Van Nuys Airport Specific Plan / Zoning Ordinance 177.327 / Community Impact Mitigation

CF 22-1127        AT CITY COUNCIL  03.03.2023

PLANNING AND LAND USE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REPORT relative to preparing a Specific Plan and/or other land use tools for the Van Nuys airport to replace the Van Nuys Airport Plan and zoning ordinance.

Recommendations for Council action, as initiated by Motion (Martinez – Blumenfield):

INSTRUCT the Department of City Planning, in consultation with the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), to prepare a Specific Plan and/or other land use tools for the Van Nuys airport to replace the Van Nuys Airport Plan and Zoning Ordinance 177327. This plan should:

Look at mitigating noise and other impacts from the airport on the surrounding area; including a barrier between the airport and nearby homes, additional hangar space, tree planting, and setbacks.

Establish a community benefit program for the surrounding area.

Explore how land covered by the plan can continue to be an economic generator by luring new commercial activity.

Have extensive engagement with airport stakeholders and local residents.

INSTRUCT the LAWA and the City Attorney to report on what the City can and cannot do in terms of regulating activity at Van Nuys Airport.

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 if Amended: North Hills West Neighborhood Council
For if Amended: Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council

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Coastal Equity and Environmental Justice Policy / Discriminatory Land Use Policies / Equitable and Fair Housing Practices / Coastal Development Permit / California Coastal Act of 1976 / AB 2616 (Burke) / Accessible Coastal Zone

CD 21-1071   AT PLUM 01/18/2022

Motion (Bonin – Rodriguez) relative to directing the Department of City Planning (DCP), in coordination with the DCP’s Office of Racial Justice, Equity, and Transformative Planning, to report to the Council within 60 days with a work program to develop a Coastal Equity and Environmental Justice Policy that will inform future land use policy, promote greater public participation and engagement with underrepresented and/or underserved communities, and be reflected in project determinations in the Coastal Zone; directing the DCP, with assistance from the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) and other relevant agencies, to report to the Council with a detailed analysis within 60 days on topics related to housing equity and access in the Coastal Zone; including, but not limited to: historic housing and demographic trends, displacement and gentrification effects on historically marginalized populations, the impact of new development and housing typologies on available market rate and affordable housing stock, and the cumulative impacts of historic downzoning and land use policy on housing capacity; and, instructing the DCP, with assistance from the LAHD and other relevant agencies, to develop and present Environmental Justice policy and program recommendations as part of the upcoming Venice Local Coastal Program, Venice Community Plan, and the “Plan for a Healthy Los Angeles” updates.

Community Impact Statement: None submitted


Click on the BLUE HIGHLIGHT to view official documents and reports.

  • 01/14/2022 Planning and Land Use Management Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on January 18, 2022.  Motion 09/28/2022
  • 09/28/2021 Motion referred to Planning and Land Use Management Committee. Motion 09/28/2022
  • Communication(s) from Public_10-20-2021
  • Communication(s) from Public_10-15-2021
  • Communication(s) from Public_10-05-2021

 

SB-995 Environmental quality: Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2011: housing projects

SB 995 (by Wiener and Atkins):

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVersionsCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB995

This bill would additionally include housing projects meeting certain conditions as projects eligible for certification. The bill would extend the authority of the Governor to certify a project to January 1, 2024. The bill would revise and recast the labor-related requirements for projects undertaken by public agencies and for projects undertaken by private entities. The bill would instead specify that the time period for the final resolution of any judicial action is 270 business days after the filing of the record of proceedings with the court. The bill would provide that the certification expires and is no longer valid if the lead agency fails to approve a certified project before January 1, 2025. The bill would instead repeal the leadership act on January 1, 2025. Because the bill would extend the obligation of the lead agency to prepare concurrently the record of proceedings, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

SATT NOTE: Slashes the number of affordable units’ developers must build to qualify for large “fast-track” apartment complexes that get around the environmental protection law, CEQA. Currently, a “fast-track” building can ignore CEQA only if a developer offers 49% of units as affordable.

