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What Is a Community Plan and Why You Should Care

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Category: Community News

Published on Friday, 14 December 2012 16:22

Written by Dianne Lawrence

The city is in the process of developing and implementing a community plan for a large part of The Neighborhood News territory.

What is a General Plan?

The Los Angeles Department of City Planning has created a General Plan, the fundamental development policy document for the City of Los Angeles. It clarifies and articulates the City’s development intentions city wide with respect to the rights and expectations of the general public, property owners, and prospective investors and business interests.

What is a Community Plan?

The West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Park Community Plan is a plan for future development in our community and one of 35 Community Plans that make up the Land Use Element of the City’s General Plan. It harmonizes our unique qualities and development needs with the city’s larger General Plan and will affect development in our community for the next 20 years. The Plan Area is generally bounded by Pico and Venice Boulevards to the north, Robertson Boulevard and Culver City to the west, the Baldwin Hills, unincorporated Los Angeles County and the City of Inglewood to the southwest, and Arlington and Van Ness Avenues to the east. The Plan Area includes three Council Districts and eight Neighborhood Councils.
                           

The last comprehensive update of the Plan was completed in 1979. Since that time, considerable growth has occurred, new issues have emerged, and new community objectives regarding the management of new development and community preservation have evolved. Consequently, it is necessary to update the Community Plan to not only reflect current conditions, but to accurately reflect the prevailing visions and objectives of the area’s residents and property and business owners.

In general, the new Plan has been updated to include many “New Urbanism” concepts, particularly the idea of intensive housing/commercial opportunities surrounding each of the stations for the Expo Light Rail and the Crenshaw Light Rail. (consider Wilshire and Vermont) In addition, most of the commercial corridors (such as Pico, Washington, and Jefferson) will have new zoning called a “CPIO” (Community Plan Implementation Ordinance), which calls for pedestrian-friendly Mixed Use (housing and retail) along these commercial boulevards. The idea is to protect character residential pocket neighborhoods by putting new housing on these boulevards, and at the same time bringing more business (supported by the residents now in that new housing) to serve these neighborhoods.

In reviewing the West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Community Plan, the United Neighborhoods Neighborhood Council (UNNC), West Adams Heritage Association, and other organizations and individuals who have already begun to comment in writing on the new Community Plan have identified some serious issues that may negatively impact the community you live in.
 

-   Planning Department staff has simply concentrated too much new housing in the combined West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Park and South Los Angeles Community Plans. These new Plans now call for 20,000 additional housing units in the West Adams Community Plan by the year 2030, and 40,000 more in the South Los Angeles Plan, while the citywide TOTAL is 250,000. So in basic mathematical terms, one-quarter of the entire new housing capacity for the entire City of Los Angeles would be concentrated in the area generally bounded by Pico and Exposition, from the 110 Freeway to Culver City.

-   The proposed population increase does not match the proposed housing unit increase.

- The new Community Plan apparently relied on year 2000 Census figures, rather than year 2010 Census figures, which actually show a decline in population compared to projections.

Some character/historic pocket neighborhoods are NOT protected in the draft Plan, because the zoning is too “dense” and other protections (such as design controls on height, setback and size of new buildings) are not currently proposed. These pocket neighborhoods are in jeopardy of being overwhelmed by development.

- SurveyLA results assessing historical resources appear somewhat uneven and/or incomplete (for example, Washington Boulevard was not yet surveyed), but nonetheless have been attached to the new Plan documents for future projects to comply with.

- There does not appear to be much planning for new parks, new libraries or new schools despite the projections of the huge increase in population and housing units. The West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Park Community Plan area is woefully underserved by parks and libraries, according to the draft plan documents.

- Cut-through traffic (meaning drivers taking shortcuts through residential neighborhoods) has been identified in the Plan documents as a problem, but no solutions are proposed.

Go to the website for more info about West Adams-Baldwin Hills-Leimert Park and South Los Angeles Community Plans.: https://sites.google.com/site/westadamsncp/draft-plan-status

This article was derived from Public Documents

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