The Tracy Talks: The Politics Of Housing

Until Next Time…

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What Is ED-1?
Why Is ED-1 Concerning?
Is Westchester Getting Hit With A Disproportionate Share?
What Should We Do About ED-1?

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera & Playa Vista

My Perspective On ED-1

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:19:11 GMT

ED-1 is a third density threat facing our community, along with the CHIP Ordinance and the Community Plan Update. Two groups presented on ED-1 this past week at the Neighborhood Council Planning & Land Use Committee meeting on Tuesday. Additionally, I'm following chatter on the topic from multiple perspectives and I’ve done additional research. Below is my take on the threat raised by ED-1 and what our response should be.

Article Quick Links

What Is ED-1?

ED-1 is an “executive directive” issued unilaterally by Mayor Bass. As can be seen by its title, this was her first big move once elected. It was issued in December 2022, with revisions in June 2023, July 2023 and July 2024.

ED-1 expedites the building process for shelters and 100% affordable housing projects in the city of LA. Eligible projects receive expedited processing, clearances and approvals via a “Ministerial Approval Process.”

By definition, ED-1 projects are rental projects, not for sale projects. There is a prescribed rental price schedule and tenants must meet eligibility criteria.

Watch that red box. More about that below.

Projects are required to meet planning and zoning requirements set forth in the directive. If a project changes at any time in the review or construction process that it no longer meets ED-1 eligibility criteria, the project is disqualified from streamlining and all prior determinations are inapplicable.

ED-1 is currently in the process of being converted to law under the name Affordable Housing Streamlining Ordinance.

Why Is ED-1 Concerning?

The biggest issue with these projects is that “ministerial review” means there is no opportunity for the community to weigh in, and there is a high likelihood that developers won’t even come to the Neighborhood Council with their projects. Our first indication of a new project will be the construction fences.

The second issue is that these projects will be built on the cheap to maximize profit to the developers, at least where the developer is “for profit.” Even the rare non-profit developer is not incentivized to build high-end projects.

A third big issue is that these projects are statistically being build as studios and 1-bedroom apartments with little or no parking provided. These units are likely to shared by couples and maybe even roommates with multiple cars. This is a concern for any neighborhood.

A fourth possible issue, and it remains to be seen whether this is a significant risk, is that a project built for one level of affordability might be sold to another operator who wants to operate a shelter or lower category housing project. I think this risk really depends on some source of money opening up for shelters and acutely/ extremely low income residents.

Given the city’s and state’s budget crisis, and the decidedly right leaning influences in DC right now, I don’t see this happening any time soon. I’m no expert in these matters, but do keep an eye on AB 3093 and be very suspicious.

Is Westchester Getting Hit With A Disproportionate Number Of These Projects?

One Voice Westchester has been out peddling a doom, gloom and destruction of our community narrative about these projects:

They want you to believe that Brentwood, the Palisades, Venice and PdR are being protected with “exemptions.” When I pushed back on what these “exemptions” are, the response was “fire zones, canyons and coastal zones.” Those zones do provide exemptions but only cover parts of those communities.

The more simple truth is that Westchester, Palms/Mar Vista and West LA happen to have more empty parking lots and other low density lots that will be cheap to demolish. And costs matter.

Also, on the topic of cost, Westchester has the cheapest land on the westside.

And let’s talk about exactly what units they are counting in their calculation.

Currently, only 193 ED-1 units are approved in Westchester and those are in the Reading/Ramsgate area.

A 413-unit project was filed in July for the parking lot behind Bed, Bath and Beyond, but as of today, zero paperwork has been approved for this project.

Another 157 units are pending for Reading/Ramsgate, but also not approved at this time.

The remainder of the scary number aren’t even filed projects. The hint of these projects comes in the form of lobbyist applications for potential projects. We know who owns the land now and we know they have some kind of intention to build ED-1 projects on their land, but we don’t know if they’ve penciled out and committed to their projects.

And here’s the thing about all these “maybe” projects. My sources at United Neighbors (very plugged in with planners and Mayor Bass’ office) tell me they’ve had conversations with planners about ED-1 projects, and are hearing that many of the potential projects are being abandoned once developers start running the numbers.

This doesn’t mean we aren’t looking at density on these lots. It just means they might not end up being ED-1 projects, and maybe we’ll get a crack at having some say in the ultimate development. And there will be no streamlining for non-ED-1 projects, making them more expensive and less attractive to build, especially as long as interest rates stay high.

Another interesting point raised by Building A Better Westchester Playa (“BaBWP”) in their presentation Tuesday night was their observation that City Planners are holding the line on ED-1 projects that don’t strictly comply with the criteria spelled out in the language of the directive. BaBWP spot-checked some of the local proposed projects and found through conversations with Planners that the projects aren’t progressing for lack of compliance.

Will planning hold the line? So far, the answer is yes, and I take some comfort in that. Developers lined up to try their hand at building affordable projects because “streamlining” sounds like a huge benefit, only to find out there are still zoning and building rules they have to work within.

Projects Are Being Built For Higher Brackets

Another interesting statistic BaBWP pointed out in their presentation is that 93% of ED-1 projects across the city are being built for the “low income” category.

This is a category we want to support in our community. These are people making 80% of the Area’s Median Income. Think about young college graduates and other people with good, but lower paying, jobs. Think about the people who help us at the grocery store and other local businesses.

If we take one or two of these projects, is that so bad?

Lastly, ED-1 projects are mostly meeting compliance criteria and winning approval in non-CD-11 areas:

What Should We Do About ED-1's Impact On Our Community?

After sitting through the presentations on Tuesday night, and further research, I’ve concluded the fear being peddled about these projects is overblown.

That doesn’t mean there is any harm in pushing back some. I’m just worried about dying on this hill with an overly dramatic fight that sets us up to look like hysterical and rabid NIMBYs, rather than the sensible development supporters I know most of us to be.

So what am I supporting?

PLUC voted on Tuesday night to support a Community Impact Statement (“CIS”) on three topics:

an ED-1 exemption for the airport region
asking the Mayor/City Council for some kind of cap on projects
a distance rule between projects to defeat a concentration of units to the point that a high resource area like ours is blighted

I was gung ho on this CIS idea on Tuesday night, but further research and reflection leave me a little more lukewarm on the idea.

The idea I like more was the floated recently by my fellow neighborhood activist (and fellow Neighborhood Star 😁), Cory Birkett. Cory offered the interesting idea of creating an overlay zone for our downtown area designed to incorporate features to support a more vibrant and inviting downtown area, like wider sidewalks and larger setbacks.

If designed correctly, we might be able to create requirements that make these maxed out ED-1 projects less fiscally appealing.

Unfortunately, the city is trying to do away with specialty zones, and we’re getting pushback from our CPU planners on this idea. To me, this is our best chance to design the downtown we want and simultaneously squeeze out the threat of too many ED-1 projects.

I’m told ED-1 developers can ask for zoning exemptions, and this is something we’ll have to look at if we can get traction on the overlay idea with our councilperson’s office, but I have to think that even the idea of having to ask for exemptions makes the project a little more expensive and might be a deterrent.

What are your thoughts? Drop a note in the comments and tell me.

Content Authenticity Statement

100% of this week’s newsletter was generated by me, Tracy Thrower Conyers. No AI here. And if I add any, I will tell you. 😊

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 5 neighbors or 90045/90293 friends. 🚨

Until Next Time…

Be well and use this link to refer others to The Politics Of Housing. Let’s grow a community of informed neighbors!

What Is CHIP?
What Is PLUM?
How You Can Help
The Talking Points
— Affordability
— Equity & Justice
— Supply
How To Email PLUM Members
How To Submit Comments To The Official File
Other Homeowners Need To Hear This Message
Attend The Hearing

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera & Playa Vista

🗞 Concerned For WPDR - Time-Sensitive Call To Action 11 14 24

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 21:22:54 GMT

Summary: The next critical step in protecting our R-1 neighborhoods happens on Tuesday afternoon. We’re getting close to the finish line, and despite all odds against us, we have succeeded in keeping R-1 out of the builder incentives. To keep up our momentum, we need emails and public comments submitted to the Planning & Land Use Management Committee ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.

Links to sections below for your convenience:

🚩 CHIP Heads To PLUM On Tuesday! 🚩

As I reported in my September 28th update, we dodged a bullet in front of the Planning Commission, and for another minute, R-1 was exempt from the builder incentives under the Housing Element, but the Housing Element & CHIP are now headed to the City Council’s Planning & Land Use Management Committee (“PLUM”), and then on to the full City Council for a vote.

We all came together to fight high-rises in Westchester Playa in connection with our Community Plan Update (“CPU”). We paid less attention to other aspects of the Housing Element because the CPU shenanigans were so consuming.

Fortunately for us, our friends at United Neighbors were not undergoing a CPU and they clued in to the CHIP threat earlier and started lobbying Mayor Bass and the Planning Department to focus on corridor density, not R-1 density.

What Is CHIP Again?

CHIP stands for Citywide Housing Incentive Program and is the menu of builder incentives making it financially attractive to build high density projects. On one hand, we’re fighting density in our CPU for our geographic area, but CHIP applies across the entire city.

Yep, we’re looking at a double threat.

Our CPU is in a temporary holding pattern, waiting for the next draft map and the latest estimates for adoption span into 2026. The CHIP Ordinance, on the other hand, is on a march to approval by the City Council no later than mid-February.

You can read about our CHIP fight here and here.

At every step of the fight, we fought off including R-1 in the Ordinance, but every time, the Planning Department invited the decision maker to put it back in. It’s absurd and exhausting. Progressives want it in, but nobody has had the balls to do it with our persistent pushback.

Tuesday is the next step and we need to keep up the pushback.

What Is PLUM?

PLUM is a subset of the full council and it’s critical that we get past this committee with a favorable ruling because the next and final step is the full council. As you’re likely aware, the full council is a deck stacked against saving R-1 from needless densification. The PLUM Committee Members are:

John Lee, Chair
Heather Hutt
Imelda Padilla
Kevin de Leon
Katy Yaraslavsky

The report that came out of the last step (the Planning Commission Hearing) recommends that PLUM adopt the draft CHIP ordinance without R-1, except they then snuck in an “Exhibit D” with “options” to include R-1.

In fact, the original report actually misstated the oral ruling from the Planning Commission Hearing, but United Neighbors caught it and quickly demanded a correction, which was provided.

This exhibit potentially sets us up for having to defend against a variety of ways that R-1 could be subject to builder incentives.

How You Can Help

There are several ways to help:

email the committee members
submit comments to the official hearing file
involve other friendly R-1 homeowners
show up in person at the hearing and register to speak

I’m not sure if this meeting will be available on zoom, but the committee does not take public comments by zoom.

The Talking Points

At this point in time, we are down to broad talking points and not debating the finer details of policy. In my mind, we can assume that most of the council (and therefore most of this committee) lean toward the progressive side who support obliterating our mature R-1 neighborhoods to remediate some kind of historical unfairness.

This calls for using our most succinct, strongest talking points. United Neighbors has determined that these fall into three categories - affordability, equity and supply. If you can weave in one of the talking points in your personal message, that would be helpful.

If all you can manage is “I oppose expanding CHIP builder incentives into R-1 zones,” that helps. If you can add one of the talking points below, that is an even stronger message for the cause.

Affordability Talking Points

We don’t have a housing crisis in LA. We have an affordable housing crisis. The developer interests claim prices will tank if we just build enough units. Oh yay, what a great idea. 😒 Works for developers because they make their money by building. The rest of us just have to live with the consequences.

