The old economy is gone. Here’s what’s taking shape in its place. Then: Let’s talk about those “murder hornets.”
The American economy is about to endure a once-in-a-generation kind of retooling, one that’ll both decimate and reshape our storefronts. As this recession deepens, keep your eye on these four economic trends, as noted by our writers:
Many mom-and-pop shops won’t make it.
The great die-off is here, our staff writer Annie Lowrey reports. “Small businesses went into this recession more fragile than their larger cousins,” she explains. And congressional relief has been “too complicated, too small, and too slow for many firms.”
Big businesses will own a larger chunk of the economy.
Or, as Annie puts it: “The pandemic will mean the triumph of franchise chains over mom-and-pop shops, of C-suite executives over entrepreneurs working in their basements.” And the U.S. economy will be less competitive as a result.
That’ll leave cities feeling awfully similar …
… perhaps triggering an exodus. “Many thousands of young people who might have giddily flocked to the most expensive downtown areas may assess the collapse in living standards and amenities and decide it’s not worth it,” Derek Thompson, who wrote about American’s shrinking cities, argues.
Deliveries will replace face-to-face transactions.
Online shopping is predicted to take up a greater share of total retail sales. “If stores are off-limits to the masses, then mass commerce must shift to the internet,” Derek points out.
CEQA:ENV-2019-6204-SE Last Day to Act: 12-31-20
Plan Area: Citywide
PUBLIC HEARING – Completed November 13, 2019
PROJECT SITE: Citywide
PROPOSED ORDINANCE: A proposed ordinance (Exhibit A) amending Sections 105.01, 105.02, and 105.03 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code to modify definitions, location restrictions, and sensitive site dating provisions relating to commercial cannabis activity and provisions governing the continuing operation of existing medical marijuana dispensaries.
REQUESTED ACTIONS:
1. Recommend that the City Council determine that based on the whole of the administrative record, the project is exempt from CEQA pursuant to California Business and Professions Code Section 26055(h) on the basis that the project will adopt ordinances, rules and/or regulations, that will require discretionary review under CEQA to approve licenses to engage in commercial cannabis activity in the City (ENV-2019-6204-SE; Exhibit C); 2. Recommend that the City Council adopt the proposed ordinance (Exhibit A); 3. Adopt the staff report as the Commission’s report on the subject; and 4. Adopt the attached Findings (Exhibit B)
Applicant: City of Los Angeles
Staff: Niall Huffman, City Planning Associate niall.huffman@lacity.org
(213) 978-3405
CEQA:ENV-2019-7046-ND; ENV-2019-7375-CE Last Day to Act: N/A
AT CITY PLANNING COMMISSION DECEMBER 19, 2019
Plan Area: Citywide
PUBLIC HEARING REQUIRED
PROJECT SITE: Citywide
PROPOSED PROJECT: An ordinance amending Sections 12.03, 12.22, and 19.01 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) to regulate the use of non-primary residences for short term rentals as Vacation Rentals, and to establish related fees and fines.
REQUESTED ACTIONS:
1. Recommend that the City Council determine, based on the whole of the administrative record,
that the proposed ordinance is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15301, and there is no substantial evidence
demonstrating that an exception to a categorical exemption pursuant to CEQA Guidelines
Section 15300.2 applies;
2. Recommend that the City Council determine that, based on the whole of the administrative
record, the project was assessed in Negative Declaration, No. ENV-2019-7046-ND, that there
is no substantial evidence that the project will have a significant effect on the environment.
3. Recommend that the City Council adopt the proposed ordinance (Exhibit A);
4. Adopt the staff report as the Commission report on the subject; and
5. Adopt the Findings (Exhibit B).
Applicant: City of Los Angeles
Staff: Patrick Whalen, City Planning Associate patrick.whalen@lacity.org
(213) 978-1370
CONSIDERATION OF and ACTIONS RELATED TO COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF CITY PLANNING relative to the Implementation and Outreach regarding the Home Sharing Ordinance, the Home Sharing Administrative Guidelines, and the Master Platform Agreement; a Resolution to approve Appendix A of the Guidelines, which pertains to Housing Platform Responsibilities; and, a Resolution to approve the Master Platform Agreement, which pertains to Housing Platform Responsibilities.
(Planning and Land Use Management Committee report to be submitted in Council. If a public hearing is not held in Committee, an opportunity for public comment will be provided)
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PLANNING AND LAND USE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REPORT relative to a pilot program that would regulate homesharing in primary residences subject to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance.
