAYS PASSAGE OF HOME SHARING ORDINANCE
All over the City of Los Angeles, property owners are converting apartments into short-term rentals (STRs, i.e. AirBnB, VRBO, etc.). The proposed Home Sharing Ordinance (HSO) would limit this practice, but City Hall keeps kicking it down the road. In other words, while the Mayor and the City Council keep insisting we need to build more housing, they're allowing landlords to take thousands of units off the market. This article from Curbed was published back in February. Not much has changed since then.
Los Angeles Is Still Dragging Its Feet on Airbnb Regulations from Curbed
MAYOR'S PLAN FOR HOMELESS SHELTERS IS DEEPLY FLAWED
In April Mayor Eric Garcetti put forth an initiative to build temporary shelters for the homeless, calling the plan A Bridge Home. The Mayor has set aside $20 million from the 2018/19 budget, proposing to give each Council District about $1.3 million if the Councilmember identifies an area with a high concentration of homeless people and selects a site for a temporary homeless shelter. Unfortunately, the Mayor's plan reveals that he has little understanding of the process by which the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) engages with people living on street and refers them to housing and services that meet their needs.
A Bridge Home or a Bridge to Nowhere? from CityWatch
PLANNING COMMISSION OVERRIDES COMMUNITY ON EXPO PLAN
City Hall wants us to believe that when it comes to community planning they're interested in getting our input. Don't buy it. Area residents worked with the Department of City Planning for years on the Expo Corridor Plan, and most residents were happy with the version that was agreed on in October 2017. But when it went before the City Planning Commission in November of that year, the Commissioners made major changes to the plan at the last minute. Community members were angered by the switch, but it's just one more example of City Hall's dishonest approach to planning.
Bait and Switch for Expo Plan from CityWatch
UCLA ZIMAN CENTER ASKS IF WE HAVE TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY
In May UCLA's Ziman Center for Real Estate and Mercy Housing California held a symposium entitled “Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Democracy?” Graduate students from the University's Urban and Regional Planning Program were deeply disturbed both by the title and the focus of the gathering, and wrote the following letter to express their concerns.
Graduate Students Oppose UCLA’s Complicity in Displacement from Knock
DEADLINE FOR PROMENADE COMMENTS
The deadine for comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Promendade 2035 project has been extended to Thursday, July 26. If you do submit comments, be sure to include the following case number in the subject line: ENV-2016-3909-EIR
Promenade 2035 Draft EIR
