Planners Are Often Too Reactive: Woodie Tescher On the Value of General Plans

The Planning Report has published a host of interviews over the last two decades that lament the absence of local and statewide public planning, as opposed to public mediation. There are a few who have resisted that assessment of public planning? Where do you fall in your reaction?

I probably fall on the side of those who feel cities have been very shortsighted in planning deliberations. We've been reactionary to a project or to an issue that surfaces in the community. And, very rarely have communities effectively taken the time to step back from the day-to-day brush fires to view communities and what a community should be holistically. That has gotten us into some of the problems with which we now are wrestling, issues of growth and affordability of housing. A number of communities are beginning to recognize the need to step back and address these issues, but this is a very difficult process for many communities.

When local governments do step up to the plate and plan, what is it that finally motivates or compels them to make the financial and staff commitment to do so?

It depends upon the community. Over the last few years, the state, and particularly the state attorney general, has been more forthright in sending out letters to municipalities indicating that they may suffer some risk of development entitlements and CEQA compliance by having an inadequate general plan. I've seen that used in several communities as the leverage to put the funding aside for planning purposes.

I've seen other communities that have recognized that they can address the issues with which they repeatedly are confronted in project approvals by addressing those in a more holistic manner. While I would like to see it more, many communities have recognized that rather than fighting every infill housing project or debating every infill project on a case by case basis, it is better to view the city holistically and define a vision for housing citywide.

Woodie, you're working on several general plans-with the city of Santa Clarita, the County of LA, with West Hollywood, Newport Beach, Beverly Hills, and Corona. Give us some examples of the recurring issues that arise in your general plan work for these jurisdictions.

The recurring issue throughout the general plans, and regardless of whether it's a highly urbanized or suburban area, is just a fundamental challenge of growth. And there is consistent recognition that the old ways of doing business may not be the best strategy anymore. So there has been a greater focus in all of the plans, be it in Santa Clarita or in West Hollywood, on looking at how we may recycle, revitalize, and reenergize community cores.

We just completed a general plan that was updated in the City of Corona, where at the outset of the process there was no discussion of infill, mixed-use development etc. In fact, there was an outright rejection of infill development and reuse of corridors and reuse of commercial and industrial districts. However, we were able to point to the nearby community of Brea, which has successfully created a little town center, which was absent from its historic pattern of development. Corona used to have a downtown many years ago, but it been lost to the suburban sprawl philosophies. And by bringing members of the City Council, members of the Planning Commission, members of the community on field tours of Brea. All of sudden, there was an appreciation for this different pattern of development.

Woodie, planners work for their clients-cities or counties. When you begin professionally to address growth, what planning tools/concepts do you rely upon, and how does our state's dysfunctional state-local fiscal structure, which incentivizes retail sales as a generator to support local services, impact your alternative scenarios?

Today, we find initial negative reaction to urban recycling, reuse, densification, and mixed-use by community groups initially on the basis of design. After WWII and into the early 60s and 70s, we in southern California lost the capabilities we once had in of creating good residential neighborhoods. In places like West Hollywood, we've got excellent examples of older multi-family areas of courtyard housing and bungalows that were built before WWII. Somehow, we replaced those with stucco boxes. And the tool to address that in many communities is beginning to recognize that there are better ways of physically inserting forms and designs of development that can complement, rather than destroy, the fabric of community and neighborhood. And that's one that usually takes a little bit of education, but is achievable.

The next step is more difficult. Cities by their nature have a planning department doing planning, a city council making land use decisions, and there is an entirely separate organization planning and developing schools. This disconnect challenges the efforts to improve or expand what many consider to be a dysfunctional public school system, at least in its ability to support the needs of those residents who are going to be moving into new housing in the community core. The solution to this problem is still a work in progress.

I did have the experience in Glendale of participating in a collaborative effort between the city and the school district to develop a multiple purpose facility. This community center features parkland, a health facility, a library and a school, which was a very difficult, although hugely successful, process. That case study provides an interesting model of successful collaboration for other communities to replicate.

The other notable tools are transportation and transit. We're now finding evidence in some of the mixed-use projects that there are some reductions in vehicle trips being generated. This tension of creating and relating infill density to transportation has to be pushed further.