The talking points:

Vancouver has already demonstrated that densifying residential neighborhoods does not make housing more affordable; show me one city where this plan already worked before we undertake some big experiment in LA.
Why blight our mature R-1 with high-rises when that will result in so few affordable units?
State law already allows ADUs and 4 units on R-1 lots and that hasn’t resulted in any relevant measure of affordability. High rises with so few required affordable units won’t help either.
Concentrating density along our corridors allows our cash-strapped city to concentrate infrastructure improvements on more focused areas
Concentrating density along our corridors allows economies of scale by developers that will hopefully translate to more affordability of the resulting units

Equity & Justice Talking Points

The developer interests focus on these talking points a lot. It’s not fair that everybody doesn’t get to live at the beach. It’s not fair that “nobody” can afford to live in single family homes. R-1 is exclusionary. You get the point.

But there are other fairness issues that don’t get talked about enough and are perpetuated by allowing high rises in low rise R-1 neighborhoods:

Incentivizing apartments in R-1 makes it easier for Angelenos to get trapped in permanent renter status, while simultaneously depleting our starter home inventory (developers buy the cheapest homes to destroy)
Middle class and working class families invested life savings and emotional energy into their homes - how can city leadership even think about destroying these neighborhoods without a robust citywide discussion with adequate outreach to build awareness?
Focusing densification in a narrower area (corridors, not R-1) makes it easier for communities to dialogue on how to make the focused area more just and resident-friendly, including adding new single-family and townhome starter units as part of the corridor mix
Why would young people ever invest in buying homes if their investment can be tanked with random high rises next door? R-1 density development is designed to trap people into permanent renter status
Public transportation is on the corridors, not in the R-1 neighborhoods. We shouldn’t incentive density in locations that will require cars (or cause people to even want cars)
Starter homes are hard to come by, but we can add starter townhomes to corridor mixes to incentivize blending high rises with surrounding R-1
Families are running out of options - new high rises are primarily studios and 1-beds. Where are families supposed to live, especially multi-generational families?
Every high resource area has corridors. There will be plenty of high resource options with corridor density

Supply Talking Points

Supply is an important topic because we have zoning mandates from the State and if we don’t meet them, there are dire consequences. The other side likes to argue that R-1 constitutes 72% of available land in the city, conveniently ignoring that half of that land is not available for density for a variety of reasons (fire zones, slide zones, etc).

But regardless of how much land R-1 units utilize, the bottom line is that there is still enough capacity along the corridors to meet our crazy state mandates.

The talking points:

City planners confirm in their reports that we have enough supply along corridors to meet our statutory requirements
Every high resource area has corridors - there will be adequate high resource options with corridor density
Why destroy existing and truly affordable housing in R-1 to make way for predominantly market rate units?
Adaptive reuse units are on the corridors. We should be incentivizing reuse

More talking points

How To Email Committee Members

This is the easiest step, but also the easiest for the committee to ignore. What they can’t ignore is volume. We don’t need lengthy messages. We need lots of messages.

While each committee member should be willing to hear from the whole city on committee matters, we also know that they will be most persuaded by hearing from their own personal constituents, so if you can send your own email plus enlist a friend or two from the constituencies of the committee members, that’s a huge bonus.

When you email the committee members, please also cc our own councilperson. She is not on the committee, but she needs to know we still care about this issue.

Here are the email addresses:

John Lee, Chair - councilmember.lee@lacity.org (District 12 - NW San Fernando Valley)
Heather Hutt - heather.hutt@lacity.org (District 10 - Arlington Heights, Koreatown, Mid-City, Palms, South Robertson, West Adams, and Wilshire Center)
Imelda Padilla - councilmember.padilla@lacity.org (District 6 - Van Nuys/Arleta)
Kevin de Leon - councilmember.kevindeleon@lacity.org (District 14 - Boyle Heights, DTLA, Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, NE LA)
Katy Yaraslavsky - councilmember.yaroslavsky@lacity.org (District 5 - Bel Air, Beverly Crest, Beverly Grove, Beverlywood, Carthay Circle, Century City, Cheviot Hills, Fairfax District, Holmby Hills, Melrose, Palms, Pico-Robertson, Westwood, Westside Village, and Encino)
+ cc: Traci Park - councilmember.park@lacity.org

Make sure your subject line says: Please Exclude R-1 From CHIP - Council File 21-1230-S5.

How To Submit Comments To The Official Hearing File

Post a comment to the Council File, which makes your comment part of the permanent record. This takes less than a few minutes with these helpful tips:

Click this link
Fill in your name and email address
Copy/paste the following:
I oppose expanding building incentives into R-1
Concentrating density along our corridors allows economies of scale by developers that will hopefully translate to more affordability of the resulting units [or your favorite talking point]
Thank you.
Click “I am not a robot”
Click “submit”
You must respond to the verification email sent to your listed email address
Your comment will be posted to the file within 24 hours

Involving Other R-1 Home Owners

Please share this email with 10 friends who own or support owning homes in R-1 neighborhoods without high rises.

Do you know anybody who owns a home or supports owning a home in R-1 in any of the following communities?

NW San Fernando Valley
Arlington Heights
Koreatown
Mid-City, Palms
South Robertson
West Adams
Wilshire Center
Van Nuys
Arleta
Boyle Heights
DTLA
Lincoln Heights
El Sereno
NE LA
Bel Air
Beverly Crest
Beverly Grove
Beverlywood
Carthay Circle
Century City
Cheviot Hills
Fairfax District
Holmby Hills
Melrose
Palms
Pico-Robertson
Westwood
Westside Village
Encino

Each of the above communities is in the district of a PLUM committee member. Please share this post with your friends in those communities and encourage them to email their councilperson with a talking point and identify themselves as a resident of the district.

Attend The Hearing On Tuesday & Register To Speak

Anything you can do will help, but getting bodies downtown on Tuesday is really needed. The developer lobbies have been very successful in bringing loads of speakers to meetings at each stage of this ordinance’s progression.

The meeting will be downtown on Tuesday. We are waiting to see the agenda but expect the meeting to start at 2:30 pm. We are also confirming what time we can check in to register to speak. Registered people get one fast minute, which is barely enough time to spit out your name and one talking point. Please let me know if you can attend and whether you are interested in carpooling.

OK! That was one long post, but this is an important topic and I want to make sure I’m doing my part to help people who support keeping high rises out of our low rise neighborhoods. Contact me with questions.

Content Authenticity Statement

100% of this week’s newsletter was generated by me, Tracy Thrower Conyers. No AI here. And if I add any, I will tell you. 😊

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 5 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Until Next Time…

Be well and use this link to refer others to The Politics Of Housing. Let’s grow a community of informed neighbors!

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera & Playa Vista

🗞 Concerned For WPDR - Community Updates As Of 10 15 2024

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 17:21:32 GMT

🚩 Tonight - PLUC! 🚩

Tonight is the monthly meeting for the Neighorhood Council’s Planning & Land Use Committee. The agenda is up on this page and it’s going to be a busy meeting! Look at the exhibits to the agenda for more details on each agenda item.

The 7166 Manchester developer is coming back. This project is huge and planned for the Pep Boys/Del Taco lots at Manchester/La Tijera. The project proposed is a 96 ft, 8-story mixed use building containing 489 dwelling units and approximately 16,120 SF of commercial space for a total of 416,890 SF.

I also invite everybody to come out and share your thoughts in the public comments portion of the meeting.

The senior living project slated for the Staples lot at 8704 & 8711 Sepulveda Blvd/Eastway is also on the agenda. The proposed project includes two 7 & 8-story buildings with 120 licensed Assisted Living and Independent Living units in the West Building and 146 units in East building. This developer is not asking for any discretionary approvals, and is moving fast.

There is also a small project in PdR on the agenda for a single-family home seeking special vehicle access to busy streets.

The Housing Element & CHIP Head To PLUM

As I reported in my September 28th update, we dodged a bullet in front of the Planning Commission, and for another minute, R-1 is exempt from the builder incentives under the Housing Element, but the Housing Element & CHIP are now headed to the City Council’s Planning & Land Use Committee, and then on to the full City Council for a vote. The Housing Element must be approved no later than mid-February, and with the holidays looming, time is short.

There are severe consequences for LA if the Housing Element is not approved on time. If our Housing Element is decertified by the state, developers can rush in and file for Builder’s Remedy projects. I presume the City Council is taking this seriously. We need to make sure they don’t mess this up.

PLUM meets on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. The PLUM Meeting has not been scheduled for this week, so the earliest we’ll see a meeting scheduled is November 5th, but given Nov 5 is Election Day, I’m skeptical they’ll have a big meeting that day. On the other hand, this is a hot potato issue and having the meeting on a busy day might be one way to minimize public involvement. 😁

Please stay tuned. As soon as the meeting is scheduled, I’ll be asking you to submit comments again and to attend the hearing if possible. Our lead time will likely be short. Our comments will generally be the same as last time in front of the Planning Commission, but this time we will be addressing them to the Committee with a new matter number. The Committee Members are:

John Lee, Chair
Heather Hutt
Imelda Padilla
Kevin de Leon
Katy Yaraslavsky

It will be critical for us to make a big showing in front of this subgroup of the larger City Council. As you all likely know, our City Council is heavily stacked with progressive councilmembers who would love nothing better than an opportunity to obliterate our mature R-1 neighborhoods in the name of “social justice.”

Sharpen your pencils! I’ll be back to you soon.

Little Vons Update

There has been much speculation about the Little Vons in Kentwood, and whether it’s going away. As you might recall, the store is scheduled to be sold if the Kroger/Albertsons Merger is approved.

In August, the Federal Trade Commission made a motion for a preliminary injunction against the merger. The FTC argued the merger will be anticompetitive. The grocery chains argued they can’t be competitive without the merger. The trial concluded on September 17th, and the judge committed to a swift decision, but we haven’t seen a ruling yet.

Separately, attorneys general in Washington State and Colorado are also both seeking to block the merger, adding another layer of complexity and uncertainty to the merger’s future.

No matter the outcome in the FTC case, there will likely be appeals. For now, Little Vons stays Little Vons. But no matter what grocery store has its name on the sign, a little birdie told me that the CPU planners still have their eye on that lot for big upzoning. 🙄

Can You Help?

Our friends at United Neighbors shared that two historic neighborhoods (Wellington Square & Lafayette Square) are seeking support for petitions to fight city actions.

One petition is to have Metro study possible changes in routing for their K line so as not to impact this neighborhood so negatively, and the second petition is to grandfather in the vehicular gates that were installed decades ago to minimize crime and traffic accidents. In this latter community, the pedestrian gates are open but vehicular gates are not open 24/7. The community fears they may be ordered to keep vehicular gates open as well which becomes a safety issue for the neighborhood.

Please support these communities by signing their petitions:

LA Metro: https://chng.it/jysXwYrZ88
Safety Petition: https://chng.it/g8dQGx2XRX

Metro Design Event

And for something fun, how about participating in the design around our metro light rail station? Read more about the First/Last Mile Program here. Attend the meeting to learn about participating (excerpt from our councilperson’s weekly newsletter).

No On Measure A

Circling The News published a very compelling article explaining why we should vote NO on Measure A. Yes, there is a very heart-tugging narrative that the funds will help the poor and homeless, but the poor are exactly who will suffer the most with yet another increase in our sales tax.

The LA Times reported last week that the Measure is gaining support with younger voters, but obviously those voters are not thinking through who pays the tax, along with ignoring huge inefficiencies in how our homeless dollars are spent. It’s time for the adults in the room to step up and say NO.

Don’t miss the quote from Westchester’s own Tim Campbell, calling Measure A “one of the most cynical propositions on the ballot.”

Measure A is intended to increase and replace Measure H, set to expire in 2027. Measure A, by the way, includes no expiration date.

Content Authenticity Statement

100% of this week’s newsletter was generated by me, Tracy Thrower Conyers. No AI here. And if I add any, I will tell you. 😊

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 5 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Until Next Time…

Be well and use this link to refer others to The Politics Of Housing. Let’s grow a community of informed neighbors!

