Dan Rosenfeld Opines On Planning And What To Expect From LA's New Mayor

Dan, with Los Angeles' new mayor taking office while a search is underway for a new director of planning, how would you advise the new Villaraigosa administration to proceed re setting a new planning agenda? What can a municipality do to encourage good public and private planning?

We have an opportunity for swift and comprehensive change. Political history confirms that the first "hundred days" of a new administration establishes direction, tone and momentum. What City Planning needs is vision, understanding, leadership, consensus building skills and, perhaps above all, that most rare of political suits, courage.

What is the existing city planning attitude that needs to be changed, and what should it be changed to?

In simple terms, we plan land uses exactly backwards. Currently, in Los Angeles, the process starts when developers apply for variances on a property-by-property basis. Some of these variances are granted, allowing development to proceed. Then we struggle to install a transportation system, after the fact, trying to keep up with the development we have allowed. Finally, if there happen to be any scraps of land that were somehow overlooked, for example Baldwin Hills and the Cornfields, those are considered for public use.

This process should be fundamentally reversed. In other words, first we should assess and protect our priceless public assets, including beaches, riverfronts and mountains. Second, we should proactively install a public transportation system, and I mean preferably a rail system, that will render those resources accessible to all of our citizens. And finally, where and only where the transportation system has capacity, we should encourage dense development to promote an efficient and attractive urban lifestyle. In other words, leave the hillsides and the single-family neighborhoods alone; pile on density at transit shops and downtown. It's pretty simple.

What can the new Villaraigosa administration do to implement the changes you suggest?

Government can do a lot. The missing ingredient is often courage. There has been a great deal of talk in the last few weeks about the technical qualifications for a new planning director. What may be more difficult to find is a director who will fearlessly lead the community, even at personal political risk. No one should expect to gain popularity in the job. Instead, they should expect opposition and recognize that problems come with a price. Maybe a short-timer will be more aggressive and willing to assume risk.

As our readers know, you have experience working in both state and local government/politics. Share what it is like when you try, in the public arena, to get out ahead of the curve? What are the challenges?

The business of politics is just as tough as the commercial world, if not tougher. It's a world of sharp elbows and hidden agendas, a blood sport where success is hard to quantify and often unappreciated and the pyramid narrows sharply at the top. Our electorate has sent very strong messages, at both state and local levels, that they are un-enamored with the careerist political strategy of "no negatives," that is, trying to offend no one by doing nothing. We lost both a governor and mayor who tried that. People appreciate leaders who do something, or at least try to do something. Big rewards almost always require big risks.

We tend often to focus too much on the role of the mayor and the planning director. Who are the other players that also need to be involved, and what kind of team has to be created to pursue your suggested planning agenda?

Some elements are in place. For example, we have the most qualified, highly educated and civically committed City Council in history. Their levels of energy and commitment to urban issues are unprecedented. They have seized upon-rediscovered, dusted off and championed-long overdue "dreams" including revitalization of the Los Angeles River, extension of the Red Line subway to the beach, and an active debate on housing production and affordability. Greater cooperation between the Mayor's office and City Council on these and other issues is essential. And there are a number of senior city staff positions that could be energized.

Your firm, Urban Partners, is consistently involved in developing transit-oriented, joint-use and mixed-use projects. What obstacles exist for these hybrid projects, in contrast to single-use developments?

Land assembly and land cost are clearly challenges. Zoning and building codes, frankly, have been much improved and cooperation from the Department of Building and Safety is now outstanding. CEQA, the environmental review process, which was created for essential public purposes, is being re-evaluated to distinguish the level of environmental scrutiny for a greenfields project in the suburbs, which should be severe, from the level required for an urban infill project that is consistent with adopted planning goals. In other words, make good development easier and bad development, well, impossible at best. Some of the CEQA reforms under consideration would be terrifically helpful.

Generally, the development industry is flourishing today. There are multiple construction cranes on the downtown horizon for the first time in years. Adaptive reuse of historic structures is underway at an unprecedented pace. People are returning to urban areas for all the right reasons and enjoying the benefits they deserve.

As school districts in the basin spend billions of bond dollars to construct new schools, how can we improve collaboration and planning for co-located and joint uses facilities that incorporate access to health care, libraries, after-school programs and pre-school programs?

New Schools Better Neighborhoods has been absolutely correct, reminding us constantly that every public expenditure has catalytic potential. Alexander Garvin at Yale said, "Urban planning is using a carefully targeted public expenditure to generate the maximum private sector response." Every time we build a school we make an intervention for better or worse, not just for public education, but in the fabric and land use patterns of our community. We understand the incredible challenges faced by the school district, meeting their facilities needs after 30 years of inaction. At the same time, we must remain aware that our massive investment in school construction will have long-term impacts on the communities surrounding new schools. This chance to leverage school construction dollars for multiple public benefits is real, immediate and will not come again.

The candidates for mayor, including Mayor-elect Villaraigosa, spoke, in the concluding weeks of the campaign, about their roles relative to the governance of our public schools. Will the new mayor be able to truly collaboratively plan joint use schools without greater authority over LAUSD?

The real issues are not simple or pretty, and they are rarely aired: should the Mayor have greater control over schools? Should LAUSD be "broken up" (remember Standard Oil, AT&T, et al)? Someone has to take the initiative on these big questions. Too much is at stake to allow delay.

If you were contributing to the Mayor-elect's inauguration speech, what would you want said about planning and smart infill development?

Public tolerance for caution and inactivity has waned. People pay a lot for their government; they want results. The mayor and his team must move boldly and decisively, seize chances and initiatives, take risks, expect some defeats and cuts and bruises along the way and recognize that the ultimate satisfaction of true progress is within reach. This is a happy moment for Los Angeles. We have witnessed again that voting matters, that the "system" works and, even more, that we can make progress toward ethnic tolerance and social and economic justice through non-violent means. This election is an important step in the long, lurching American quest for civil rights. It showed the kind of world leadership example that should make Los Angeles proud.