Recommendation for Council action, as initiated by Motion (O’Farrell – Wesson):
INSTRUCT the Department of City Planning, with the assistance of the City Attorney, to submit recommendations for a Pilot Program that would regulate homesharing for owner-occupied residences that are subject to Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Fiscal Impact Statement: Neither the City Administrative Officer nor the Chief Legislative Analyst has completed a financial analysis of this report.
Community Impact Statement: Yes.
For: Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council
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11/05/2019 Council adopted item, subject to reconsideration, pursuant to Council Rule 51. Motion (November 1, 2019)
11/01/2019 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on November 5, 2019 . Motion (November 1, 2019)
11/01/2019 Motion referred to Council (Tentatively scheduled for 11/5/19). Motion (November 1, 2019)
11/01/2019 Council action final.
10/30/2019 Council adopted item as amended, subject to reconsideration, pursuant to Council Rule: Amending Motion (October 30, 2019), PLUM Report Corrected (October 22, 2019)
10/25/2019 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on October 30, 2019 .
10/22/2019 Planning and Land Use Management Committee approved as amended .
10/18/2019 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on October 22, 2019. Motion (December 11, 2018)
06/18/2019 Planning and Land Use Management Committee continued item to/for a future meeting and requested Staff to report back.
06/14/2019 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on June 18, 2019. Motion (December 11, 2018)
12/11/2018 Motion document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion (December 11, 2018)
Mapping the Future for Hotels in the San Fernando Valley
This week, VICA and the Hotel Association of Los Angeles (HALA), hosted a roundtable discussion for hotel owners and operators. Attendees discussed their shared interests and the importance of working together to advocate on important policy issues, such as worker safety. The group also discussed VICA-opposed Measure EE, a property tax which would impose a 16 cent per-square-foot tax on properties, including hotels. Attendees noted the significant tax burden Measure EE would place on San Fernando Valley hotels. The roundtable concluded with a discussion about the philanthropic efforts of regional hotels and the opportunities for professional growth within the industry.
The future of Amazon’s logistics network will undoubtedly involve artificial intelligence and robotics, but it’s an open question at what point AI-powered machines will be doing a majority of the work. According to Scott Anderson, the company’s director of robotics fulfillment, the point at which an Amazon warehouse is fully, end-to-end automated is at least 10 years away. Anderson’s comments, reported today by Reuters, highlight the current pace of automation, even in environments that are ripe for robotic labor, like an Amazon warehouse.
As it stands today, robots in the workforce are proficient mostly at specific, repeatable tasks for which they are precisely programmed. To get the robot to do something else takes expensive, time-consuming reprogramming. And robots that can perform multiple different tasks and operate in dynamic environments that require the robot see and understand its surroundings are still firmly in the realm of research and experimental trials. Even the simple process of identifying an object and picking it up without having been trained on that object before requires a series of complex, sophisticated software and hardware that does not yet exist in commercial fashion.
But as part of the ongoing deep learning revolution that’s accelerated the progress of AI research over the last decade, robots are starting to gain levels of vision and motor control that are approaching human-levels of sophistication. Amazon is one of the companies pioneering such robots, and it’s held an annual so-called picking challenge, after the warehouse term from picking up one object to move it to another part of the logistics chain, to promote advances in the field.
According to Reuters, Amazon has 110 warehouses in the US, 45 sorting centers, and roughly 50 delivery stations, all of which employ more than 125,000 full-time warehouse workers. But only a fraction of the overall labor is performed by robots. Right now, robots are simply too imprecise and clumsy and require too much training to be deployed on factory floors outside very narrow use cases.
For instance, Amazon uses small, Roomba-shaped robots simply called “drives” mostly to deliver large stacks of products to human workers, by following set paths around the warehouse. “In the current form, the technology is very limited. The technology is very far from the fully automated workstation that we would need,” Anderson told Reuters, which toured an Amazon warehouse in Baltimore earlier today.
PLANNING AND LAND USE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REPORT relative to a study of the impacts of independent retail uses on the social fabric of a community.
Recommendations for Council action, pursuant to Motion (Bonin – Krekorian):
INSTRUCT the Department of City Planning (DCP) to study the impacts of independent retail uses on the social fabric of a community and report on the levels of economic, social, and cultural activity such uses support, including the number of jobs per square foot and the diversity of residents.