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera & Playa Vista

Concerned For WPDR 🗞 Triple Header

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Sat, 28 Sep 2024 23:56:50 GMT

Watch This Newsletter On YouTube 📺

Why This Newsletter Looks Different

Hello fellow Concerned Neighbors! Tracy Thrower Conyers here! This is the Concerned For Westchester Playa newsletter coming to you from its new home on Substack! It looks a little different, but it’s still the same concerned content.

It was a busy week in our community and there is much to be concerned about! Let’s get to it!

Save The Date!! 🚩

Our CPU planning team is presenting to our Neighborhood Council on October 1st. Find the agenda on this page.

What Sacramento Just Did To Us (Again)

I took a dive last weekend into what our legislature was up to this term in the realm of housing density and other quality of life impacts. Twenty-three bills in this area were passed this last term. As of this writing, six are still waiting for signature by the Governor. Monday is the last day for signature.

I am not an expert on the topic of legislative process, but I am a former complex business litigation attorney who has been following this topic extremely closely for seven years. Use this link to read the language of the bills yourself to double check my work.

Let me also say that I might have missed one or two bills. Not every bill follows a straight line. Drop a comment if you know of one I missed or have a question about a bill not listed on my chart.

You might wonder why I’m talking about Sacramento bills when we all came together around local upzoning here in Los Angeles. The answer is simple. The dramatic upzoning demands we are fighting come directly from policy activism in Sacramento and mandates to rezone for a crazy number of units.

I attended the Ladera CPU community meeting week before last, and I heard when listening to commenters that there is a huge misunderstanding in the community about who controls the upzoning numbers, which prompted me to write this post and present this information recently at a Community Plan Update Ad Hoc Committee meeting.

Yes, the city has some discretion in how they parcel out LA’s mandated numbers, but the city has zero discretion in missing the targets. There are severe consequences for missing targets and the consequences were made worse this past legislative term.

Since approximately 2016 when ADUs were first approved at the state level, our legislature has been on an aggressive push to densify our state and get rid of cars. I remember in 2017 arguing with another lawyer in San Francisco on twitter about whether we really need cars. The minute I pointed out that she wouldn’t want me in LA dictating what San Francisco does or doesn’t do with cars, she shut up.

It just makes zero sense to have anybody, including our state legislators, usurping local land use control and creating one size fits all rules for a state as large and diverse as California.

But then, it really does make perfect sense when you realize that there are far less state level legislators for developers to influence and we the humble citizens only vote for one senator and one assemblyperson, so our ability to influence state level policy is severely constrained.

Did you know that we don’t even need all these market rate units the developers are pushing for? People are fleeing the state of California in record numbers. Prior to 2021, California had never seen even one year of population decline since 1900, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Between April 2020 and July 2022, we lost more residents than 44 other states! We added back a modest number the following year, but nobody is predicting that we need the number of market rate units the state is inflicting on us.

In fact, our population is currently projected to be the same in 2060 as today. Who is going to live in these market rate units??

And I’m still annoyed that the current housing mandates we’re fighting were pushed out by the CA Dept of Housing & Community Development just ahead of the census numbers in 2020. That just shows you that need is not part of the equation in the least. This agenda is being pushed by the developer lobby and their very organized network of YIMBY groups.

Yet here we are, looking at more massive upzoning with people fleeing our state. And the people leaving are the best of our taxbase and those we most need to fund the infrastructure improvements to support this crazy density. Yes, we have an affordability crisis. No, we don’t have a need for more market rate units based on our outbound migration trends and population predictions.

And speaking of those outbound trends, California gave up a seat in the house after the last census and we underwent a pretty drastic redistricting process. That was our first loss of a seat since statehood in 1850. Our former senator still represents West Westchester and North PdR, but the rest of us got a new senator and a new assemblyperson. I noted their votes on my chart summarizing the bills, and it looks to me like they are all good party players toeing the progressive line on density, but worse, they pretty uniformly sold us out on Coastal Commission protections.

I won’t go over every one of the bills, but I did list them in the order of relative impact on our lives IMHO on my chart. Notably, requirements for affordable units were greatly diminished. Why? Affordable units are exactly what we need. That’s despicable! CEQA review was done away for affordable unit projects, even for projects with known health impacts. Who are these democrats and what did they do with their common sense and empathy?

Homeless housing is being added to the mandates but with NO financial assistance or social services required.

Let me repeat that because that is huge!

We will have quotas for homeless housing units we have to build, but nobody to pay for it and no social services for that population. This is an “unfunded mandate” and under current rules, we will have no say in where this housing is built. This is going to mess with our Community Plan Update big time.

But wait! There’s more!

Road Diets are set to become the rule of the land now (well in the land of California, that is). We know a thing or two about Road Diets here in WPDR. 😱

The unit mandates, aka the Regional Housing Needs Assessment or “RHNA numbers”, are getting harsher and the consequences for missing targets are getting more punitive after this session. I could go on and on about these bills, but the list honestly depresses me.

There was one bill calling for reform of the RHNA numbers. It died in appropriations as too expensive. That was a serious blow for any kind of reasonable density going forward.

I also need to mention that a proposed constitutional amendment also passed the last term making it part of our state constitution that there is a “right to housing” and specifically that this could include land use policies that remove barriers to housing production by zoning for more housing. Obviously this is huge.

This amendment in on the November ballot and we haven’t heard a peep about it. This is going to be ugly if passed.

I asked the CPU Ad Hoc Committee last week to invite our two senators and our assemblyperson to come to a meeting and explain to us exactly who we are building all these units for. The legislature is throwing our quality of life in the toilet with zero explanation who is going to live in all these market rate units, and WHY they voted to cut the number of required affordable units.

Please spend some time reviewing my chart and understanding what just happened to us. I know I used a lot of bold in this post, but these bills are important developments. Please review them.

The Planning Commission Hearing This Week Regarding The Housing Element

The Community Plan Update is one portion of the Housing Element. There is another portion that impacts the whole city, not just our community. A big player in that other portion is the CHIP Ordinance, which is the menu of builder incentives making it financially attractive to build high density projects. CHIP stands for Citywide Housing Incentive Program.

The first draft of CHIP included R-1 lots as eligible for incentives. There was a ton of pushback on this by R-1 homeowners led by our friends at United Neighbors. R-1 was dropped from CHIP with draft #2 and we thought we dodged a bullet.

I attended the public hearing on draft #2 and was absolutely shocked to hear the lead planner literally invite people to convince them why R-1 should go back in the ordinance. I had an opportunity to give public comment supporting the R-1 exemption, along with some of our neighbors, but we only represented about 10% of the comments. I was sweating bullets from the end of that meeting until draft #3 came out.

The third draft dropped week before last. R-1 was still not in the recommendations, but the report (issued only 10 days before the Planning Commission Hearing and with only 8 days for commenting) included an appendix with a menu of eight ways the Commission could add R-1 back in!

The public hearing was on Thursday. It was eight hours of pain with primarily young people and builders demanding R-1 come back in. I was able to get this statement on the record:

My name is Tracy Thrower Conyers and I represent a block of over 1000 homeowners in Westchester/Playa.
I’ve attended every public hearing regarding CHIP and every time, I hear a litany of complaints from misinformed people who think it is some kind of moral imperative to obliterate our mature R-1 neighborhoods with high-rise market rate units. These commenters will not be able to afford those units, but our retirement nest eggs will be at risk of plummeting in value as we become surrounded by high-rises with no parking.
Do we really have to steal from one group and give it to another to meet our fairness and construction goals? The Planning Department’s own report says no, yet they seek to rezone R-1 at every step of this process.
The only winners with R1 in CHIP are the developers. You all on the commission know this. Please do the right thing and exclude R-1 from CHIP. We are already doing our part with ADUs and SB-9.

(I got a quote in LAist for this testimony)

A handful of speakers on zoom (where I was) were able to speak, but they limited zoom comments to 30 minutes total (after hearing hours of in person testimony), and many on our side were not able to be heard.

The Commission approved the recommendations without R-1, but expressly invited the City Council to take up the topic of whether we should undo R-1 zoning to heal past redlining harms. 😱 Obviously, this is now an all hands on deck situation for anybody who has invested in their single family home under certain rules that the progressives now want to repeal.

Please share this email with 10 friends in Los Angeles who understand that a huge attempted wealth redistribution is at hand.

Next the fight is headed to the PLUM Committee and on to the City Council. I will be in touch with next steps as they are formulated.

Content Authenticity Statement

100% of this week’s newsletter was generated by me, Tracy Thrower Conyers. No AI here. And if I add any, I will tell you. 😊

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 3 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Until Next Time…

Be well and use this link to refer others to The Politics Of Housing. Let’s grow a community here on substack!

Angelenos have a chance to help shape LA’s future housing & density plans

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

And Along Comes A Poll….

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 22:34:05 GMT

The Planning Department is taking public comments on the Housing Element until August 26th. I wrote more about this topic here, along with instruction for submission.

Public comments submitted to the record are the normal way for the public to share their desires, but possibly that method was working too well for those of us who want to keep high-rises out of our low-rise neighborhoods.

So City Planning decided to put up a poll and it sucks, to put it mildly. The questions are vague and poorly drafted, and anybody with an email address can fill it out. There are so many ways this poll can be manipulated.

While we're all submitting our public comment the accepted way, please take 60 seconds to fill out the poll, too, so that we can make our voices heard over there, as well.

Find the poll here

If you share our philosophies about keeping high-rises out of low-rise neighborhoods, we have suggested responses for you to speed you through the process:

Residential areas where more housing can be added -- [ ] Major Corridors or Streets (I don't like "streets" but this is the best response of what is offered)
Would you like to see more housing in areas zoned for single-family uses? -- [ ] I wouldn't like to see more housing in single-family zoned areas
Do you have other ideas? -- [ free text ] The city's own numbers show that we don't need high-rises in our low-rise neighborhoods yet. Don't destroy our mature low-rise neighborhoods until we are out of other options.

By the way, this poll seems to be shape-shifting. Question number 3 is different than when I filled out the poll a few weeks back. 😵

What are your thoughts about the poll? Drop a comment below after you fill it out.

The Housing Element Might Just Slam Us Yet

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 22:12:10 GMT

Our fight against high-rises in our low-rise community has consumed us for just over a year now. Every time I think we’ve won, we get blindsided again.

First we fought back big time on the Community Plan Update after Draft 2 started dribbling out in secrecy in June of 2023.

Heck yes, we were mad! We rallied, we brought out the media, we signed petitions, we put signs in our yards, we got the attention of our Neighborhood Council and our Councilwoman’s office. We were not taking Draft 2 lying down.

And we prevailed! It was a long, arduous fight, but Draft 3 took nearly all the high-rise risk out of our low-rise neighborhoods.

We thought we were done, but I was already sounding the alarm about the Housing Element. We barely knew what it was because we were so busy with our Community Plan Update, but I knew the Housing Element was citywide and I knew it was bigger than our CPU. I wrote about it everywhere I could, trying to get word out. Find some of my articles here, here and here.

Fortunately for us, while we were distracted with our CPU, our friends at United Neighbors were focused on the Housing Element and meeting a lot with that Planning Team. Read more about their efforts here.

As a direct result of all their hard work, single-family zones were removed from the builder incentive ordinances for the new Housing Element. United Neighbors demonstrated that we have ample capacity on our corridors to build the required number of units under our housing unit mandate from the state.

To say that the developers and their shills were outraged by this turn of events is an understatement, but again, we thought we dodged the high-rise bullet.

We could not have been more wrong.

July 25th brought the Public Hearing for the implementing ordinances of the Housing Element, including the builder incentives. I might have easily skipped this meeting because I thought everything was a-okay. I spoke with other community activists in the density fight, and they thought the same.

Something about an email from United Neighbors caught my attention and I agreed to attend and make remarks in support of the existing draft excluding high-rises from single family neighborhoods and the coastal zone.

