UN4LA News - February 2025
Photo from Cal Fire Update, January 11, 2025
A monthly newsletter published by United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles.
UN4LA's mission is to bring communities together to plan for a sustainable future. Growth must be shaped by community engagement, not developer dollars.
AFTER THE FIRES: WHAT NEXT?
People across the LA area have been stunned by the recent fires. Obviously, those who lost loved ones or their homes are traumatized by the experience, but even people who live in neighborhoods that weren’t directly impacted have been shaken by the scale of the disaster. For days, news reports kept coming about fires raging in Altadena, Palisades and other locations.
While citizens, community groups and elected officials start discussions about how to move forward, there is no clear path and many questions remain unanswered.
How Do We Track Contamination after the Fires?
Congressional reps from the LA area have sent a letter to the US Environmental Protection Agency, urging the agency to create a task force to track hazardous pollutants the air, water and soil in the wake of the recent fires. While experts have been raising concerns about toxic contamination after the holocaust, the representatives believe that the public needs to have reliable reporting on the risks in order to protect their health.
House Members from LA Want Pollutants from Southern California Wildfires Tracked
How Big a Role Did "Weather Whiplash" Play in Creating the Conditions for the Fires
While people impacted by the fire, public officials and the media are arguing over where to assign blame for the devastation wrought by the fires, there's been little talk about climate change and how LA's weather is swinging between increasingly unpredictable extremes. Two extremely wet rainy seasons followed by an extremely dry one were a recipe for disaster.
‘Literally Off the Charts’: LA’s Critically Dry Conditions Stun Scientists as Fires Rage
Could Firefighters and Local Leaders Have Reduced the Devastation if They Had Responded Differently?
In this interview, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain explains how there was little firefighters could do to stop the wind-driven "firestorms" that devastated Altadena and Pacific Palisades. Swain argues that, rather than debating what firefighters or elected officials should have done during the emergency, we should be acknowledging the role of climate change and taking immediate steps to reduce its impacts.
Debunking L.A. Wildfire Myths with Climate Scientist Dr. Daniel Swain
How Much More Will It Cost to Get Fire Insurance?
In recent years there's been growing alarm over rising rates for fire insurance and the cancellation of policies. While the State has taken some action to protect homeowners, rates have skyrocketed and some insurers are leaving the California market altogether. Now Consumer Watchdog reports that Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has issued a draft reinsurance regulation plan that would allow insurance companies to raise home insurance rates by 40% or more without offering a meaningful expansion of fire coverage.
Lara Reinsurance Regulation to Pump Up Homeowners Rates By 40%
HARBOR COMMUNITY PLAN MOVES TOWARD FINAL APPROVAL
On January 23, the City Planning Commission considered the Harbor Community Plan, which combines the Harbor Gateway and Wilmington-Harbor City Community Plans. The Plan provides a framework for development through 2040, and will be implemented using the recently adopted New Zoning Code. No surprise that this includes plenty of upzoning, which the City says will "improve the link between land use and transportation". The City has been claiming for years that upzoning along transit corridors will encourage people to use transit, but the evidence clearly shows that even as developers build increasingly dense residential and commercials projects, transit ridership has been declining for the last decade. For more on this, see below for the Warner Center 2035 Plan.
CITY PLANNING COMMISSION REVIEWS WARNER CENTER 2035 FIVE-YEAR REPORT
Also on the City Planning Commission's January 23 agenda was the five-year review of the Warner Center 2035 Plan. The Plan requires that a report be prepared every five years to monitor progress, and also requires that an opportunity for public input. Of course, the October 2024 meeting where the public had a chance to speak was held not in Warner Center, but about ten miles away in Van Nuys, which probably didn't help public participation. Among the comments included in the report were the following:
New development had increased traffic congestion;
The area lacked adequate public transit, bicycle lanes, and pedestrian connections;
Promised park space and green space had not materialized.
As usual, the report claims that one of the City's chief goals is to encourage transit-oriented development:
The WC2035 Plan looks to development as fundamental to supporting the regional transportation investment with the Metro Orange Line and as a result seeks to create a vibrant Transit Oriented District based upon sustainability, community connectedness, “complete streets" that accommodate alternatives to the car, accessible public transit, and promotion of innovative businesses, job diversity, and a safe and friendly pedestrian environment. The transit-oriented development approach is consistent with the City's Sustainable City Plan and in turn will help the six-county Region3 in attaining its adopted goals and targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by concentrating development near transit infrastructure."
While the report emphasizes that the Plan is intended to support "the regional transportation investment with the Metro Orange Line [now the G Line] and as a result seeks to create a vibrant Transit Oriented District based upon sustainability", it fails to mention that ridership on the Orange Line/G Line has been dropping like a rock since the plan was approved. According to LA Metro's ridership stats, when the Warner Center 2035 Plan was adopted in 2013, estimated weekday ridership on the Orange Line/G Line was 29,220. By 2019, estimated weekday ridership had fallen to 21,633, a 25% drop. At the end of 2024, when this five-year report was prepared, estimated weekday ridership had fallen to 13,748, less than half of what it had been when the Plan was adopted.
Does the report mention this total failure to support "the regional transportation investment with the Metro Orange Line"? Of course not. The City claims it's trying to fight climate change by getting people out of cars and onto transit, but obviously they don't really care if they make any progress in this area at all.
Warner Center 2035 Plan Five-Year Status Report
TRAFFIC DEATHS DROP, BUT L.A.’S ROADS STILL DANGEROUS
While traffic deaths in the City of LA declined in 2024, the city's roads are still far more dangerous than they were before the pandemic. A total of 302 people died in traffic collisions last year. Injuries from collisions also remain high, with 1,522 severe injuries as a result of traffic accidents, making 2024 the third straight year when the total topped 1,500. LA's streets are not safe.
Traffic Deaths in LA Exceed Murder Total for Second Consecutive Year