INSTRUCT the DCP, in consultation with the City Attorney, to report on the feasibility of using zoning and other land use planning tools to encourage the siting of independent retail uses on Ocean Front Walk in the Venice community.
Fiscal Impact Statement: Neither the City Administrative Officer nor the Chief Legislative Analyst has completed a financial analysis of this report.
Community Impact Statement: None submitted.
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04/17/2019 Council adopted item forthwith. Report from PLUM (April 2, 2019)
04/12/2019 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on April 17, 2019. Report from Planning and Land Use Management Committee. (April 2, 2019), Motion (November 27, 2018)
04/02/2019 Planning and Land Use Management Committee approved item(s).
03/29/2019 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on April 2, 2019. Motion (November 27, 2018)
11/27/2018 Motion document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion (November 27, 2018)
The retail giant plans to open a series of “city center” stores, starting in Manhattan. It’s a notable departure from its usual big-box suburban megastores.
Next spring, IKEA is moving to the heart of Manhattan.
For anyone who knows the furniture retailer’s massive blue-box megastores, this might come as a surprise. But what you’ll find at the Midtown outpost is something new: a “Planning Studio” with a much smaller footprint, where New Yorkers can get one-on-one advice before ordering items for delivery.
The store concept, announced Monday, signals a new approach for the Swedish company, whose massive stores are often found in sprawling locations near the edge of metropolitan areas. The Manhattan storefront will be the first of five “city center” stores to open in the U.S.—with others coming to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. In total, IKEA plans to open 30 such stores globally over the next two years. At the same time, it’s ramping up its online offerings and delivery services. Combined, the strategy is an attempt to remain competitive in a tumultuous era for retail, and to go up against the likes of Amazon and Wayfair to attract younger customers.
“It’s an example of how we’re reaching our customers in new ways, so it will be more accessible and more personalized,” Angele Robinson-Gaylord, president of U.S. property at IKEA, said of the upcoming stores.
To some degree, IKEA’s past success can be attributed to its focus on accessibility. The company dominated the furniture market by selling good design at prices that are attainable by lower-income and more money-conscious consumers. Its focus on flat-pack products also allowed it to offer lower costs of transportation for furniture, whether it’s a customer moving products in their own cars or paying to have them delivered. Still, the stores’ more remote physical locations can be difficult for many people to get to, especially if they don’t own a car.
That increasingly represents a hitch in the company’s accessibility sell. IKEA has compensated for this by opening more convenient order and pick-up points in remote areas, and by running complimentary shuttles (and even a water taxi) in neighborhoods like Brooklyn.
By setting up shop downtown, the retailer could be establishing a vital lifeline.
“IKEA, which has been content to sit on its laurels for a long time—and I think correctly so, because they saw themselves as the disruptor—had the retail landscape change over them in a pretty short period of time,” said Bob Hoyler, a home and tech analyst for the marketing research firm Euromonitor. “And one thing that’s hurt them is that they were clearly not really prepared for that.”
In November, the company announced it was slashing 7,500 mostly administrative jobs and ramping up its online and delivery efforts, citing a 50 percent jump in online sales this year. It had earlier nixed plans for three big-box stores in Nashville, Tennessee; Cary, North Carolina; and Glendale, Arizona. All in all, the investments have brought its full-year profits down 26 percent, according to Reuters.
But brick-and-mortar stores will continue to be important because—surprise!—younger shoppers still prefer physical locations. In a 2017 survey by the National Retail Federation, only 34 percent of Millennials and Gen Z-ers considered themselves primarily online shoppers. Another survey, from the trade publication Home Furnishing News, found that 63 percent of shoppers between 21 and 36 still want that in-store experience when shopping for furniture.
IKEA’s own market research for its Manhattan store revealed that New Yorkers still like to browse stores when furniture shopping, said Robinson-Gaylord. It’s just that they’d rather have the big and bulky items delivered. And IKEA knows that it’s all about location; if shoppers can’t get to a physical store, they will turn to shopping on their phones and computers.
“There’s a natural desire for customers to want to see and feel the product first,” said Hoyler. “But as consumers became more comfortable with buying furniture sight-unseen, the migration of e-commerce happened really rapidly in that industry.”