I started a little preparatory research at the last minute and my heart sunk. I found the usual progressive influencers - LA Times and LAist - were urging people to come out and fight to change LA’s historical racist segregation via single family zoning. Not a peep about the fact we have adequate capacity outside our low-rise neighborhoods to build density.

I attended the Planning Department’s informational presentation before the public hearing and realized we were in deep doo-doo when the head planner said this during the presentation in what felt like an orchestrated perfect moment:

“[after acknowledging that SFR was in the ordinances and then removed] That said, we’re looking for your feedback today and we appreciate all the folks who’ve come out here today to share their perspective related to single-family,” Smith said. “We’re very much in a listening phase.”

I think my heart actually stopped. She is the senior lead planner for the Housing Element team and she was suggesting that the pro-developer voices could still effect changes to the ordinances.

The public hearing and testimony started and I got to speak in the #3 spot for public comment. I had the usually allowed two-minute remarks all scripted and practiced, but so many people came to speak that they limited remarks to 1-min, and I was left to drastically cut my remarks on the fly.

There are so many things I wished I’d said, but LAist quoted me in their follow up story on the hearing. I don’t know if what I said was some kind of brilliant, or whether they just have a short attention. I was, after all, #3. 😁

OK, so this is a nice story, but why am I writing this lengthy post?

We got creamed in public comment. 😱 Maybe 10% of the commenters were in favor of keeping the single family zone and coastal zone restrictions. The other 90% were calling it “a moral imperative” to open the rich white single family zones to less advantaged people to fix historic segregation.

All of this right after the head planner said the team was “very much in listening mode.” And they were hearing a lot from the people who want to obliterate our neighborhoods.

It literally broke my heart that the primarily young commenters really believe their lives are going to be better by wrecking our neighborhoods. They don’t understand that our communities will not be that desirable with random high-rises on our streets.

A few commenters literally said that individual owners aren’t required to sell, with zero understanding that nobody will want to stay with high-rises all around. Even one high-rise will ruin privacy and light access for a lot of neighbors who paid a premium to avoid living like that. It will be a race to the bottom to see which of us can sell out first while values are still strong.

Not only will our neighborhoods be ruined, virtually none of the high-rise units will be remotely affordable. The naivete of those commenters. 😥

I swear, their mantra is if we can’t have what those rich white people have, let’s burn it all down. And I scoffed at the criticisms about the “trophy generation” and here they are….

We still have an opportunity to make our voices heard!

Written public comments can still be submitted and added to the record, but there isn’t much time and very specific instructions have to be followed, which I’ve provided here.

We don’t need essays. We need a lot of individual comments. Please take a minute right now and forward this message to 10 people in LA who share our belief that high-rises don’t belong in low-rise neighborhoods.

And then submit your own comment. And then submit one for your spouse. 😁

You won’t regret the 10 minutes it takes to forward this message and lodge your own community comment for the record. It’s really very empowering and I’ve made it super easy for you with my step-by-step instructions. Comments are due by August 26th. And while you're at it, please spend one minute filling out the city's silly poll on the same topic.

Press About The Public Hearing

LA city planner hear from a chorus of Angelenos wanting more housing in single-family neighborhoods (somebody we know was quoted in this one 😁)

Housing sides clash at LA City Hall meeting

Housing Element meeting Thursday evening

The Housing Element Might Bite Us Yet

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

The Housing Element Might Bite Us Yet

Dear Fellow Concerned Neighbors,

Our fight against high-rises in our low-rise community has consumed us for just over a year now. Every time I think we’ve won, we get blindsided again.

First we fought back big time on the Community Plan Update after Draft 2 started dribbling out in secrecy in June of 2023.

And we prevailed! It was a long, arduous fight, but Draft 3 took nearly all the high-rise risk out of our low-rise neighborhoods.

Fortunately for us, while we were distracted with our CPU, our friends at United Neighbors were focused on the Housing Element and meeting a lot with that Planning Team. Read more about their efforts here.

To say that the developers and their shills were outraged by this turn of events is an understatement, but again, we thought we dodged the high-rise bullet.

We could not have been more wrong.

This past Thursday brought the Public Hearing for the implementing ordinances of the Housing Element, including the builder incentives. I might have easily skipped this meeting because I thought everything was a-okay. I spoke with other community activists in the density fight, and they thought the same.

I think my heart actually stopped. She is the senior lead planner for the Housing Element team and she was suggesting that the pro-developer voices could still effect changes to the ordinances.

OK, so this is a nice story, but why am I writing you today?

All of this right after the head planner said the team was “very much in listening mode.” And they were hearing a lot from the people who want to obliterate our neighborhoods.

Not only will our neighborhoods be ruined, virtually none of the high-rise units will be remotely affordable. The naivete of those commenters. 😥

I swear, their mantra is if we can’t have what those rich white people have, let’s burn it all down. And I scoffed at the criticisms about the “trophy generation” and here they are….

We still have an opportunity to make our voices heard!

Written public comments can still be submitted and added to the record, but there isn’t much time and very specific instructions have to be followed, which I’ve provided here.

We don’t need essays. We need commenting volume. Please take a minute right now and forward this message to 10 people in LA who share our belief that high-rises don’t belong in low-rise neighborhoods.

And then submit your own comment. And then submit one for your spouse. 😁

You won’t regret the 10 minutes it takes to forward this message and lodge your own community comment for the record. It’s really very empowering and I’ve made it super easy for you with my step-by-step instructions. Comments are due by August 25th.

Press About The Public Hearing

LA city planner hear from a chorus of Angelenos wanting more housing in single-family neighborhoods

Angelenos have a chance to help shape LA’s future housing & density plans

Housing sides clash at LA City Hall meeting

Housing Element meeting Thursday evening

Something Fun!!

My last message to you was about an impromptu rally for Traci Park. I was there and had a blast! There will be more rallies and I hope you get a chance to join me. Traci is in the distinct minority with her moderate common sense ideas and policies. We need to keep reminding her that we appreciate her taking a stand for common sense and moderation.

Reminding You What We’re Up Against

The Legislature is on break, but once they get back, the heavy shenanigans commence. I’ll be trying to cover and report on the process for you. Have you heard of “gut & amend” bills? They are innocuously named bills that proceed along mostly unnoticed and at the last minute, they are literally gutted and the language is replaced with controversial bills that are suddenly in the last stages of approval. It is a process that we should be very, very concerned with.

__________________________________________________

The image above depicts the number of housing bills working their way through our state legislature right this minute. 😱 Why do we need five new ADU laws?

And that is only the housing bills.

This situation is unacceptable. No representative could possibly be reading all those bills. They end up horse trading votes without even knowing what they’re voting for. Sadly, the burden is on us to track all of this and do our best to shine a light.

I’d like to say we can vote the worst offenders out of office, but they are not even our own representatives. But they definitely push bad laws making our lives more untenable.

Find the bill descriptions from the graphic at this link. And please consider throwing a few dollars at LivableCA, a statewide group that has been hard at work for several years trying to keep us all in the know on these mostly terrible bills.

Another worthy group to support is Our Neighborhood Voices. They are the group behind the initiative to bring land use planning and legislation back to local control where we, the voters, can keep a closer eye on it. If they prevail, we won’t have to watch the State Legislature and their housing policy shenanigans so closely.

Both groups are pushing out expensive public awareness campaigns and hiring lobbyists to fight for us. Please help support them if you can.

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 3 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

Copyright (C) 2024 Concerned For Westchester/Playa. All rights reserved.

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Traci Park Needs Our Support 💪

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Traci Park Needs Our Support 💪

Dear Fellow Concerned Neighbors,

Ever since Traci Park was elected as our Councilperson, I’ve been increasingly impressed. She is a breath of fresh air in a sea of progressive influences on our City Council.

Traci has been particularly outspoken on our zoning issues and pledged her support to help us grow our community the way we want it. I believe she’s a huge reason we’ve experienced the successes we have so far fighting against the high-rises and density zones in our plan area.

It can’t be easy for her to stand in the minority on our Council, but with every passing week she is more and more outspoken for common sense, and she is getting a lot of grief for her trouble from groups who don’t want to hear common sense solutions to the problems plaguing our city. She came out very strongly calling for new homeless strategies after the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Grants Pass case.

On Saturday, there is a Gratitude Rally planned for Traci in Venice from 2-4 pm. While it is always nice to show up and express gratitude, it’s even more critical right now to show the rest of the city that she is firmly supported in her district and that we are here for her common sense solutions.

Can you join me Saturday to say thank you? The details are below. Please rsvp to connie_brooks@verizon.net or reply YES to this email and I’ll send our RSVPs Friday night.

Something Fun!!

Based in large part on our work on the Community Plan Update, my Alliance colleague Cory Birkett and I were named Neighborhood Council Stars of the Neighborhood and got to ride in last week’s 4th of July Parade. It was a hoot! This honor is an honor for all of us who came together to make our voices heard. Cory and I thank you for your support over the last year. 😍😍

Separately, Cory and I have both been invited to join the Westside Community Planning Advisory Group, joining 58 other community leaders across the westside to advise on the four Community Plan Updates for West LA (“Planning The Westside”). We’ll be reporting on that process as it unfolds. We are in orientation meetings this week. We’ve been told to expect two meetings for the remainder of the year, so it will probably be awhile before you hear from us again on this topic.

Traci Park Speaks Out On The Westchester Park Shooting

I imagine you probably heard about the shooting incident at Westchester Park on June 17th. Traci held a safety forum for the community three days later. The venue was packed with concerned neighbors and I was in the third row capturing the proceedings on my cell phone. Below is Traci’s portion of the program.

Reminding You What We’re Up Against

__________________________________________________

The image above depicts the number of housing bills working their way through our state legislature right this minute. 😱 Why do we need five new ADU laws?

And that is only the housing bills.

I’d like to say we can vote the worst offenders out of office, but they are not even our own representatives. But they definitely push bad laws making our lives more untenable.

Both groups are pushing out expensive public awareness campaigns and hiring lobbyists to fight for us. Please help support them if you can.

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 3 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

Copyright (C) 2024 Concerned For Westchester/Playa. All rights reserved.

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe

The Draft Community Plan Update Is Just One Part Of The City’s Density Plan For Us

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 23:35:10 GMT

For almost a year we’ve been in an uproar in our community over our Community Plan Update (“CPU”). The update process started out normal enough in 2019, with lots of community engagement opportunities and a first draft that raised eyebrowswith what felt at the time like extensive upzoning along Manchester. Those were the “good ole days.”

Fast forward to today, and the third draft of our CPU was recently released. We all breathed a sigh of relief because we had to fight hard, but most of what our community asked for was reflected in the new draft.

But the CPU is just the zoning aspect of the bigger density plan. The builder incentives to exploit that zoning is part of another program called the Citywide Housing Incentive Program (“CHIP”), an 85-page document outlining loads of density incentives for builders.

CHIP consists of three programs: (1) the State Density Bonus Law, (2) the Mixed Income Incentive Program (“MIIP”) and (3) the Affordable Housing Incentive Program (“AHIP”). The CPUs, CHIP and three other ordinances constitute LA’s Housing Element.

The city provides a visual of the potential CHIP impacts in a series of maps (link at the bottom). In our plan area, the Density Bonus Map and the AHIP Map are something to be watched, debated and likely pushed back on. These projects are coming to any lot near you that isn’t zoned R-1.

The State Density Bonus Program is for projects with 5+ residential units and offers developers a density increase of 35% and a reduction in parking requirements, as well as a menu of other options including increased height, increased floor area, increased lot coverage and reductions to setbacks, yard size, open space and lot width requirements. Off-menu requests will be entertained as well.

The program is complicated and subject to extra incentives with bonus transit incentives, but the percentage of affordable units required to qualify can be as low as 15-20%. These projects are the most troublesome because they represent a lot of burden to neighbors and infrastructure in exchange for not so many affordable units.