FUNDING FORM PROCEDURES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECTS

Read:  FUNDING FORM PROCEDURES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING
PROJECTS, August 10, 2020 

To address the shortage of affordable housing in the City of Los Angeles, the Department of City Planning, the Department of Building and Safety (LADBS), the Los Angeles Housing & Community Investment Department (HCIDLA), and other City Departments work together to develop and prioritize affordable housing projects per the Mayor’s Executive Directive 131 (ED 13). The City is dedicated to providing development services to streamline the permitting and land use entitlement process for all affordable housing developments. Under the procedures outlined in this memo, the coordinated review of project plans by LADBS, City Planning, and HCIDLA creates a comprehensive and timely conformance review of affordable housing projects. This is an effort to identify potential issues early in the design process, with the goal of avoiding costly “late hits,” such as the need to seek approval of discretionary entitlements.

The COVID-19 Crash

Caroline Mimbs Nyce,  Senior associate editor, Atlantic Daily

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.

 

Read:  The Small Business Die-Off is Here 

COVID-19 Small Business Resources: Protecting Your Business in the Coronavirus Economy

By  at 28 March, 2020, 9:00 am

UPDATED March 28, 2020

By Karen Kerrigan-

The effects of the coronavirus have hit small businesses more painfully. Governments have placed restrictions on business activity and public mobility. Plunging small business revenues are taking their toll on jobs and small business viability. Let’s hope that containment strategies will make this a short-term crisis, and we can all get back to business “as usual.”

Until that time arrives, I’ve put together resources for small business owners. This page, which will be updated frequently if not daily, includes advice from business experts, important information from key government agencies (like the Center for Disease Control – CDC, SBA, IRS/U.S. Treasury and DOL), resources from our trusted allies, and coronavirus response legislation – the CARES Act – which has been signed into law.

There is massive uncertainty regarding the full impact of the coronavirus and how long economic activity will be on lock down, but we know small businesses are resilient and innovative.

Business owners can play a key role in encouraging calm by communicating with employees and customers about what they are doing to ensure products and services are being delivered in a well-thought-out and hygienic manner, and what owners are doing in their own “small” way to contain the virus’s spread and keep workers healthy and safe. The cumulative actions of millions of small businesses can have a massive impact on helping the virus to pass.

Feel free to share resources, articles of interest, or tips that we can include on this page. Please send them to info@sbecouncil.org.

 

CARES Act: What’s in it for Small Businesses, the Self-Employed and Gig Workers

In this update, SBE Council president & CEO Karen Kerrigan covers small-business related provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which President Trump signed on March 27.  Key details and links are provided covering the new SBA 7(a) loan Paycheck Protection Program, positive changes to the “economic injury” disaster loan program, and tax relief and reform changes.

Read the Update here.

Mapping the Future for Hotels in the San Fernando Valley

To learn more, email Elizabeth@vica.com

 

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.

Amazon says fully automated shipping warehouses are at least a decade away

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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.

In the News: Berkeley approves two affordable housing projects in record time under new state law, SB 35

2012 Berkeley Way. Image: Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

Berkeley, a city known for its molasses-like approval of multi-unit developments, signed off on two affordable housing projects in December, including one that will be its largest-ever permanent housing project for homeless and low-income residents.

The city notified Bridge Housing and its partner, Berkeley Food & Housing Project (BFHP), that their application for the $110 million Berkeley Way project was approved under state law SB 35, which streamlines the development process and requires no additional hearings be held.

The controversial law, which many city officials, including Mayor Jesse Arreguín, thought usurped local control, went into effect in 2018. The law allows projects providing 50% of residential units at affordable rents (80% of area median income) to bypass much of the usual red tape before breaking ground. It requires cities to approve compliant projects over the counter within 90 days of submittal. The application was submitted in late October and the city approved the project in less than 60 days.

“This is something I’ve been working on for more than 10 years now,” said Mayor Jesse Arreguín. “We have a growing crisis of homelessness, especially in the downtown area. It’s really an exciting project.”

Located at 2012 Berkeley Way, the six-story complex is actually composed of two separate buildings: One will feature 89 rental units affordable at 50%-60% of the area median income. The other will offer 53 permanent supportive housing units for people who were previously homeless and 44 short-term shelter beds, 12 of which will be for veterans. The project team aims to break ground by the end of the year or the beginning of 2020 and expects construction to take two years.A city-owned parking lot with 112 stalls currently operates at the site. There will be no parking after the rebuild.

Ninety-nine percent of the units will be affordable to households earning 60% of the region’s AMI, according to the SB 35 application.

Levels of affordability planned at 2012 Berkeley Way. Source: Bridge Housing and Berkeley Food & Housing Project

Funding, for what will be the city’s largest permanent affordable housing project ever, will come from various local, state and federal sources.

