The Housing Element Might Just Slam Us Yet
This post originally appeared on ConcernedForWestchesterPlaya.com
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 😁)
Angelenos have a chance to help shape LA’s future housing & density plans