Inside Planning: Around the Region and State

Sacramento Update

With the budget crisis unresolved at press time, the effects on local programs remained unclear. On the negotiating table, according to legislative staffers, were some funds from redevelopment agencies as well as other local government funding.

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s redevelopment bill (AB 3700) which changes procedures for Project Area Committees (PACs) has been passed by the Senate Local Government Committee and sent to Appropriations… No movement yet on David Roberti’s housing bond bill: the entire bond package may be decided upon during August

Assemblyman Curtis Tucker’s AB 394, which would expedite redevelopment procedures for L.A.’s rebuilding, was nearing final approval in both houses at press time.

Rebuilding L.A. Notes

While Peter Uebberoth’s Rebuild L.A. Committee has now named a Board, its Land Use Task Force has not fully geared up… Jackie Dupont-Walker is Rebuild L.A.’s contact person on land use issues… Ricbard McNish, an economic development specialist from the CRA’s Watts office, is also joining Rebuild L.A.

Planning Director Con Howe during June was named as chair of an interagency task force on recovery, with the Planning Department given the role of coordinating agencies’ response to the rebuilding effort. That group will be holding meetings with community representatives on reforming the city’s planning process… Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas is working with the Rebuild L.A. organization to walk them through the city’s approvals process.

Rebuild Crenshaw

While Rebuild L.A. and other organizations have spent much of the last two months preparing to plan, the “Rebuild Crenshaw” committee has already completed its planning. A community-based effort convened by Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s office involved over 300 residents in a month-long planning effort to set a community agenda.

The committee, which includes representatives from business, churches, community groups, block clubs and the arts,is addressing issues such as job creation and youth involvement as well as land-use planning. With the community agenda nearly complete, Rebuild Crenshaw expects to begin lobbying for its program during July.

Make No Small Plans, Part 1

Several truly massive planning efforts are now underway around Los Angeles. Work on the Balanced Growth Element, now redubbed the Citywide General Plan Framework, has begun after two years of delays and contract problems. Mini-charrettes with city staff during June helped to rework the scope of the program, which originally included a huge grab-bag of planning projects such as jobs-housing balance, transportation planning, linkage of land use and infrastructure, and a reexamination of the Centers Concept.

Though many city officials have privately expressed doubts about the project, most recognize that its unique financing mechanism (from the city’s “proprietary” departments) makes it the only game in town for long-range planning in these budgetary times.

According to Woody Tescher of Envicom, the lead consultant on the project, the project has also been revised in light of the recent violence to include a greater emphasis on economic and social programs.

Part 2: SCAG’s Regional Plan

Despite the large scope of the city’s framework plan, the Southern California Association of Governments’ first-ever Regional Comprehensive Plan may be even more ambitious.

The Comprehensive Plan will contain some 13 different elements and requires new forms of subregional cooperation (the Westside cities have begun meeting in one of these subre­gions). A span of the program, SCAG will be updating the Regional Mobil­ity Plan inlo a Regional Mobility El­ement for the Plan. 

The Plan will also include an economic element, a water element, a housing element, and a revisitation of SCAG’s Growth Management Plan projections. The Planning Report will provide more complete coverage of this complex plan in a future issue. 

Part 3: Downtown Planning 

The large consultant team for the Downtown Strategic Plan held its second charrette on June 29th, de­fining its principal “strategic inter­ventions.” As part of the charrette, the consultants developed three overall plans for downtown with different intensities of “intervention.” 

The charrette also developed a draft vision statement that stresses “the maintenance of (downtown’s) commanding presence in the region through the development of its physi­cal, social, and economic diversity at every turn.”

The third Strategic Plan charrette will be held on July 27th. 

CRA Studies Housing Costs 

The Community Redevelopment Agency is about to commission a study on ways to reduce costs and streamline the construction of publicly funded affordable housing. The CRA study will accompany a state­wide analysis being conducted by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), which is comparing the costs of publicly-assisted housing with market-rate housing around the state. 

Transit People 

Walter J. Karabian, a former state assemblyman, has been chosen to facilitate the merger of the South­ern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Trans­portation Commission. Robert Kruse has succeeded Ernest Camacho as chairman of the Rail Construction Corporation Board.