Arreguín said the city’s investment could decrease, but the council has set aside about $23.5 million, which constitutes its entire affordable housing fund. “It really depends on the ability to find other funding sources,” he said.

2012 Berkeley Way. Image: Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

The project, which has been in the works for years, became more feasible after voters signed off on raising more money for affordable housing through local Measure O, which passed with more than 77% of the vote in November. The measure authorized Berkeley to sell $135 million in bonds for affordable housing. Voters also passed a companion measure, P, which will use funds generated from increasing the property transfer tax from 1.5% to 2.5% on the top third of properties sold to pay for homeless services.

Bridge Housing donated $35,000 to the campaign to fund the passage of measures O and P, according to city campaign election filings. Many other nonprofit and for-profit developers also contributed to the measures. Berkeley election law limits the amount individuals can donate to candidate campaigns to $250 but there is no limit on donations to measures. Real estate interests donated heavily to the campaign fighting  P.

Bridge will operate the affordable housing component, while BFHP will manage the homeless and veteran’s component. BFHP Executive Director Terrie Light said the building will accomplish a decades-old goal in consolidating services and housing for those in need in one spot. BFHP’s existing 32-bed men’s shelter, 12-bed veterans transitional housing program, agency cooking operations and community meal service will move into the new space.

“It’s a huge deal for the city of Berkeley,” she said. “Which is why they’re willing to fund it. It’s a huge piece of solving the problem (of creating housing for chronically homeless people with disabilities and providing them with wrap-around services to keep them housed). So they won’t have to go find them. We can go right to them in the building.”

2012 Berkeley Way. Image: Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects

The project will include a kitchen and dining area for residents and the BFHP daily community meal, which is open to the public. Light said she expects BFHP to have 15 to 20 staff members on site working on the first two floors.

The building will also house office space for Berkeley Mental Health and a small medical suite for Berkeley non-profit LifeLong Medical Care, as well as several conference-style rooms meant for residents to meet with social workers and case managers.

“We’ve been serving people out in the streets for decades, and we’ve always known we’ve needed something like this,” said Light, who has worked at BFHP since 1998. “It’s very exciting for all of us. It’s just too bad we have to wait two more years (until the project’s completion).”

Light’s organization had to move its men’s shelter out of the city-owned Veterans Memorial Building last year due to weather-related problems. The city deemed the building seismically unsafe as far back as 2005. The men’s shelter is now operating in conjunction with the women’s shelter on Dwight Way. BFHP has run into similar difficulties in its 48 years of operation, prompting Light to  comment that it has at times been “close to being homeless ourselves as an organization.”

BFHP is looking forward to having a permanent home for many of its operations, Light said.

Complications due to parking

Until last year, the Berkeley Way project included an underground parking garage that was scrapped after city staff considered more than a dozen ideas. Staff said, during a City Council meeting in September, that including any parking at all would make the project financially infeasible.

According to a city analysis from the fall, the cheapest parking option would have increased the budget by about $40 million and taken up to 25 housing units from the project: “The loss of the parking lot will result in a loss of approximately $665,000 per year for the City of Berkeley, but is preferable to all considered alternatives, which result in even greater revenue losses.” The city noted that it would have cost between $12 million and $21 million to build the garage, which would also have increased project liability. Staff said in September that trying to figure out a parking solution had held up the project by at least a year.

Neighbors and local businesses both expressed significant concern about the loss of parking. The city said it would pursue several ideas to redesign parking in the neighborhood to increase the capacity.

“We spent a lot of time trying to replace the parking at the site,” said Arreguin. “At the end of the day, given the site’s constraints and our desire not to add additional costs, we decided not to (build the garage).”

The city opened the nearby $40 million, 720-car Center Street garage in November, which Arreguin said allowed the city to forego more parking capacity at the Berkeley Way site, which is only a couple blocks from BART.

“Building housing close to public transit is the environmentally responsible thing to do,” Arreguin said by phone, while riding BART.

The next step is for BFHP and Bridge to apply for three grants in January and February, said city spokesman Matthai Chakko.

1601 Oxford St. slated for a streamlined process, too

A rendering of 1601 Oxford St. Image: HKIT Architects

The city also approved the SB 35 application for 1601 Oxford St. at the corner of Cedar Street on property owned by All Souls Episcopal Parish. though an appeal by neighbors is pending.