As my colleague Sarah Holder illustrated in her report on the cut-throat business of selling mattresses, the furniture industry has been ripe for disruption as companies cater to younger shoppers. “The most important demographic still in the U.S., as far as total furniture sales go, is Generation X,” Hoyler said. “Although, that’s fast changing as Millennials age.”
All the while, the number of traditional home furnishing stores has fallen since the Great Recession, from nearly 65,500 in 2007 to fewer than 50,000 in 2017, according to Euromonitor. During that time, the proportion of indoor furniture sales made online grew more than three-fold, from 4 percent to 12.5 percent. Amazon and Wayfair are undoubtedly the big players, but smaller ventures like Casper, Article, Campaign, and Burrow have also been crowding the market in recent years with their own furniture-in-a-box pitch.
So can IKEA still be a disruptor?
To the store’s credit, it has taken advantage of the urban dwelling trend in some notable ways. In 2014, it recruited 20 designers to design a collection called “On the move,” with adaptable furniture for small-space living and for renters who are constantly, well, on the move. Today, low-cost lines like Lack tables, Billy bookcases, and the Malm collection are staples of college dorms and first apartments. It also designed a (doomed) commuter bike and collaborated with British industrial designer Tom Dixon to design products for urban farming. One of the company’s smartest moves, Hoyler says, is acquiring TaskRabbit in 2017, allowing consumers to pay for on-demand furniture assembly service.
Hoyler doesn’t see IKEA’s future in e-commerce to be particularly challenging, given its name recognition and abundance in real estate. It’s currently building more fulfillment centers, Hoyler said, and can easily transform its big-box stores into warehouses if need be—the way Walmart did with many Sam’s Club centers earlier this year. But the big-box stores aren’t going anywhere just yet, Robinson-Gaylord said. Two new ones are currently in the works: one in Norfolk, Virginia, and another in San Antonio, Texas.
Indeed, as journalist and furniture retail expert Warren Shoulberg wrote in Forbes, patience has always been a founding principle of the company’s global expansion. In the U.S., IKEA spent years studying the successes and failures of its first store outside Philadelphia before opening a second location. Whereas for other retailers, Shoulberg wrote, it’s “open first, figure it out later.”
I asked Robinson-Gaylord if she felt IKEA was late in the game with the U.S. market; it had already begun testing city-center stores in Spain, Norway, Finland, and the U.K. She said her team had been in the research phase until recently. “We’ve done a series of home visits and focus groups, and had a lot of conversations with our customers” in New York City, she said. “And it took a little while to understand what they wanted and needed.”
Linda Poon, is an assistant editor at CityLab covering science and urban technology, including smart cities and climate change. She previously covered global health and development for NPR’s Goats and Soda blog
Discount center: As the “retail apocalypse” rolls on, many cities are struggling to make up for the lost tax revenue they’ve come to expect from brick-and-mortar businesses. As it turns out, some surviving big-box retailers—like Walmart and Target—have found a way to trim their own expenses in a way that only amplifies cities’ budgetary pain. And they are focusing their efforts on a forum that few residents might notice: property tax assessments.
It’s called “dark store theory,” and it’s essentially a novel argument that bustling big boxes should be taxed more like vacant “dark” stores. That means tax assessments value these open, functioning outlets as it they were the shuttered “ghost boxes” that have become increasingly common on the fringes of towns and suburbs. With appeal after appeal, retail giants are succeeding in persuading tax assessors and judges to accept these lower valuations.
(Madison McVeigh/CityLab)
CityLab’s Laura Bliss went to the epicenter of this theory, Wisconsin, to meet the mayors, assessors, and lawyers dueling over dark stores. Since 2015, the Badger State has seen 230 appeal cases in 34 counties, many as repeat appeals on the same properties. These appeals can add up to millions in tax refunds across towns. In the wake of yesterday’s Amazon HQ2 news, here’s a different story about the shifting fortunes of the retail landscape, the creative ways big companies avoid taxes, and the handouts towns keep offering to lure them in. Read Laura’s report: After the Retail Apocalypse, Prepare for the Property Tax Meltdown
Amazon’s much-hyped expansion—the company will place 25,000 new jobs each in New York City and Arlington, Virginia—highlights how insular the tech industry can be when it comes to real estate. Tech companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Boston, and New York City have taken up more than 25 million square feet of new office space outside of their primary markets over the past five years, according to a recent CBRE report. A good chunk of that is within those same four markets.