The AHIP Program is easier to support in principle for its affordable units, but is still a program to be scrutinized. Specifically, churches and parking lots have special incentive programs that can lead to high rise density projects in the heart of our neighborhoods. These projects get extra density, floor area ratio increases, reduced parking and increased height, and only have to deliver 80% affordable units. And let’s not forget that schools, with their declining enrollment, could be put up for development, according to the map.

CHIP was initially proposed by the Planning Department for single family neighborhoods, but community backlash caused Planning to pull the plug in October on pushing these programs for R-1 lots. The maps are eye opening because it’s easy to assume all the lots around you are zoned just like yours. So take a look to see what is proposed near your home on a lot you never thought could be a high rise apartment building (like the R-2 duplex that backs up to my own lot).

CHIP is not a done deal yet. We still have time to push back. It was supposed to be in Environmental Review in Winter 2024, but I haven’t seen any indication of that yet. After the review, a revised draft will be issued and then there will be a public hearing, followed by Planning Commission, Land Use Committee and City Council hearings, culminating in a City Council vote for approval.

Find the interactive maps and share your feedback (bottom of the page) here.

The interactive map can be hard to navigate. Find screenshots of the maps for our plan area here.

To keep abreast of changes to our CPU and the Housing Element, join the Neighborhood Council’s Community Plan Update Ad Hoc Committee for monthly meetings on the fourth Monday of each month. Find meeting details on their website.

I wrote more about the Housing Element on the Concerned For Westchester Playa website.

Tracy Thrower Conyers is a member of the Neighborhood Council of Westchester/Playa’s Community Plan Update Ad Hoc Committee and a resident of the Kentwood neighborhood in Westchester.

The Players In Our Local Upzoning Conversation

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

So Many Voices 💪

Dear Fellow Concerned Neighbors,

There are a lot of people in our community talking about our Community Plan Update and density issues, and I wanted to take a minute to explain all the players to help you understand what you might be hearing from each.

In the beginning, there was just me and Lisa under the name Concerned For Westchester Playa. We were out in the community and on social media working our tushies off to get the word out about Draft #2 and all the problems with it as fast as humanly possible. We printed flyers, we printed signs, we put up a website, we drafted a petition, we pushed for a community meeting, we rallied the press, we hit all the community group meetings and we were very, very busy on social media.

During that time, smaller groups started emerging. Initially we all came together under the name Alliance Concerned For Westchester Playa. These groups included Preserve Westchester, Concerned for Kentwood, Save Osage and Concerned for Westport Heights and a couple of others. We all worked together to create the Peripheral Plan and the One Voice Letter to Traci Park.

Later, two of the small groups, Concerned for Kentwood and Save Osage broke off from the Alliance and rebranded as “One Voice Westchester.” Clever marketing, but clearly not the “one” voice. We liked the Alliance as different groups coming together to support our community, and we still feature it on our website. The One Voice group, on the other hand, not so much of a team player. Instead of working collaboratively, they’ve been out in the community recently using their platform to criticize me and some of my work. It is a sad turn of events.

Another group that you might hear about is Build A Better Westchester. This group is all about high density everywhere. They passionately believe in the theory that we can’t build enough units fast enough. They pop up here and there in the community meetings.

Recently, there is another voice emerging from Ladera focused primarily on the Ladera and NE portion of our Community Plan Update. I expect to see them turning up more and more at our community meetings and they’ve been busy on social media. They brought out sizable groups to our last two NC Community Plan Ad Hoc Committee meetings.

Kentwood Home Guardians, the HOA for the 3400 member Kentwood community, has also used its voice to educate and advocate on the density issue for its sizable community.

And then we have the Neighborhood Council Community Plan Ad Hoc Committee. I am an active member of this committee and I drove the charge to turn our One Voice Letter into a supporting Neighborhood Council Letter. We drove that letter up through committee to the full council in record time.

The Committee is very active in the community with a big voice on our Community Plan Update, Housing Element and other density issues. They asked me last week to write an article on the Housing Element for The Hometown News. They are busy getting the word out. They also sponsored other recent articles by Cory Birkett, my highly regarded Alliance colleague and fellow CPU Ad Hoc Committee member.

Finally, we have our councilwoman’s office. Traci and her team (primarily Sean Silva and Jeff Klau) have worked tirelessly to receive community input and use their voice to influence city planning. We thank them for their continuing leadership in the density conversation.

So, as you can see, we have many important voices in our community on density and other lifestyle issues. I hope my quick summary helps clarify who all the players are. It take a village!! Hit me up with any questions.

ICYMI - This Is What We’re Up Against

The image above depicts the number of housing bills working their way through our state legislature right this minute. 😱 Why do we need five new ADU laws?

And that is only the housing bills.

I’d like to say we can vote the worst offenders out of office, but they are not even our own representatives. But they definitely push bad laws making our lives more untenable.

Both groups are pushing out expensive public awareness campaigns and hiring lobbyists to fight for us. Please help support them if you can.

The Peripheral Plan

The Peripheral Plan is a plan we’ve championed since the beginning to keep upzoning out of our single-family neighborhoods and prevent gridlock on our LAX boulevards. The plan was supported by thousands of voices in our community and endorsed by our Neighborhood Council.

The Plan map is shown below. Some are saying that new Draft #3 impacts to Ladera were pushed by our Plan. High density impacts to Ladera were never our intention in the least. We still believe those commercial lots in #4 are prime candidates to mix retail with housing, but we never ever suggested the City should upzone that area to a Regional Center with unlimited height. We stand with our Ladera neighbors in opposing a Regional Center designation in that area.

Next Steps

Watch for the scoping and launch of the EIR process for our CPU
Watch for us to initiate community dialogue about the Housing Element in process and its implementation (this is different from the CPU)
Watch for us to get to the bottom of L-4 and organize a campaign to make our community aware of what the City is up to
Watch for us to initiate community dialogue about the pressures of other recent state legislation on housing policy and Sacramento continuing to co-opt our local planning processes

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 3 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

What Just Happened? 🤔

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Not so much to celebrate? 🤔

Dear Fellow Concerned Neighbors,

When we wrote you recently on the topic of the new draft CPU, we thought the result was something to toast. A few weeks have passed and we’ve had more time to study the new map and attend more community meetings.

As we’ve learned more, we are more and more concerned. Here is an excerpt from Tracy’s analysis of the new map:

“The 3rd draft of the CPU dropped last month and it would appear we were heard. All the yellow in the map below is a full reversal of the single-family upzoning we fought so hard to prevent…. As we’re learning, however, the CPU is just one piece of the density puzzle. While it appears … we dodged a major density zoning bullet, the Housing Element is yet another huge but less obvious danger to our low density goals…. More importantly, it looks like the city is playing a dangerous game with voters. All that yellow [in Draft #3] would lead you to believe that we’ve saved our single family communities from density, but there is another density threat still in play. I’ve learned, and am researching, a concept called 4-L zoning….”

Read Tracy’s full analysis here

Send your thoughts along, please. It takes a village, as we all know.

This Is What We’re Up Against

The image above depicts the number of housing bills working their way through our state legislature right this minute. 😱 Why do we need five new ADU laws?

And that is only the housing bills.

I’d like to say we can vote the worst offenders out of office, but they are not even our own representatives. But they definitely push bad laws making our lives more untenable.

Both groups are pushing out expensive public awareness campaigns and hiring lobbyists to fight for us. Please help support them if you can.

Remember This?

Who else attended outreach meetings for Draft #1 of our Community Plan Update? Remember the meeting at Westchester High School? I attended several of those meetings and was impressed the City was working so hard to take our feedback.

Then came COVID and lockdown. Everything with the CPU stopped and we didn’t give it another thought until we discovered that City Planners were working on a grossly revised Draft #2 in secret.

The photo above is still on the planning website, pretending to depict the whole outreach process. The photo is the opposite of how the 2nd draft went down. And the 3rd draft didn’t come from outreach like this, either. We had to force our feedback for Draft #3. The whole update process has devolved into something ugly. We must keep fighting to hold our elected officials accountable and transparent.

The Peripheral Plan

Next Steps

Watch for the scoping and launch of the EIR process for our CPU
Watch for us to initiate community dialogue about the Housing Element in process and its implementation (this is different from the CPU)
Watch for us to get to the bottom of L-4 and organize a campaign to make our community aware of what the City is up to
Watch for us to initiate community dialogue about the pressures of other recent state legislation on housing policy and Sacramento continuing to co-opt our local planning processes

We Say Good-Bye To Lisa

As many of you know, Lisa Gaines and Tracy Thrower Conyers joined forces early in the CPU Draft #2 fight to create Concerned For Westchester Playa to make our neighbors aware of our concerns with the City’s plan for our community. Lisa snapped that now iconic photo on our homepage over in the Reading/Ramsgate neighborhood.

Lisa was instrumental in diving down data rabbit holes to counter the planners’ claims about our previous contributions to new housing. She also loved to talk about the traffic patterns data and implications, and she was a big part of discovering that a lot of truly affordable units would be razed under Draft #2 to make way for a few questionably affordable units.

For family reasons, Lisa and her husband have moved to Orange County. Lisa was a huge asset to our team and will be missed. We wish Lisa the best and we carry on the fight she worked so hard to support.

🚨 Please take a minute right now to forward this email to 3 neighbors or local friends. 🚨

Please sign this petition and attend

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

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The Housing Element - Your Cliff Notes Version

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 21:27:00 GMT

Buckle up! Long read ahead. 🙂

How We Got Here

For almost a year we've been in an uproar in our community over our Community Plan Update ("CPU"). For those of us who have lived in our community for a long time, we readily recognized that this CPU was unlike any other in the past.

The update process started out normal enough in 2017, with lots of community engagement opportunities and a 1st draft that raised eyebrows with what felt at the time like extensive upzoning along Manchester. We would later learn just how bad the city wanted to upzone our plan area.

This photo below is still on the planning website, pretending to depict the process. This photo is more like 2018 when I attended multiple events that looked just like this one. This photo is the opposite of how the 2nd draft went down. And the 3rd draft didn't come from outreach like this, either.

After the 1st draft came the pandemic. Everything everywhere shut down. Little did we know what Sacramento was up to while we were all busy navigating our new normal.

And then came the shenanigans with the secret Advisory Group and Draft #2 with its crazy proposed upzoning. We were outraged.

We organized and we were heard. We held a huge community meeting, we wrote our councilperson and we rallied our Neighborhood Council. We were very clear - Westchester Playa took a large number of units in the previous housing cycle, and we couldn't take any more with our single-family home infrastructure and heavy traffic demands on our gateway boulevards to LAX.

The 3rd draft of the CPU dropped last month and it looks like we were heard. All the yellow in the map below is a full reversal of the single-family upzoning we fought so hard to prevent, but the pinks and the oranges and the blues and the maroons are still a problem (hint - the dark pinks are the worst). Navigate the interactive map here with the color explanations.

But Wait! There's More

But while we fixated on CPU-gate, a whole other density scheme was progressing in tandem that we barely looked at - the Housing Element and its enabling ordinances.

You can read more about the Housing Element background here, but I'll summarize the cliff notes for you:

Los Angeles is a charter city (125 of 478 cities in CA are charter cities)
LA's General Plan is composed of 11 different elements, including the Housing Element
LA's 35 Community Plans make up the Land Use Element of the General Plan
The Housing Element must comply with specific standards and requirements set by the State and must be updated every eight years
We are currently in the midst of our 2021-2029 Housing Element cycle
The State certified LA's 2021-2029 Housing Element in 2022
LA's Housing Element is 377 pages (find an index here) and is called the "Plan To House LA"

So what we have is the Housing Element proceeding on one track and the CPUs proceeding on another (the Land Use Element track). Together they constitute LA's Housing Element Rezoning Program.

