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.
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.
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
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
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. 🚨
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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