In conversations about tech capitals, Los Angeles rarely comes up, a distant second in its home state to the dominant Bay Area, which vacuumed up $26.5 billion in venture capital funding last year. But LA’s position in the tech ecosystem may be shifting.
While nobody believes that dynamic will change, LA has begun to come into its own. Homegrown successes, and the recent opening of large satellite offices by big players including Google, shows how tech is evolving here. The Bay Area isn’t suddenly moving to Silicon Beach. But it is benefiting from the changing nature of what we consider tech.
“We’re going through a renaissance at the moment because of the growth of entertainment and content,” says CBRE vice chairman Jeff Pion. “There’s a merging of tech and entertainment, and content is king at the moment. The potential from harnessing the existing entertainment workforce in LA immediately is incredible.”
Silicon Beach—a nickname for the areas of Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, Playa Vista and El Segundo where tech companies are congregating—is expanding, with companies such as Spotify setting up shop in the Arts District near downtown, and aerospace firms clustering in South Bay and Long Beach. The city’s tech employment increased 14.6 percent between 2016 and 2017, with many of the biggest names in technology—Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and SpaceX—having opened or announced plan to open new offices. The 100 largest tech companies in the city saw a 24 percent increase in hiring last year, according to data from the Annenberg Foundation.
That growth has put pressure on the region’s housing stock and local office rents, which grew 15.8 percent between the second quarter of 2016 and 2018.
According to Eric Pakravan, a vice president with Venice-based venture capital firm Amplify, the city has always led the nation in out-of-town VC investment—a nice benefit of being an hour plane ride from Silicon Valley—but even as more investment pours into LA tech firms, VC firms are setting up shop in Southern California (the number doubled from 2016 to 2017). In 2016, LA and Orange County startups raised $5 billion collectively, and LA is on track to set a record for VC investment in 2018.
“Five years ago, a founder who wanted to keep their company in LA would get a lot of questions,” he says. “Today, it’s like, why do I need to be anywhere else?”
Netflix’s office in Hollywood. ,Shutterstock
Everything is tech, and tech is everywhere
As every industry embraces tech, a more economically diverse city like LA becomes more valuable. In the capital of remakes and reboots, old industries have become new again.
Unlike San Francisco, LA has a ready-made wellspring of talent in the entertainment and advertising industries—the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimates the region’s entertainment and content industries generate $55.9 billion annually, and a recent study said the city’s film and digital media industries generated 265,200 jobs—and a larger, more diverse population and economy. That’s led expanding entertainment giants, such as Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, who collectively plan to spend billions on original content annually, to sign massive leases for new offices and production facilities. A study by research firm Beacon Economics predicts LA county will add 16,500 digital media and film-related jobs in the next three years.
LA’s employee base is unique, says CBRE’s Pion, with has no shortage of tech, design, and film talent coming from schools such as Parsons, USC, UCLA, and Chapman.
“It may not be equal to Silicon Valley, but the startup community down here is pretty robust,” says Pion.
With the expansion of direct-to-consumer marketing and brands, the ease of setting up e-commerce on improved sales platforms, and the tech industry’s push into a wider array of industries, Los Angeles has become much more desirable for startups. The city has birthed new consumer brands such as Honest Co. and Dollar Shave Club, which was bought by Unilever in 2016 for $1 billion. Last year, 23 percent of LA’s tech funding deals were for consumer products, and another 23 percent were for media.
These startups can cluster in neighborhoods already home to companies within their industries. Music and fashion companies may cluster around downtown and the Arts District, and the next generation of media companies are in West Hollywood.
“It’s not as much that it’s strictly tech, it’s these hybrid companies in very tangible industries,” Pion says. “An financial tech firm may take over a big office in Sherman Oaks to be near the traditional center of accounting. You’re now seeing venture-funded tech startups expand all over the city. There’s no one area that dominates.”
An old slide used by Stephen Basham of CoStar when discussing office leases. Some of the deals are rumored, and the square footage often includes production space.CoStar
Further south, in Long Beach and the South Bay, Elon Musk has tapped into Southern California’s aerospace heritage with SpaceX, a private space startup. The company recently received approval to build its Big Falcon Rocket at a 19-acre plot in the Port of Los Angeles, a development that has already supercharged South Bay real estate.
Along with Tesla and Hyperloop, which plans on opening a test tunnel in Hawthorne, Musk has helped generate another LA tech cluster. In addition to raising funds—SpaceX and Hyperloop raised $450 and $135 million last year, respectively—it’s already spurred on the construction of new offices and apartment complexes, and added more excitement to nearby redevelopment plans, such as the Port of San Pedro renovation.