The fiscal issue is still on the table, particularly for suburban environments. I've seen a few examples in the last few years where we have had cooperative agreements and revenue sharing between adjacent jurisdictions that are competing for uses. For example, in the County of Merced, when we worked on the UC Merced effort, I saw a fairly successful revenue sharing effort between the county and the city to offset some of these fiscal imbalances. But, a significant effort of fiscal reform is needed if we are going to overcome this issue of competition for same uses.

California voters in the last four years have approved $35 billion of school facility bonds to be matched by local bonds. School districts are fast becoming the largest investors in urban and inner-suburban infill development in the state's history. As facilities are planned and built over the next decade, there appears to be little institutional recognition of the leverage opportunities that might result from intergovernmental collaboration. What needs to be done to encourage cities, counties and school districts to break out of their silos?

I wish I had the magic bullet. Let's go back to Glendale. In that case, leadership made the project possible. In Glendale, there was a recognition that the city of Glendale had invested a very significant amount of funds in the revitalization of its downtown, and with some success. They are making a conscious effort to maintain downtown. And, the city recognizes very clearly that the abutting neighborhoods, if allowed to continue to deteriorate over time, would erode what had been created. For fear of creating a downtown surrounded by a ring of deteriorating communities, the city turned to the schools as the way to left those neighborhoods surrounding the downtown.

In Glendale, we had a 71-member steering committee comprised mostly of neighborhood individuals who pushed it through. With the leadership of the city and the momentum built from the grass roots, we made it happen. Without those two components, I don't know if there is any other way to make it happen save for legislation coming down from the state.

Woodie, elaborate on your work on Long Beach's general plan.

We are very early in the process of updating a general plan that has been largely ignored by the city. The city is a charter city and for years has not had any obligation, in its own mind, to live by the general plan. It is a built-out city, so any change is going to cause or necessitate change of the existing fabric or focus. We have divided the city into five sub-areas or planning sub-areas and we have an advisory committee in each of these areas. We are working with the community to identify opportunities of how one may provide additional housing in ways that complement the classic strip commercial corridors. We are looking for opportunities to reuse these commercial corridors and opportunities to capitalize on the Blue Line, one of the most successful rail lines in the United States in terms of usership. Up to now, there has been little correlation of land use planning in relationship to those stations along the Blue Line. This effort seeks to capitalize on transit oriented development opportunities as well as to create and use small parcels of land for additional green space or recreational opportunities.

We are right in the middle of a round of meetings with each these community groups to define land use ideas and opportunities in the area. It is interesting because the first commitment we have to make in all the areas is how to protect single family neighborhoods, because everybody fears that the city is going to come in and suggest that the solution to all these crises is to bulldoze existing single family neighborhoods in favor of greater density. The city of Long Beach does have a history of that.

After focusing on the downtown area over the last couple of decades, Long Beach is looking for all of the vast areas of the city to improve while being more sympathetic to the neighborhoods. In the process, we're looking for transit-oriented solutions to blend into the plan.

Wasn't there a well-respected strategic plan that came out of Long Beach about a year or two ago?

There was a downtown strategic plan for the area and there was a citywide strategic plan that the mayor and Doug Otto were very influential in putting together. That served as a useful framework. When the strategic plan came out, however, it lacked a connection to the general plan-it was a separate document. This is an effort to bridge those two documents, which until recently, did not appear to be possible.

To conclude this interview, if you were to write a memo to an incoming city planning director of a major city in California, what would be in that letter? What ought to be on the top of their work agenda?

The first words written would suggest that the incoming planning director not be fearful of being a leader. We have become so reactive either to political environments or community environments and therefore have not provided the leadership that helps communities think outside of the box. Some of the most successful municipal planners are the people who are willing to take risks to help the community along. I've found that there are so many people out there who are willing to assume posts as planning directors only to be reactive and somewhat passive.

Planning is going to have an impact upon Southern California. Planners need to be willing to take risks and recognize that they may be fired for taking those risks. In so many communities, I hear the reaction in community meetings that "we never knew that there were opportunities to do things differently. We didn't know about those possibilities." Community groups have had no education about what are the alternative ways of doing business and creating communities.

So, I challenge the planners who are moving into their new jobs to be willing to help communities think outside the box. It doesn't mean you are going to be slapped down or reigned in, but I've found that the decision makers, the community residents, tend to be appreciative if you are willing not to be strident in your educational process and willing to talk about what options are out there. I see very little of that, but I would like to see more.