Zoning proposal upsets
neighborhood groups
HOUSING: Measure would require developers to include affordable units and
expand height and density limits.
By David Zahniser, Copley News Service - Monday, August 23, 2004
When the Los Angeles City Council voted last year to ease the city's
zoning rules for affordable housing projects, there was little protest
from neighborhood groups.
And when the council adopted a law to allow more multi-story apartment
buildings on the city's boulevards, hardly anyone made a fuss.
But now city officials have crafted their most sweeping housing initiative
yet: a plan to require developers to construct affordable housing, while
giving them permission to make their projects taller and denser than
currently allowed.
This time, community groups are speaking out with force.
Homeowner groups in the San Fernando Valley are banding together to fight
the "inclusionary zoning" proposal, which would require any
project with more than five housing units to include affordable housing.
Civic leaders in the Harbor Area have already held three community forums
on the topic, while activists in Westchester warn that the issue of
oversized housing projects -- affordable or otherwise -- will be an issue
in next year's council campaign.
"The message is, you cannot continue to overtax the existing
infrastructure -- transportation, police, paramedics, schools,
parks," said Denny Schneider, who serves on the Westchester-Playa del
Rey Neighborhood Council. "And until these quality-of-life issues are
all resolved, we shouldn't be moving forward on all these
developments."
The inclusionary zoning plan is not expected to reach the City Council
until this fall. But it is already drawing a level of anti-development ire
not heard since the 1980s, when voters lashed out by approving Proposition
U, a "slow-growth" plan that slashed the size of projects
allowed on commercially zoned boulevards.
Residents have already voiced outrage in Torrance, Redondo Beach and Del
Aire in response to large-scale development proposals. That sentiment is
taking hold in Los Angeles, where the number of permits issued for new
homes surged by 47 percent over the past three years.
In Los Angeles, multistory housing projects are being built along bus
routes, near rail stations and inside old buildings that once housed
offices, hotel rooms and even parking. Building permits have increased
from 5,685 housing units in the 2001-02 fiscal year to 10,631 in the
fiscal year ending June 30.
"I've seen more development activity in the last 12 months than I've
seen at any time in the last 20 years," said Richard Close, president
of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, describing the projects
proposed in his community.
Backers of the inclusionary zoning proposal hope to build on the housing
boom by getting developers to set aside a specific percentage of their
projects -- somewhere from 10 to 14 percent -- for low- to moderate-income
occupants.
To compensate for the loss of income, developers would receive permission
to build a greater number of housing units, taller buildings or fewer
parking spaces than currently required. That aspect of the plan has
unnerved homeowner groups, who say it would gut existing zoning and
planning rules.
"Groups fought for years for reduced height limits, reduced density,
and now all that would be thrown out," Close said.
Affordable housing advocates have embraced the inclusionary zoning plan,
saying it will provide another response to a citywide housing shortage.
With home prices increasing at a much faster rate than personal incomes,
lower-wage workers are having to travel longer distances to find
reasonable home prices, said Tim O'Connell, policy director for Century
Housing.
"People are moving farther and farther out to find affordable housing
and then we wonder why it takes two hours to get anywhere on the
freeway," said O'Connell, whose group built housing to replace units
lost because of the construction of the Century (105) Freeway.
Not all neighborhood leaders oppose inclusionary zoning, either. While he
questioned some aspects of the city's proposal, Central San Pedro
Neighborhood Council President Howard Uller said he favors the overall
concept.
"I daily see the people living in garages," said Uller, who runs
the human services agency Toberman Settlement House. "I daily see the
people, three or four of them sharing a unit together, rationing their
hours in the bathroom, in the bedroom."
The city's elected officials have already designated housing construction,
and affordable housing in particular, as a top legislative priority. Mayor
James Hahn is campaigning for re-election in part on the creation of a
$100 million affordable housing trust fund, which has poured money into
subsidized housing projects throughout the city.
Hahn opposes the inclusionary zoning plan, however, saying it would scare
developers away from Los Angeles and reverse the progress made by the city
over the past three years. But even backers of the plan say more
initiatives will be needed.
Satisfying the city's need for new housing "will require much more
than just the trust fund and inclusionary zoning," Councilman Eric
Garcetti said. "It will require communities to plan for the growth of
Los Angeles, which we've failed to do in the last decade."
Garcetti and his colleagues have already approved other, less publicized,
measures to spur housing construction.
One ordinance that quietly won passage last year allows developers to
build a greater amount of affordable housing near bus routes, rail lines
and in job centers. That law, which applies to sections of San Pedro,
Wilmington and Westchester, gives developers a "density bonus"
that allows them to build 35 percent more affordable housing units than
normally allowed.
Another zoning change made by the council focused on "mixed use"
projects that put retail stores on the ground floor and housing above. The
mixed-use plan gave developers a tool for reversing growth limits imposed
on commercial corridors under Proposition U.
Passed in 1986, Proposition U cut the size of projects on commercial
corridors in half. Now, the overall size, or "floor-area ratio"
of a building, can be restored to pre-1986 calculations if a developer
decides to place housing on top of stores, said Jane Blumenfeld, principal
city planner in the city's planning department.
"Because they're on corridors that have good transit, sometimes very
good, then at least there's the opportunity to not be auto-dependent 100
percent of the time," she said.
The inclusionary zoning proposal would hike the size of density bonuses
even further, allowing developers to build 50 percent more units than
current zoning laws allow. That concept has drawn fire from Schneider, the
Westchester activist, who complained that his neighborhood is already
seeing a spike in dense housing projects.
Using the mixed-use zoning rules passed last year, the council approved a
proposal from Decron Properties Corp. to build 538 housing units at the
Furama Hotel. Since then, Arden Realty has proposed the construction of
600 housing units at the Howard Hughes Center.
"This is a community that's under siege already," Schneider
said. "To add more density is ludicrous."
Publish Date:August 23, 2004 |
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