According to CBRE’s Pion, the move south, to an area once dominated by defense contractors, is attracting aerospace and space companies, and, increasingly, other tech firms seeking space in a supply-constrained market.
Jesse Gundersheim covers the San Francisco office market for CoStar. He says a lot of the growth in LA is spillover effect, companies that would like to be near the Bay, but due to space and price constraints, simply can’t afford it. He finds companies that do move from the Bay Area tend to head to West Coast cities such as Austin, Denver, Portland, and Sacramento, where space is cheaper. And if they have the choice, he says, they’d rather pick LA than Austin due to the lifestyle benefits.
A former Snap office in Venice Beach from 2017.AFP/Getty Images
With those new companies and offices come more tech workers, who will continue to make an impact on local real estate. According to Stephanie Younger, who sells homes for Compass in Silicon Beach neighborhoods such as Venice, Playa Vista, and Marina del Rey, 65 percent of her buyers under contract are in the tech industry.
The number of techies and tech workers buying in Westside neighborhoods has driven up prices in an already-expensive area. While it hasn’t caused quite the same level of backlash as tech’s real estate takeover of San Francisco—the decentralized nature of LA, and the existing high prices, means the industry’s impact hasn’t been as concentrated—it has altered the homebuying market. For years, developers have been tearing down old bungalows on Venice side streets and replacing them with expensive, modernist boxes, or rehabbing with up-to-the-minute styles to appeal to 25- to 35-year-old buyers, says Younger. The growth of high, and higher-end, retail on Abbot-Kinney and Rose Avenue speak to the rising cost of living in Venice.
“Retail is probably one of the biggest indicators of what’s happened to this area,” she says.
The biggest catalyst in the emergence of Venice was the 2013 arrival of Snapchat, which decided to purchase an array of smaller spaces, including a beachfront bungalow, and gradually built a decentralized network of office spaces near the beach.
“Prior to Snapchat’s arrival, it wasn’t viewed as an office hub, it was a quirky beach town,” says Steve Basham, a senior market analyst at CoStar. “Over the last few years, it’s changed the character of the area, and there’s been lots of local resistance to the takeover. Snap [the parent company of Snapchat] took virtually all the available office space in Venice.”
In April, when Snap announced it was relocating much of its workforce, abandoning half its office space and moving workers into a traditional, centralized office in Santa Monica, it opened up 200,000 square feet of rental space — and a discussion of the future of the Venice office market.
More than six months later, it’s clear Venice isn’t going anywhere. Basham said nearly 40 new leases have been signed in the last half year, nearly double the pace of the previous three years. It’s expected that a vacuum of that size would lead to lots of new deals, but it also shows the premium new startups place on being located on the Westside.
“There’s so much opportunity to get into Venice right now,” says Michael Springer, another local analyst at Halton Pardee + Partners. “You can spend all day looking at new spaces.”
As the city’s tech scene grows, that decentralized nature is one of its biggest drawbacks. According to a Boston Consulting Group study released this spring that looks at LA’s potential, “Stars Aligning: How Southern California Could Be the Next Great Tech Ecosystem,” the city’s sprawl constricts growth opportunities, making it harder to create the critical mass of companies and employees typically required for successful innovation. The upcoming 2028 Olympics, which promises a region-wide transportation upgrade, as well as an increasing number of homegrown successes, can hopefully alleviate that problem and help build larger clusters of like-minded businesses.
Still, according to the report, Silicon Beach, where tech giants keep expanding their footprints, shows one vision of a tech-driven future economy. It may be why Venice is now attracting scores of smaller startups, says Springer. It makes sense if you follow the money; many of the city’s VC firms, including Amplify, are clustered near Santa Monica and Venice. There may be more than a few looking to capture some of the Snap magic.
Patrick Sisson’s wife works as a designer for Google. Any Curbed editorial covering Google, including this piece, is planned, reported, and edited without her involvement.
City Planning Commission Staff Report (June 25, 2020)
The Los Angeles City Council adopted a motion ( Council File 17 – 0981 ) directing the Department to recommend a path for shortened processing time and lower costs for restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages. Currently, it takes about six months for restaurants to obtain a Conditional Use Permit for alcoholic beverages (CUB), the City approval required to be able to serve alcoholic beverages, at a cost of about $12,500. The Department has responded with the proposed ordinance that will be considered by the City Planning Commission (CPC) and the City Council.
