As expected, the City Council’s Plum Committee at a special meeting Wednesday unanimously approved without changes three controversial ordinances that will effect development in more than 40% of the city's residentially zoned neighborhoods: R1 Variations, Bel-Air Hillside Construction Development limitations, and the BHO/BMO revisions.
 
The first two ordinances (R1 Variations and Bel-Air development) will go to the City Attorney’s Office to be converted into final, draft ordinances. They will return to the PLUM committee later this spring.
 
The third ordinance (BHO/BMO updates) was passed and can go to the City Council for a final vote. But it looks like – as predicted here – the council is going to sit on the BHO/BMO updates until the R1 Variations and Bel-Air development ordinances come back from the City Attorney’s Office for PLUM vote. That's because PLUM chairman Jose Huizar asked - as the committee was voting on the BHO/BMO proposal - when the ordinance would be with the full council, and staff said that “they” have asked that the BHO/BMO update not be voted on by the council until the other ordinances “can be packaged” with it (no explanation of who “they” is: City Attorney’s office? Fellow council members?). Huizar said that was fine by him, asked if any of the committee members objected, and when no one did, the voted unanimously to recommend approval.
 
So that means the City Attorney’s Office needs to produce the R1 Variations and Bel-Air development ordinances quickly and it is highly likely that the whole package will be approved and enacted right before the March 25 deadline.

Why is March 25 so important? Because that's when 15 Interim Control Ordinances (ICOs) around the city expire, and if these new rules aren't in place before the ICOs expire, the rules in those 15 areas revert back to 'standard' zoning which could mean an outbreak of so-called McMansions.

Those weren't the only controversial items addressed during the 3+ hour-long meeting Wednesday.
 
The committee voted to approve Rick Caruso’s controversial project at 333 La Cienega after Councilman Paul Koretz arrived to announce that they struck a deal to reduce its height from 240 feet to 185 feet and increase the amount of money Caruso is giving to community groups and increase the amount of affordable housing units in the now-16-story mixed-use project. The full council is expected to vote on the project next week.

The committee voted to approve the Sunset Square Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, despite numerous protests against the inclusion of several blocks west of Fairfax and south of Hollywood Blvd. The motion goes to the City Attorney’s Office for it to write the final draft ordinance.

Bel-Air residents are expected to show-up en masse this afternoon when the City Council's land-use committee votes on whether the city should establish a special district in their neighborhood that would limit the size of new or remodeled homes and limit the amount of related construction activity.

The Hillside Construction Regulation Area, if passed, would establish hauling operation standards, construction activity standards, grading limits and require additional discretionary review for homes with an area of 20,000 square feet or greater.

The proposed ordinance - which must still be feted by the City Attorney's Office and approved by the City Council and Mayor before it can become city law - was proposed in response to a significant uptick in large-scale development in Bel-Air in the last few years. For example, from 2011 to 2015, approximately 18 building permits were issued for new SFDs with 20,000 square feet or greater of residential floor area, according to the City Planning Department. During that same time, more than 800 hauling permits were issued for projects in Bel-Air that cumulatively hauled more than 800,000 cubic yards of dirt.

The Bel-Air Alliance formed in May 2014 to protest the number, size and scope of projects in the community. They have been calling on City Hall - and Councilman Paul Koretz, specifically, who's council district includes Bel-Air - to enact rules that would limit the size and impact of projects. The HCRA is the first major legislative response.

The City Council's PLUM committee meeting today starts at 3:30 p.m. Here is the agenda; here is the draft HCRA.

The City Council's land-use committee is going to consider a proposal from City Planning on Wednesday that would create more than a dozen new "variations" of the city's traditional R1 zone, and identify areas around the city where these new zones could be the new rule of law for homeowners in as little as 2 months.

The council's Planning & Land Use Management (PLUM) committee is expected to review and then pass along to the City Attorney's Office the draft R1 Variations ordinance that was approved by the City Planning Commission last month. PLUM members have a big night ahead of them: Wednesday's agenda also includes the updated draft ordinance for the Baseline Hillside Ordinance and Baseline Mansionization Ordinance (story here) and an appeal of the City Planning Commission's approval of a Frank Caruso's mixed-use project in Beverly Grove.

The R1 Variations ordinance would create 16 new flavors of the R1 zone that would maintain the same standard R1 Zone lot size and setback requirements, but include different maximum Residential Floor Area ratios and also regulate height, form, and lot coverage to provide a range of new zones that vary from larger to smaller in scale.

The R1 zone currently covers 38% of the city, according to the City Planning Department. That makes this one of the largest, most far-reaching changes in City Planning history. Having said that, the proposed ordinance that PLUM will review tomorrow only includes specific zone changes for a few neighborhoods in Los Angeles, primarily in West LA and a few Hillside areas south of Mulholland Drive.

Eventually, all of the R1 neighborhoods in Los Angeles could be rezoned to one of the R1 variations, assuming the City Council approves the ordinance once the City Attorney's office has feted it. But for now, city officials are rushing to get the overall R1 Variations ordinance and spot zoning for the first 15 neighborhoods approved by March 25, when current Interim Control Ordinances (ICOs) expire. Those ICOs are currently preventing development that once was allowed by-right in those neighborhoods; city officials want the new R1 Variations and updated BHO/BMO to establish the new "by-right" levels.

The City Council PLUM meeting Wednesday starts at 3:30 p.m. The agenda is here.