Satellite Affordable Housing Associates, which donated $5,000 to the campaign to support measures O and P, will provide 37 residential units, including 34 affordable units for seniors. The City Council set aside $6 million for the development in October. Like Berkeley Way, the approval process for the Oxford Street project would be streamlined via SB 35.

The approval of the Berkeley Way project using authorization from SB 35 is a first for Berkeley, a city notorious for its slow approvals of multi-family dwellings. In September, Berkeley rejected a developer’s SB 35 application to build a 260-unit housing complex at 1900 Fourth St. even though 50% of those units would have been designated as affordable. The project on the old Spenger’s parking lot would have been built on property the city has landmarked as an ancient Ohlone shellmound.

City staff argued that invoking SB 35 for 1900 Fourth St. would have violated the state constitution, which allows cities to protect landmarked areas. Even without the constitutional issue, the project would not comply with local rules around affordability and traffic, and could demolish a historic structure, making it ineligible for the state law, the city alleged.

The owners of the 2.2-acre parcel, Ruegg & Ellsworth and the Frank Spenger Company, have sued Berkeley over the decision.

Berkeleyside reporters Emilie Raguso and Frances Dinkelspiel contributed to this story.

Update 1/18: This article has been updated to clarify the appeal filed by neighbors on the Oxford Street project. Technically, there was an appeal, according to a city spokesman. However, SB35’s “ministerial approval” means that there’s no use permit for the project. So the appeal is no longer viable and the city will not take any further action on the appeal.

Update 5:00 p.m.: This article has been corrected to say that BFHP’s men shelter, but not its headquarters, moved from the Veterans Memorial Building to the Dwight Way building. Also, real estate interests donated to defeat Measure P, not Measure O.

20 unexpired CRA Project Areas

CPC-2018-6005-CA  Council Districts: Multiple
CEQA: ENV-2018-6006-CE Last Day to Act: 03-20-19
Plan Areas: Multiple

PUBLIC HEARING – Completed November 14, 2018

PROJECT SITE: The project location consists of the 20 unexpired Redevelopment Project Areas located throughout the City. The 20 unexpired Redevelopment Project Areas are: East Hollywood/Beverly-Normandie; North Hollywood; Chinatown; Broadway/Manchester; Wilshire/Koreatown; Crenshaw; Crenshaw/Slauson; Watts Corridor; Council District 9; Hollywood; Mid-City; Western Slauson; Vermont/Manchester; Laurel Canyon; Westlake; Exposition/University Park; Adelante Eastside; Pacific Corridor; City Center; and Central Industrial.

PROPOSED PROJECT: Actions related to the transfer of land use authority from the Community Redevelopment Agency, Designated Local Authority (CRA/LA-DLA) to the City of Los Angeles, including a Resolution to transfer the land use authority and an Ordinance establishing procedures implementing the Redevelopment Plans and other amendments to the Los Angeles Municipal Code to facilitate the transfer of land use authority.

RECOMMENDED ACTIONS:
1. Approve and recommend that the City Council determine, based on the whole of the
administrative record, that the proposed resolution and ordinance is not a project under
CEQA pursuant to Section 15378(b)(5) of the California Public Resources Code and that
the Project is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines, Sections 15308 and 15320,
and there is no substantial evidence demonstrating that an exception to a categorical
exemption pursuant to CEQA Guidelines, Section 15300.2 applies;
2. Approve and recommend that the City Council adopt the Resolution transferring the land
use authority from the CRA/LA-DLA to the City of Los Angeles;
3. Approve and recommend that the City Council adopt the Ordinance establishing procedures
implementing the Redevelopment Plans and other amendments to the Los Angeles
Municipal Code to facilitate the transfer of land use authority from CRA/LA-DLA;
4. Adopt the staff report as the Commission’s report on the subject; and
5. Approve and recommend that the City Council adopt the findings.

Applicant: City of Los Angeles
Staff: Giselle Corella, City Planning Associate
giselle.corella@lacity.org
(213) 978-1357
Susan Wong, City Planning Associate
susan.s.wong@lacity.org
(213) 978-1472

Article: Why IKEA Wants to Move Downtown

IKEA plans to boost its online offerings and open 30 smaller stores in city centers over the next two years.