The CPUs are rezoning parcels (read "upzoning") and the Housing Element's Citywide Housing Incentive Program (CHIP) lays out the builder incentives ("developer giveaways"). (fact sheet) (draft ordinance - 85 freaking pages). CHIP, along with three other ordinances constitute the "Housing Element."

While we've been focused on the upzoning, the giveaways have been progressing without us watching. And we've missed a lot! 6 core progressive strategies in 4 hefty ordinances:

Adaptive Reuse (remove process barriers and streamline conversion)
Affordable Housing Overlay (provide tailored land use incentives for affordable housing developments in high resource areas and incentivize affordable housing on faith based owned properties, parking lots and publicly owned sites)
Update to Affordable Housing Incentive Programs (local Density Bonus and Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) programs will be amended and expanded to provide tailored affordability, reflect recent updates to state law, and serve as the overall incentive based framework for the program)
Missing Middle (remove limitations to facilitate construction of low scale/low rise housing) (focused in higher opportunity areas and areas near transit)
Opportunity Corridors (increase housing capacity on major corridors, particularly those with transit access)
Process Streamlining (remove procedural barriers and create efficient and expedited processes for projects with an affordable housing component)
the 4 ordinances (expected adoption is Fall 2024)
- CHIP Ordinance → (1) State DB Law, (2) Mixed Income Incentive Program (opportunity corridors and missing middle and TOC defined by housing opportunity maps) and (3) affordable housing incentive program
- Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (fact sheet) → expands current ordinance
- Housing Element Sites Ordinance (fact sheet) → this is related to an Inventory of Adequate Sites and minimum densities
- Resident Protections Ordinance (fact sheet) → renter protections

A Special Side Note About CHIP

As we studied and learned about the upzoning that came with our CPU, we learned about RHNA numbers and the State's directive that LA rezone to allow almost half a million new units, notwithstanding the great outward migration we're experiencing in our City and our State.

What I haven't seen is any mandate that we provide all these builder giveaways. I could be wrong, but I follow these developments quite closely. This is a new question in my mind and I'll be doing more research. Do let me know in the comments if you're aware of a mandate. There have been so many gross giveaways by our legislature, I could surely have missed a few.

If there is no mandate, I have to say that CHIP is just too aggressive. We don't need more market rate units. Full stop.

Why do we need the Density Bonus? I understand there is a state law, but I think I'm reading that the City is expanding even that?

And why do we need the Transit Corridor bonuses? I say, go with the AHIP (affordable incentives) and be done.

We need more affordable units. Forget the rest of the giveaways with their token affordable units and net loss affordable units.

I'm not even in favor of the FBO program with 80% affordable units. Churches are in single-family communities. Those communities don't want high rises. Has Planning not been listening??

Share your thoughts on CHIP at the bottom of this page on the City's website. I have. 😁

Timeline

The process seems to be delayed, so I believe we might still have time to catch up. It's Spring and I haven't heard anything about Environmental Review for CHIP or the Housing Element. Please drop a comment if you know differently.

The CHIP Maps Drop

CHIP is the builder incentive program, which I not so fondly call the giveaways. Some of the giveaways are specifically geared toward affordable housing. I support more affordable housing, but pay close attention to how many extra market rate units (which we don't need) are in the project, plus how many truly affordable units are destroyed on the process ("net loss" of affordable units).

For example, a project might tear down four truly affordable units to build 10 market rate units and two affordable units (defining "affordability" in a not so affordable way). This is a net loss of affordable units and a tragedy for our city.

With this lens in mind, below are excerpts of the maps for our plan area. You can try navigating the city's explorer maps here, but they don't make it easy.

CHIP's Opportunity Corridors

Please note, the arrows are examples only and not meant to provide an opinion on the highlighted parcels. Sites located along the Opportunity Corridors would be eligible for development bonuses in exchange for set-aside affordable units. Development incentives have been tailored according to the type of Opportunity Corridor and type of transit proximity, with scaled development incentives as projects are farther from high-quality transit. Generally, sites would be eligible for scaled FAR and Height (up to 5 or 8 stories) based on proximity to transit. They are so casual about 8 stories!

CHIP's Corridor Transitions

The Opportunity Corridor Transition Incentive Area proposes to remove limitations on development to facilitate the construction of various types of “low-scale” (“low-rise”) housing, such as bungalow courts, townhomes, and courtyard apartments that were commonly built before the 1950’s, to fill the gap in housing options between lower-scale residential neighborhoods and mid-rise apartments.

CHIP's Transit-Oriented Incentive

The Transit-Oriented Incentive Area (TOIA), according the city's website, provides opportunities citywide for the construction of affordable housing through tiered development incentives for projects within one-half mile of a high quality bus stop or major transit stop, increases housing options for residents of all income levels, and promotes access to public transportation. This program proposes to codify key elements of the Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Affordable Housing Incentive Guidelines for sites near transit citywide.

It's hard to read this map, but the indicated parcels are along Century Blvd. and the Reading/Ramsgate area. No other TOIAs appear in our plan area.

CHIP's 100% Affordable Housing Incentive Program

AHIP will streamline procedures and offer land use incentives scaled at higher and lower density contexts for 100% Affordable Housing Projects citywide. For example, if a site is zoned for lower density (i.e. less than 5 units) it will qualify for lower incentives (like height or FAR) than a site zoned for a higher density scale. Sites eligible for 100% Affordable Housing project incentives are found in Low Vehicle Mile Traveled (VMT) sites, and in Opportunity Area Sites (i.e. Moderate, High and Highest Resource areas as defined by the TCAC/HCD Opportunity Maps). Incentives are also designed to be greater in high and moderate resource areas for the purposes of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing and equitably distributing affordable housing development.

Additionally, the ordinance will expand the types of zones eligible for 100% Affordable Housing projects to “P” Parking zones and “PF” Public Facilities zones, and to parcels owned by public agencies. 100% Affordable Housing projects in P or PF zones will qualify for tailored incentives where projects may apply the least restrictive zoning regulation of their adjoining parcels.

Note the yellow parcels below are publicly-owned properties, such as public schools. We all assume they will continue to be schools, but with declining enrollment, this could be one way the city sneaks a bunch of high rises into our single-family low rise communities. The planning website specifically calls these parcels "citywide parcels eligible for AHIP incentives."

This particular Incentive Plan will crush Lincoln Blvd., SE Westchester and NE Westchester up into Ladera.

Hello, LAX? Are you there?

CHIP's Faith-Based Housing

AHIP adheres to the minimums of state law for Faith Based Organizations ("FBO") tailored incentives and extends eligibility to projects that provide at least 80% affordable housing projects on sites owned by Faith Based institutions. The program’s Faith Based Organization Sites incentives build on the state’s Senate Bill 4 and include provisions created from stakeholder feedback that are intended to make FBO projects more feasible.

That paragraph above is mostly taken from the City's website. I read "stakeholders" to mean developers because I'm highly skeptical there is a large group of everyday citizens who understand this faith-based development idea.

CHIP's State Density Bonus Program

State Density Bonus Law (California Government Code Sections 65915-65918) mandates local jurisdictions to offer density bonuses, parking reductions, and other incentives in exchange for the provision of restricted affordable housing units in multifamily residential developments.

The map shows parcels currently eligible to take advantage of the State Density Bonus Program. As part of the Mixed Income Incentive Program, the City is also proposing the Transit Oriented Incentive Area Program, and many of the same parcels that are eligible for State Density Bonus incentives are also eligible for incentives available through the Transit Oriented Incentive Areas.

As with the Affordable Housing Incentive Program, Lincoln Blvd., SE Westchester and NE Westchester up into Ladera will get crushed. Remember, "reduced parking." 😱

Adaptive Reuse Housing Incentive Program

The proposed Adaptive Reuse Ordinance will expand the existing incentives to encourage converting underutilized buildings into new housing. Currently, only buildings constructed before July 1, 1974 are eligible. This updated ordinance establishes a faster approval process for the conversion of existing buildings and structures that are at least 15 years old to housing and expands adaptive reuse incentives citywide.

Presumably we are already used to traffic and density associated with commercial buildings and reuse is good for the planet, but I'm told by experts that the practicalities of repurposing commercial properties will probably not pencil out for housing developers, so I'm calling this one the "wink and a yawn" initiative.

Are We Done Yet?

This is a lot, right? We're supposed to be rezoning for only 255K units across the entire city to meet the outsized RHNA mandate, and it feels like our little ole plan area (one of 35!) is taking the whole burden between the zoning changes and the builder giveaways. The housing progressives are out of control and poised to blight our communities for generations to come. Don't forget, these incentives will be taken up one at a time and represent huge oversized projects rising up like a middle finger to the rest of the community.

Concerned Neighbors wants to hear from you! What priorities should we be pushing regarding the Housing Element and CHIP? If the city doesn't hear from us, that gives them room to default to their developer "stakeholders." Those aren't the stakeholders who have to live with this mess. Send us your comments below and we'll be formulating our recommendations soon.

Tell Us What You Think About The Housing Element In The Comments

Tracy is active in a number of local community organizations including the Neighborhood Council PLUC, Neighborhood Council Ad Hoc CPU Committee, Kentwood Home Guardians and Emerson Ave Community Garden Club. The views expressed in this post are Tracy’s alone, and should not be construed in any way as an opinion of any other group. Are you planning a meeting with the planners? Have Tracy along to make sure you get the same information other community members get. Are you willing to host a group of your neighbors for a talk? Tracy would be happy to join you.

Los Angeles City’s 41.18 Anti-Camping Ordinance

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Meeting is tomorrow

Dear Fellow Concerned Neighbors,

We wanted to make you aware of this urgent action alert for tomorrow, shared by Concerned Neighbor Lucy Han:

URGENT ACTION ALERT

Hello friends,

As you may have heard, LA County Supervisor (and LAHSA Commission Chair) Lindsey Horvath has agendized a report in the LAHSA Commission meeting this Friday (click for agenda) that attempts to misrepresent Los Angeles City’s 41.18 anti-camping ordinance as ineffective.

While LAHSA or the County Board of Supervisors can’t directly change City ordinances, their continued attacks on this important public safety tool point to an attempt to push for its repeal. We cannot allow this to happen and I encourage you to participate in the LAHSA Commission meeting this Friday morning to share your experience with 41.18.

If you would like to join virtually, you can register for their Zoom by going to (or clicking) the following URL and selecting the March 22nd meeting: https://lahsa-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kMGzNv0oRj6IG-H-FeeA3g#/registration

If you would like to go in person, the meeting will be held at: LAHSA Headquarters, 637 Wilshire Blvd, 1st Floor Commission Room, Los Angeles, CA 90017. Please find some suggested talking points below.

Please note that the report is agenda item number 13. Thank you for your interest in keeping Los Angeles safe and accessible!

Talking Points on 41.18:

Speak to your personal experience with the effects of 41.18 on your neighborhood
- What was your community like before the 41.18 designation and how has it changed since?
How has 41.18 kept the area clear of major encampments?
41.18 isn't a homelessness ordinance, it's a public access and safety ordinance
trying to measure its efficacy based on housing outcomes doesn't measure the real impact the ordinance has on our community
We must have compassion for everyone this effects: including our children trying to go to school or access their local park
- And there is nothing compassionate about leaving vulnerable people languishing in the streets

tomorrow’s meeting if possible

Please take a minute right now to forward this email
to 3 neighbors or local friends.

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

No On HLA & CPU Update

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Two Big Things On Our Mind This Month

Dear Fellow Concerned Neighbors,

This month we are concerned about HLA on the ballot and we’re cautiously optimistic about our Community Plan Update (“CPU”).

HLA is a very time sensitive issue. If you find this email helpful, please forward it to 5 friends, neighbors and relatives here in Los Angeles.

We Are A Firm No On HLA

Measure HLA, also referred to by proponents as “Healthy Streets LA,” asks voters to require the city to redesign streets to be safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Sounds like a good thing, right?