Murals will be allowed on single-family dwellings in east and central Los Angeles under a draft ordinance to be considered Tuesday by the City Council's Planning and Land Use Committee.

The City Council approved a citywide Mural Ordinance just a few months  ago after years of discussion and debate. The Mural Ordinance specifically prohibited murals on houses, an issue which divided the city's neighborhoods. Many of the suburban and affluent neighborhood councils opposed the original Mural Ordinance until its backers agreed to include language that specifically prohibited murals on single-family dwellings.

But even as the Mural Ordinance was being revised and approved, the council instructed the Planning Department - with assistance from the City Attorney's Office and Office of Cultural Affairs - to prepare an amendment that would allow murals on single-family lots in council districts 1 and 14. Councilman Curren D. Price recently asked that his 9th district be included too.

The three districts represent the eastern-most portions of Los Angeles and central L.A. along the Harbor Freeway corridor.

The PLUM committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. in City Hall, Room 350. The draft ordinance also needs approval from the full City Council.


PLUM Agenda:
http://ens.lacity.org/clk/committeeagend/clkcommitteeagend2685047_11192013.pdf

City Council Case file:
http://cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkconnect/index.cfm?fa=ccfi.viewrecord&cfnumber=11-0923-S2

The City Council rescheduled today's vote on the anti-McMansion ordinance for the Beverly Grove area to Friday's council meeting.

The item was originally scheduled to be voted on today. But the council agreed unanimously without discussion to delay the vote three days.

If approved, the ordinance would put a Residential Floor Area (RFA) District over approximately 700 homes in a 5-street Mid City neighborhood between San Vicente Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue north of Wilshire Boulevard. This would be the second RFA District approved in the city following the February 2012 approval of a RFA District in Studio City.

The ordinance was fast-tracked last week by the council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee, which voted to recommend the new regulations with an urgency clause at the request of Councilman Paul Koretz, whose 5th District includes Beverly Grove. If the City Council votes Friday to approve the ordinance, it could take affect in about 5-8 weeks later depending upon how quickly Mayor Eric Garcetti signs it.

LandUseLA.com: 'McMansion' limits for another neighborhood
http://www.landusela.com/1/post/2013/10/mcmansion-limits-for-another-neighborhood.html

UPDATE (8:26 p.m.): Garcetti vows to stop Planning, LADBS merger
http://www.landusela.com/1/post/2013/10/update-garcetti-vows-to-stop-planning-ladbs-merger.html

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(Original Post 6:27 a.m.)

The controversial, proposed merger between the city's departments of Planning and Building & Safety will not occur on Jan. 1 as originally proposed, a city consultant told a key City Council committee recently, and may not occur at all if alternative methods are adopted to streamline the city's construction bureaucracies.

Gary Goelitz of Matrix Consulting Group told members of the City Council's Planning & Land Use Management Committee last week that it was too late to implement the merger in 2013.

"No, it's not possible," he said when asked by PLUM chairman Jose Huizar if the merger could still be completed this calendar year. "I'm not suggesting that you don't start the process, but I am suggesting that to expect the end of the process to be Jan. 1 is beyond reasonable now."

Goelitz spoke a few minutes before committee members voted to recommend postponing the merger until July 2014, if at all. The PLUM Committee recommended that the Council instruct its consultants to study "options other than consolidation that would improve the City's development process."

About 30 people spoke to the requested delay at the PLUM Committee hearing, with the vast majority of the speakers in favor of the delay.

The overwhelming support of a delay was in stark contrast to a month ago, when council members Curren Price Jr. and Tom LaBonge first proposed a motion on the Council floor for a postponement. Quick-acting and vocal community members forced the council to steer the motion to committee, where they said the pros and cons of stalling the merger needed to be discussed in public.

Proponents of the merger say that consolidation will result in lower costs and quicker processing times. They point out that managers of both departments publicly support the merger. They also say that the city has spent $850,000 to study and prepare for this merger and doesn't need to spend more money to study it further until July.

Opponents of the merger say there is no proof of either lower costs or quicker processing times, and they question whether a merger of two departments with different and sometimes conflicting roles should be under one banner. Building & Safety is a policing agency that guarantees residents' safety, they say. Planning is a development agency that is judged by the amount and types of projects that get built. They also say that most employees of the two departments are quietly opposed to the merger.

The merger was first proposed under then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and was endorsed by then-councilman Eric Garcetti. Now that Garcetti is mayor, he has not indicated whether he wants to go through with it.

“The priority for Mayor Garcetti is less red tape and faster customer service, and he is analyzing consolidation options that would best help businesses open and create jobs here in L.A.,” spokesman Yusef Robb told Rick Orlov of the Los Angeles Daily News in mid-September.

The item is now with the council's Budget and Finance Committee but is not currently scheduled for a hearing date.


PLUM Committee hearing Oct. 8 audio
http://lacity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=103&clip_id=12222

Councilman Price's motion to delay merger
http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2013/13-0046_MOT_09-13-13.pdf

Letter of support for merger delay
http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2013/13-0046_PC_09-17-13.pdf

LA Daily News: Hearing set on merger of L.A. building, planning departments
http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20130917/hearing-set-on-merger-of-la-building-planning-departments

City Watch LA: City Council Trying to Bypass the Public and Hijack LA’s Department Consolidation Process
http://www.citywatchla.com/recent-posts-hidden/337-recent-posts-8box-left/5712-city-council-trying-to-bypass-the-public-and-hijack-la-s-department-consolidation-process