The proposed ordinance would shorten processing times and lower costs for certain sit – down restaurants to be able to serve alcoholic beverages. This will help facilitate the creation of new jobs for an industry that plays a vitally important role in the City’s economy, employing more than 380 ,000 people and generating in excess of $200 million in tax revenues on an annual basis .
The Department will be conducting neighborhood outreach and holding a staff – level public hearing on December 5 , 2018. Any feedback provided during that process will be considered in preparing the staff report that the Department will provide to the CPC for their deliberation. The CPC is expected to hear the proposal early 2019.
Status update: City Planning is currently preparing a staff report and draft ordinance.
Staff Contact
Esther Ahn, City Planning Associate
(213) 978-1486, esther.ahn@lacity.org
Report from the Chief Legislative Analyst relative to the Transfer of Floor Area Rights Public Benefit Payment Trust Fund distribution.
Click on the green highlight to view official documents and reports.
07/06/2018 Council action final. Mayor Concurrence/Council Action (July 6, 2018)
07/06/2018 Mayor transmitted Council File to City Clerk.
07/05/2018 City Clerk transmitted file to Mayor. Last day for Mayor to act is July 16, 2018.
07/03/2018 Council adopted item forthwith. Report from PLM (June 26, 2018)
06/29/2018 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on July 3, 2018 . Report from PLM (June 26, 2018)
06/26/2018 Planning and Land Use Management Committee approved item(s) . Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (June 14, 2018)
06/22/2018 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on June 26, 2018. Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (June 14, 2018)
06/15/2018 Chief Legislative Analyst document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (June 14, 2018)
06/14/2018 Document(s) submitted by Chief Legislative Analyst, as follows: Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (June 14, 2018)
Chief Legislative Analyst report 18-06-0553, dated June 14, 2018, relative to distribution of the Transfer of Floor Area Rights Public Benefit Payment Trust Fund.
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Please find attached a memo from the Department of City Planning, as it relates to fee collection for projects subject to the Affordable Housing Linkage Fee Ordinance. (April 27, 2018)
In addition to outlining which projects are subject to the fee, the memo provides a timeline for the phased-in fees and references the list of exemptions, as well as eligible deductions/credits.
Planning and Land Use Management Committee continued item to/for a date to be determined.
Report from the Department of City Planning relative to a response to the various Motions aimed to help address challenges that small businesses often experience while establishing and maintaining themselves in the City, and to provide City services in a manner that will assist applicants in opening their businesses.
CPC 2017-4546-CA See Q&A (November 14, 2017) SATT DOES NOT ACTIVELY MONITOR THIS TOPIC
The Commercial Cannabis Signage Ordinance is a proposed Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) amendment that would establish restrictions on advertising of cannabis and cannabis products on signs in the City.
The purpose of the ordinance is to limit children’s exposure to advertising of cannabis and cannabis products, to reduce the illegal purchase and consumption of cannabis by children, and to reduce the likelihood of children suffering potential negative impacts as a result of consuming cannabis at an early age.
To Personnel and Animal Welfare Committee
Motion (Koretz – Blumenfield) – Relative to preparing an ordinance to amend Section 12.03 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code to delete the definition of kennel.
In the December 2016 Use List Update, “Yoga Studio” was considered to be similar to
“Dance Studio,” and was expanded to also include other fitness-related activities, such
as “Pilates, Spinning, Boxing, Barre, etc.” As such, the use was renamed to “Fitness
Studio” across both Use Lists for clarification.
Subsequently, it was determined that the term “Fitness Studio” encompasses a broad
range of fitness-related activities, some of which require the use of eqUipment and
machinery. Those fitness-related uses that utilize such equipment and machinery shall
be correlated to a Gymnasium or Health Club and shall remain in the C2 zone only.
The Planning department, with the assistance of the City Attorney and the Police Department, be directed to report on the proposed bill, processes, and the potential impact which this legislation may have on the City, including how enactment of SB 384 would impact current City procedures for permitting, and the process for establishing the commission required by the bill.