What isn’t readily apparent is that the law will be tied to an old Mobility Plan, a plan so controversial and expensive, our city council has all but ignored it since adoption in 2015.

The Mobility Plan, a Mike Bonin legacy project, prioritizes bike lanes over car lanes. That and the fact HLA is being pushed by the same guy who wants to do away with the 90 Freeway. ❌❌❌

If approved, Measure HLA will require the city to implement street modifications from the Mobility Plan whenever there’s any improvement to as little as 1/8 mile of a road or sidewalk. Even simple resurfacing will trigger the law. Effectively, this measure will result in either unimproved streets or road diets. We call this measure “Hello Road Diets.”

Read more about the disruption and expense related to HLA on Tracy’s personal blog. Hint! Our councilwoman thinks this measure will cost us a bundle, in a time when our city is already crying poverty.

We Are Cautiously Optimistic About Our
Community Plan Update

We were invited to a meeting just before the holidays with Traci Park’s staff to talk about new developments with our CPU. Catch up on the CPU history on our website here.

First, we got a nice surprise when Traci herself broke away from another meeting to pop in and say hello. She acknowledged there was too little community engagement in the CPU process this past year and she said again “I want to get this right for our community.” She also complimented our community on all our hard work getting the word out about our unique challenges as a community.

The big news is tentative and we won’t have confirmation until we see the new maps (hopefully this month), but we were told to expect significant changes to the next maps when they are disseminated.

The changes we’re being told to expect are the direct result of our community’s hard work. We banged the drum long and hard about:

our unique role as gateway to LAX
how LAX arterial densification will burden LAX ingress and egress
how many of our neighborhoods are landlocked by LAX arterials
how the draft plan would encourage displacement of our rent-stabilized population
contributions our community has already made to bringing new units online in the last 10 years
the secret rollout of Draft 2 maps to a handpicked Advisory Group being a travesty

We were also told the tour our Neighborhood Council hosted in mid-November (Lisa & Tracy were both in attendance) was instrumental in educating the planners about our unique challenges.

Your emails, attending meetings and rallies, support with banners and yard signs and willingness to come together as a community, made and will continue to make a huge difference. Congratulations neighbor! We’ll know soon for sure what the total picture is, but it is readily apparent that together we can do great things to keep our community a great place to live, work and play.

From our families to yours!

The Peripheral Plan

The Peripheral Plan is a plan we’ve championed since the beginning to keep upzoning out of our single-family neighborhoods. The plan was supported by thousands of voices in our community and endorsed by our Neighborhood Council. We still stand by this plan and believe the recent developments reported above align with the plan.

The plan map is shown below. These are the benefits:

No upzoning for any residential lots;
No upzoning for multi-unit lots along our corridors with high RSO and Section 8 housing (to preserve the affordable housing we already have in our community);
Reuses existing office buildings for mixed use housing (close to transit and environmentally preferred);
Provides new affordable housing in areas on the periphery where affordable high density housing can easily be developed without impacting residential zoning and our gridlocked corridors; and
Prevents the further demise of “F” rated intersections from high density housing in communities close to these corridors. Sepulveda, La Tijera, Lincoln and Manchester are used by the 65 million Los Angeles World Airport passengers (expected to double in the next ten years).

We will continue to fight for this plan to minimize impacts to our LAX arterials and single-family home neighborhoods. Please continue to talk up the plan in our community.

Next Steps

VOTE!! The Pro-HLA movement is well financed and very organized. So many people don’t see the harm in a few bike lanes. We wish it was just about a few bike lanes. If you share our concerns about Road Diets and budgeting, please vote NO!
Tell 10 friends about your concerns with HLA (forwarding this email is easy!)
Watch for final CPU maps this month
Watch for us to initiate community dialogue about the Housing Element in process and its implementation (this is different from the CPU) (get a head start by reading about the Housing Element on our blog here)
Watch for us to initiate community dialogue about the pressures of recent state legislation on housing policy and Sacramento trying to co-opt our local planning processes
Watch for the scoping and launch of the EIR process for our CPU following publication of the final draft maps (rescheduled to Spring)

Please take a minute right now to forward this email
to 3 neighbors or local friends.

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Sharing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

Why Is Everybody So Quiet About the CPU?

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 21:15:32 GMT

A poster on Nextdoor recently asked about status for our Community Plan Update (“CPU”), and the comments surprised me. I saw a deep misunderstanding in our community about housing policy in this state and what is facing us here in LA and more specifically, Westchester/Playa.

I’m not really surprised about the widespread misunderstanding. We’re being pelted from so many directions, you practically have to be a scholar on housing policy to understand the nuances.

While I'm no scholar, I have been closely following the issues for almost a decade and I belong to several housing groups where these topics are regularly discussed. Here are my cliff notes to help bring you up to speed on the different issues, along with my latest information on the next round of CPU draft changes.

From the highest level the state's housing authority runs a housing assessment cycle called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation ("RHNA"). Every six years they dictate the number of units we need to build in CA to house our citizens. We are currently in a cycle that runs from 2021 to 2029.

Unfortunately, the ultra progressive factions are having a moment and pushing through a housing agenda with a lot of unrealistic and downright stupid housing policy (trickle down from the left, anybody??). They pushed through SB-9 which pretty much does away with single family zoning and local control as a matter of state law. It's a problem, and comes during a time when California is losing population, especially losing our more affluent population, the people who pay for government giveaways favored by the factions currently in power. I wrote more about these laws last year here.

For more about SB-9, read Lots Of Housing Laws, Not Much Housing. See also, New Laws Seek To End Private Developer Risk, Burdening Public Instead.

But SB-9 and the other state laws are a completely different issue than what we're currently experiencing with our CPU. The CPU is about zoning changes and quotas. And these quotas come from one agency, California's Housing & Community Development (or "HCD"). I wrote this summer about the alarming quotas in the current cycle here.

LA's staggering quota and its response to our assigned quota is to rezone wide swaths of our city. Some of that rezoning is being done with a rewrite of the city's Housing Element. A lot of it is being done with Community Plan Updates (CPUs).

The city will tell you they have to comply with the quota, or the consequences from the state are draconian. I agree the consequences are ridiculously draconian, but instead of rolling over and rezoning, I'd like to see some critical pushback by the city on the numbers, especially in light of our declining population. This mindless rezoning could result in devastation to our mature single-family home communities before most people wake up to the idiocy of the strategy.

Our CPU in Westchester/Playa started well before the pandemic and has been going on for awhile. My first hint we might be in trouble was when they announced the entire westside (south of Santa Monica) would undergo concurrent CPUs. That is unheard of, and my current understanding based on wide reading and conversations with various city officials and other pundits is that this method was chosen to dump tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of units on the westside, with maximum flexibility on where they dump the units. For years, people from other parts of the city complained the westside wasn't doing its part to house our citizens.

It bears pointing out that Pacific Palisades and Brentwood are also considered the "westside" and they are not part of this exercise. They will get new CPUs at some point, but this crazy allocation dump will likely be over by then.

NOTE: We're not talking about built units when talking about the CPUs and rezoning, we're talking only about rezoning, which in my mind is worse. The city plans to rezone many multiples of the needed number "in hopes" the needed number gets built. So instead of focusing new development in a concentrate area (like Playa Vista when it was built) where infrastructure can be built to support the new units. we're all at risk of random "middle fingers" popping up next to our home blocking our sun and sucking up our parking and sewer system.

Also important to note, HCD and our state legislators don't care about the crumbling infrastructure. That's their idea of "local control" - they dictate stupid numbers and we figure out the consequences locally. There is going to be a nasty day of reckoning with failed infrastructure that nobody at the city level is talking about.

The first draft of our CPU (pre-pandemic) was an affair with tons of public outreach and opportunities to have a say, or at least be heard. Then came the pandemic. The CPUs slowed down but the public meetings stopped. Last summer (post-pandemic), city planners dropped the 2nd draft of the westside CPUs. They didn't drop them for the public. They dropped them to a hand-picked "advisory" group. And while they were published on a public website, they were not announced ("if a tree falls in the forest…").

Quite by accident, some of our community members "discovered" the draft maps and the bombshells in that draft. Almost all of Osage and a huge quadrant around Manchester/Sepulveda were mapped for six units on a lot. 😱 There is no way our crumbling infrastructure can handle a fraction of the development allowed on those lots, let alone the additional traffic on our arterials which already serve as the "gateway to LAX." Our community was incensed, first by the density, and more importantly, by the sudden covert nature of the process. We were in an uproar.

We attended community meetings in huge numbers, we protested, we signed petitions, we brought out the media, we galvanized our new council person. We hosted the planners for a tour of our community and were shocked how little they understood about the implications of their "plan." All of this was happening in summer into fall 2023. The planners promised to rewrite their plan and now we're waiting for that draft. Back channels have indicated we'll see big changes, but we just won't know for sure until those plans are published.

We were first told to expect the new draft in December. My sources are now telling me early to mid-March. As a prominent voice in this fight, I personally apologize for going dark over the holidays, but man, the fight was exhausting. I (and many others in our community) put so much time and energy into Concerned For Westchester and other allied groups. Once we went into a lull, it was hard for awhile to think about these big issues.

Stay tuned. We'll know soon whether we need to fight on for a CPU we can live with, but I'm also here to tell you we haven't even started considering the Housing Element and the proposed changes to that. There may be another fight brewing, but on a citywide basis. That's good for a bigger conversation, but it's harder to impact that bigger conversation, also. Proponents for the current housing agenda are incredibly organized and play the social media game at a high level. They also have a lot of developer money behind them. Every one of us needs to be aware of these issues and helping educate our friends, family and neighbors. The changes are coming fast and furious and many of the changes rolling over us are nonsensical.

For my own part, I will continue to beat the drum to make people aware of what is going on, so they can vote accordingly and fight back as needed. I hope soon to see the political tide come back to the middle, but it's going to take a lot of political change at both the state and city level. I have been heartened to see that Mayor Bass appears sensitive to public pushback. She agreed to take single-family zones out of her ED-1. That means, at least at the city level, we still have a chance.

And before the haters hate on me, let me say I am a mother with a young adult child in Los Angeles. I am fully aware what a challenge and privilege it is to be housed in LA. I stand 100% as a realtor, mother and community member for affordable housing options in LA. My beef is with destroying mature R-1 neighborhoods on a whim when there is still so much room to grow in areas that were designed to accommodate more density. Oh, and I'm also 110% against the fictitious numbers that say LA needs to increase its housing stock by 35% in a time when so many are leaving our state.

About Tracy Thrower Conyers Tracy Thrower Conyers is a long-time resident of Westchester 90045. Tracy closely follows local politics, political players and social chatter relevant to Westchester. You’ll frequently find her at Neighborhood Council meetings, as well as on all the social platforms where 90045 peeps hang out. Tracy is a real estate broker and founding principal in Silicon Beach Properties. She is a recognized expert on Silicon Beach and its impact on residential and residential income real estate, and has been featured by respected media outlets including the LA Times, KPCC and KCET. Tracy is also a licensed attorney and accidental housing policy junkie.

The Ultimate Contact List For Our Los Angeles Mayor & City Council Members

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 20:38:15 GMT

Karen Bass, Mayor

mayor.helpdesk@lacity.org
213.978.0600
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/MayorOfLA
https://www.facebook.com/MayorOfLA
https://instagram.com/mayorofla

Eunisses Hernandez, CD1

Councilmember.Hernandez@lacity.org
Chelsea Lucktenberg, Communications Director -- chelsea.lucktenberg@lacity.org
field office phone - (323) 709-1800
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7001
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/EunissesH
https://www.facebook.com/cd1losangeles
https://instagram.com/cd1losangeles

Paul Krekorian, CD2

paul.krekorian@lacity.org
field office phone - (818) 755-7676
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7002
Staff Directory
twitter - @PaulKrekorian
http://www.facebook.com/krekorian
https://instagram.com/paulkrekorian

Bob Blumenfield, CD3

Councilmember.Blumenfield@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7003
field office phone - (818) 774-4330
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/BobBlumenfield
https://www.facebook.com/BobBlumenfieldSFV
https://instagram.com/bobblumenfield

Nithya Raman, CD4

contactCD4@lacity.org
Stella Stahl, Communications Director -- stella.stahl@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7004
field office phone - 323.957.6415 & 818.728.9924
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/cd4losangeles & https://twitter.com/nithyavraman
https://www.facebook.com/cd4losangeles
https://instagram.com/cd4losangeles

Katy Yaroslavsky, CD5

councilmember.yaroslavsky@lacity.org
Leo Daube, Communications Director -- leo.daube@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7005
field office phone - 323.866.1828
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/cd5losangeles
https://www.facebook.com/CD5LosAngeles
https://instagram.com/cd5losangeles

Imelda Padilla, CD6

councilmember.padilla@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7006
field office phone - 818.778.4999 & 818.771.0236
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/cd6losangeles
https://www.facebook.com/CD6LosAngeles
https://instagram.com/cd6losangeles

Monica Rodriguez, CD7

councilmember.rodriguez@lacity.org
Vanessa Diaz, Communications Director -- vanessa.diaz@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7007
field office phone - (818) 756-8409 & (818) 485-0600 & (818) 352-3287
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/MRodCD7
https://www.facebook.com/MonicaRodriguezCD7
https://instagram.com/mrodcd7

Marqueece Harris-Dawson, CD8

councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org
Rhonda Mitchell, Communications Director -- rhonda.mitchell@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7008
field office phone - 213.485.7616
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/mhdcd8
https://www.facebook.com/mhdcd8
https://instagram.com/mhdcd8

Curren Price, CD9

councilmember.price@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7009
field office phone - 323.846.2651
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/CurrenDPriceJr
https://www.facebook.com/CurrenDPriceJr/
https://instagram.com/currendpricejr

Heather Hutt, CD10

cd10@lacity.org
Devyn Bakewell, Communications Director -- devyn.bakewell@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7010
field office phone - 323 733-8233 & 323 276-4917
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/CW_HeatherHutt
https://www.facebook.com/CD10Updates
https://instagram.com/CW_Heather.Hutt

Traci Park, CD11

councilmember.park@lacity.org
Jonathan Davila, Communications Deputy -- jonathan.davila@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7011
field office phone - 310.568.8772 & 310.575.8461
Staff Directory
https://www.facebook.com/councilwomantracipark
https://instagram.com/councilwomantracipark

John Lee, CD12

Councilmember.Lee@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7012
field office phone - 818.882.1212
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/cd12la
https://www.facebook.com/CouncilmemberJohnLee
https://instagram.com/councilmemberjohnlee

Hugo Soto-Marinez, CD13

councilmember.soto-martinez@lacity.org
Nick Barnes-Batista, Senior Communications Deputy nick.barnesbatista@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7013
field office phone - 213.207.3015
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/CD13LosAngeles
https://www.facebook.com/CD13LosAngeles
https://instagram.com/cd13losangeles

Kevin de Leon, CD14

councilmember.kevindeleon@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7014
field office phone - 323-526-9332 & 323-226-1646 & 323-254-5295 & 323-226-1646
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/Kdeleoncd14
https://www.facebook.com/KdeleonCD14/
https://instagram.com/kdeleoncd14

Tim McOsker, CD15

councilmember.mcosker@lacity.org
Sophie Gilchrist, Communications Director -- sophie.gilchrist@lacity.org
city hall office phone - (213) 473-7015
field office phone - 310 732-4515 & 310 233-7201 & 323 568 2083
Staff Directory
https://twitter.com/timmcoskerla
https://www.facebook.com/TimMcOskerLA
https://instagram.com/timmcoskerla

The City Planners Came To Town

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The City Planners Toured Our City and Our Peripheral Plan

On Thursday, we and other invited guests hopped in a van with our four assigned Community Plan Update planners plus Jeff Khau, Traci Park's planner, to tour our community and learn why our community is:

against upzoning R1 residential, R2 and R3 lots
against upzoning corridors that feed the Los Angeles World Airport
against upzoning RSO and Section 8 housing units
in favor of affordable housing on Century Blvd, re-using/re-imagining empty commercial office buildings
in favor of affordable housing on Bellanca between Manchester and Arbor Vitae replacing the rental car lots that are moving to the centralized area with a planned development
in favor of affordable housing on East La Tijera/Centinela replacing empty lot with homeless RVs
in favor of affordable housing in Arizona Circle, just west of Sepulveda and Centinela
in favor of affordable housing in Playa Vista low occupancy commercial buildings

We want to give a special shout out to Lisa Gaines on behalf of Concerned for Westchester Playa, Kevin Ivey on behalf of Preserve Westchester, Cory Birkett on behalf of Concerned for Westport Heights, and Jolie Delja and Sarah Howard on behalf of One Voice Westchester, for their support in creating the tour route and pre-tour presentation

The city planners told us on Thursday they plan to “pivot on their plan.” We do not yet know exactly what that means, but we attribute their willingness to change their plans because of you, our neighbors, sending emails, and attending meetings. We, collectively, made an impact. We thank each and every person who took time to sign our petition, send an email and activated our voice with the city planners. They heard you. Good job neighbors!

Please enjoy the warm glow of a “win,”and enjoy your holidays and be ready in January to activate! January is when we expect the revised maps to be released and the scoping document for the EIR process to drop. Be ready to come together again and respond, raise funds, and attend more meetings and be ready to come together again and respond, raise funds, and attend more meetings. It takes a village!

Tracy In The Community

Tracy moderated the Kentwood Home Guardians meeting in October with the Planners on the topic of the CPU and this week, the association released their position letter in favor of our Peripheral Plan. Yay! Kentwood represents approximately 1/3 of the single family homes in our community and it's good to have the association on record supporting common sense.

Tracy is available to speak to any group you might want to host so she can share our Concerns about our Community Plan Update and Housing Element. We are available for zoom meetings, too.

The Peripheral Plan

Our community, as gateway to LAX, has unique challenges when it comes to traffic. And that is without adding a single additional housing unit. The city’s draft Community Plan Update is proposing to rezone our community for 10’s of thousands of new units and that is unworkable, for us and for LAX.

For this reason, we developed the Peripheral Plan, recommending density, if any absolutely has to be added to our community, on the periphery of our community.

The map is shown below. These are the benefits:

No upzoning for any residential lots;
No upzoning for multi-unit lots along our corridors with high RSO and Section 8 housing (to preserve the affordable housing we already have in our community);
Reuses existing office buildings for mixed use housing (close to transit and environmentally preferred);
Provides new affordable housing in areas on the periphery where affordable high density housing can easily be developed without impacting residential zoning and our gridlocked corridors; and
Prevents further demise of “F” rated intersections from high density housing in communities close to these corridors. Sepulveda, La Tijera, Lincoln and Manchester are used by the 65 million Los Angeles World Airport passengers (expected to double in the next ten years).

Reminding You What We’re Fighting

photo courtesy of United Neighbors

And One Parting Share…

Below is an update on the crazy project photo we built all our branding around at the outset of this project. Everybody was outraged by the original photo and now the project appears to have sprouted two more stories! 😳 What a travesty for the single-family neighbors. The city planners were driven by this very site on Thursday and were aghast at its enormity. They didn’t understand how state laws impacting communities with upzoning until they saw this street.

Please take a minute right now to forward this email
to 3 neighbors or local friends.

Concerned For Westchester Playa - Providing upzoning and housing policy information and guidance to residents in Westchester, Playa del Rey, Ladera and Playa Vista

City Planning Wants Input?

Tracy Thrower Conyers — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

The Planners Are Asking For Input

The planners continue to say they want our input.

First, Kentwood Home Guardians, Kentwood’s large homeowners association, hosted the planners for a presentation and Q&A in October. The whole Planning Team for our Community Plan Update attended and they reiterated they want to hear about the community’s alternatives to their published maps. KHG is preparing a position letter and will likely come out in support of The Peripheral Plan.

Second, City Planning has published a survey asking for opinions on densifying Single-Family Home neighborhoods and we need to come out strong and loud on this survey. The survey is short and we provide sample answers below. Easy-peasy! And important.

Quite literally, the survey says “We still need your help to identify residential areas where more housing can be added through the Citywide Housing Incentive Program effort. Where would you like to see more housing in existing residential areas in the City of Los Angeles? Check all that apply.”

Please join us in filling out the survey like this:

For the “other” box, use this: I think the corridors are the best place for density, but in Westchester, we have LAX traffic gridlocking our corridors. If any additional housing has to be in Westchester, I support the Peripheral Plan endorsed by our Neighborhood Council.

Not sure if you’ve already submitted? They don’t seem to be keeping track of who is submitting, so submit today. It’s critical we are all heard.

Why this approach? We like this approach to answering the survey because this is a citywide survey and we believe that the corridors, rather than single-family neighborhoods, are generally the right place for residential density. It just happens that in Westchester we have unique challenges with LAX on our corridors. We hope the planners recognize this and shoot for less dense impacts in our community, but we still want to be heard on the topic of the whole city.

Also, the “corridor plan” is being advocated by United Neighbors, a very large group covering the entire city. United Neighbors has had great success in securing meetings with the Mayor and various councilpeople. Their plan is just plain common sense and it helps to have everybody support the same plan wherever possible.

For us, the corridor plan makes sense everywhere except in Westchester. And if our LAX argument doesn’t fly, the corridors beat our single-family neighborhoods all day long. We believe we make both points by answering the survey as suggested.

Do we really believe the city will listen? We do really believe that our voices (especially United Neighbors’ voice) prompted this survey and now it’s on us to respond and support. What the city does with the results is anybody’s guess, but we’re going to do our part. 🙂

Please take a minute right now to have your voice heard.

FIND THE SURVEY HERE

And About That Survey…

If you didn’t read the lengthy introduction to the survey, nobody would blame you! But please know there is a big win buried in that wall of words! The important part appears below.

The City is hearing our voices about saving our single-family neighborhoods! They’ve taken R-1 out of two major programs in the Housing Element. This new development isn’t related to our Community Plan Update, but our community is also subject to the new Housing Element changes. We’ll be sharing more about the Housing Element in coming weeks, but for now please know the City is listening and the needle is moving.

Tracy In The Community

Tracy moderated the Kentwood Home Guardians meeting in October with the Planners. Lisa was on hand asking the hard questions. Reply to this email if you want a link to the recording.
Tracy spoke recently to a group of Concerned Neighbors in Emerson Manor at a house party hosted by an Emerson Manor Concerned Neighbor. 20 more petition signatures. Yay!
Tracy is available to speak to any group you might want to host so we can share our Concerns about our Community Plan Update and Housing Element. We are available for zoom meetings, too.

The Peripheral Plan

For this reason, we developed the Peripheral Plan, recommending density, if any absolutely has to be added to our community, on the periphery of our community.

The map is shown below. These are the benefits:

No upzoning for any residential lots;
No upzoning for multi-unit lots along our corridors with high RSO and Section 8 housing (to preserve the affordable housing we already have in our community);
Reuses existing office buildings for mixed use housing (close to transit and environmentally preferred);
Provides new affordable housing in areas on the periphery where affordable high density housing can easily be developed without impacting residential zoning and our gridlocked corridors; and
Prevents further demise of “F” rated intersections from high density housing in communities close to these corridors. Sepulveda, La Tijera, Lincoln and Manchester are used by the 65 million Los Angeles World Airport passengers (expected to double in the next ten years).

Reminding You What We’re Fighting

photo courtesy of United Neighbors

And One Parting Share…

Please take a minute right now to forward this email
to 3 neighbors or local friends.