11/14/2019 File expired per Council policy, Council file No. 05-0553
08/18/2017 Motion document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion (August 18, 2017)
CF 17-0117STATUS 01/31/2017 Motion document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion (January 31, 2017)
The City Council instructs the Planning Department, in consultation with the City Attorney, to prepare a report in 60 days, on the feasibility of establishing a process to create Alcohol Restricted Use Subdistricts, that would serve to restrict the overconcentration of alcohol retailers in areas of the City where the retail sale of alcohol is negatively impacting neighborhoods and its residents, and in addition to report on the feasibility of having all appealed Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) sent to Council for final approval.
11/11/2019 Community Impact Statement submitted by Empowerment Congress North Area NDC. Refer to CF 17-0117
10/21/2019 Community Impact Statement submitted by Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council. Refer to CF 17-0117
10/21/2019 Community Impact Statement submitted by Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council. Refer to CF 17-0117
01/31/2017 Motion document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion (January 31, 2017)
What is the purpose of the Collection Bins Code Amendment? The purpose of the Collection Bins Code Amendment is to establish regulations related to permitting, maintenance, and placement of Collection Bins, as well as penalties for violations of these regulations.
What are Collection Bins? Collection Bins, or donation bins as they are sometimes called, are receptacles used for collecting salvageable personal property, such as clothing, shoes, books or housewares. The items collected are typically resold either for profit or to raise funds for charitable causes.
To Planning and Land Use Management Committee
Motion (Wesson, Jr. – Huizar) – Direct the Department of City Planning, with the assistance of the City Attorney, to prepare and present an ordinance to add a provision to the City’s off-site sign ordinance, as worded in the Motion.
Motion (O’Farrell – Huizar) relative to instructing the Department of City Planning (DCP), in consultation with the City Attorney, to prepare a report on the feasibility of an ordinance that could enable the DCP to administratively renew Conditional Use Permits every five to 10 years, if business operators have been deemed good operators, as defined by the report; and, with the assistance of the Chief Legislative Analyst, on case studies of other municipal jurisdictions where set standards for permit renewals are being implemented and what criteria and terms of renewal are being implemented.
Community Impact Statement: None submitted.
Click on the BLUE HIGHLIGHT to view official documents and reports.
12/05/2017 Planning and Land Use Management Committee continued item to/for a date to be determined.
12/01/2017 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on December 5, 2017. City Planning Report (November 30, 2017)
11/30/2017 Department of City Planning document(s) referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. City Planning Report (November 30, 2017)
11/30/2017 Document(s) submitted by Department of City Planning, as follows: City Planning Report (November 30, 2017)
Department of City Planning report, dated November 30, 2017, relative to a report regarding Open for Business Initiatives – Conditional Use Permit Renewals.
03/07/2017 Council adopted item, subject to reconsideration, pursuant to Council Rule 51. Report of City Planning and Management Committee (February 28, 2017)
03/03/2017 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on March 7, 2017 . Report of City Planning and Management Committee (February 28, 2017)
02/28/2017 Planning and Land Use Management Committee approved item(s) . Motion (June 22, 2016),
02/24/2017 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on February 28, 2017. Motion (June 22, 2016) 06/22/2016 Motion referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion (June 22, 2016)
AB 1934, Santiago. Planning and zoning: development bonuses: mixed-use projects. AB 1934 provides certain development bonuses for commercial developers that partner with affordable housing developers in conjunction with their commercial projects. AB 1934 (sunsets January 1, 2022)
Click on the green highlighted date to view official documents and reports. Legislative Counsel’s Digest AB-1934, APA Opposition to AB-1934 (April 5, 2016), See Los Angeles Planning Memo (January 18, 2017).
The Planning and Zoning Law requires, when an applicant proposes a housing development within the jurisdiction of the local government, that the city, county, or city and county provide the developer with a density bonus and other incentives or concessions for the production of lower income housing units or for the donation of land within the development if the developer, among other things, agrees to construct a specified percentage of units for very low, low-, or moderate-income households or qualifying residents.
This bill, when an applicant for approval of a commercial development has entered into an agreement for partnered housing with an affordable housing developer to contribute affordable housing through a joint project or 2 separate projects encompassing affordable housing, would, until January 1, 2022, require a city, county, or city and county to grant to the commercial developer a development bonus, as specified. The bill would define the development bonus to mean incentives mutually agreed upon by the developer and the jurisdiction that may include but are not limited to, specified changes in land use requirements. This bill would also require a city or county to submit to the Department of Housing and Community Development information describing an approved commercial development bonus. By increasing the duties of local officials relating to the administration of development bonuses, this bill would create a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
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