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

Article: The rise of the ‘meanwhile space’: how empty properties are finding second lives

A market at Les Grands Voisins in Paris, formerly the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital.
A market at Les Grands Voisins in Paris, formerly the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital. Photograph: –

Hospitals are rarely places of cheer and creativity, but the former Saint-Vincent-de-Paul hospital in Paris’s 14th district is one of the most exciting places on the left bank. Former ambulance bays and car parks now house allotments, a boules court, a makeshift football pitch and an urban campsite, and up to 1,000 visitors a day come to browse its market, eat at its cafes or catch a free live performance.

Renamed Les Grands Voisins, or The Great Neighbours, the site is a magnet for Parisians and tourists alike, its former treatment rooms, A&E building and wards now a hub of social and commercial enterprise. Alongside a hostel providing 600 beds for the homeless are artisan studios, pop-up shops and startups.

“It’s like a village, an inclusive space with social areas and job opportunities where different people can interact,” says William Dufourcq, director of Aurore, the charity that runs the homeless shelter. “We were overwhelmed with its success.”

Closed since 2011, the hospital is slated for redevelopment into a new neighbourhood with eco credentials, private and social housing, shops, commercial and public facilities and green space. Planning, clearance and construction on such a large scale takes time and, rather than leave the 3.4-hectare site empty for years, the developer, Paris Batignolles Aménagement, opened it to local organisations rent-free. The lease was scheduled to end this year, but has been extended until mid-2020 while construction begins on other parts of the site.

Parisians enjoy the sunshine at Les Grands Voisins.
Parisians enjoy the sunshine at Les Grands Voisins

Les Grands Voisins is an example of a “meanwhile space”: a disused site temporarily leased or loaned by developers or the public sector to local community groups, arts organisations, start-ups and charities. Calls for making use of such spaces in other crowded urban centres are getting louder. A report published in October by the thinktank Centre for London highlights both the need for and positive possibilities of utilising empty urban sites and how this could transform the landscape of cities around the globe.

“The aim was to show the value ‘meanwhile use’ can add in cities where there is pressure on space,” says Nicolas Bosetti, one of the report researchers. He says public and private operators in Paris are more ambitious than those in London in exploring the use of disused buildings from metro stations to former nightclubs for short-term use as charity and cultural venues.

Other meanwhile spaces in Paris include Exelmans, a former police residence repurposed as a shelter for the homeless and refugees, run by Aurore on a two-year lease, and the Parmentier electricity substation, where the art collective La Générale has operated since 2008.

The substation, which is soon to be redeveloped, was included in Paris Reinvented, an initiative from the mayor’s office currently in its second year. Disused public sites are put up for auction to developers and architects who compete with plans for their redevelopment. “Les Grands Voisins showed how something like this can change an area and help plan future urban projects,” says Marion Waller, adviser to Paris’s deputy mayor for urban planning. “We didn’t want to sell buildings to the highest bidder but to the most innovative solution.”

A community graden at Les Grands Voisins.
The idea of loaning empty urban spaces to worthwhile causes is gaining ground elsewhere, with thriving projects in the Danish city of Aarhus and Philadelphia in the US, where it’s called “temporary urbanism”. However, in space-squeezed London, urban sites can remain empty for years, mainly because they have no obvious commercial potential or are waiting for permission to be developed.

The Centre for London found that an estimated 24,400 commercial properties in London are currently empty, with around half having been unused for more than two years. The total available vacant space, 6.5m sq metres, is equivalent to 27 times the footprint of Westfield London, Europe’s largest shopping centre. The majority of such places are owned by local authorities and developers. “Only one of 33 London borough councils publishes a database of vacant property and only one council keeps a list of groups interested in vacant spaces,” says Bosetti.

Bosetti thinks property owners could do more to match available sites with needy groups but says local authorities are afraid of squatters or allowing in destructive elements. “One of the main barriers to meanwhile use is the perception that hoarding a site is safer,” he says. “Often the opposite is true. Opening a site to a community and encouraging interaction with residents usually sees a reduction in antisocial activity.”

Squatting and vandalism are more likely if a building remains empty for too long, so one benefit of temporary tenants is the reduction in security costs. Another, according to Simon Hesketh, director of regeneration with the British developer U+I, is the connection a meanwhile space can forge with the community prior to redevelopment.

“We’ll try to organise events in temporary spaces for the widest cross-section of residents, to get their views and ask what they’d like and what works,” he says. “Not just to smooth the planning process, but because we can learn what we might include in our proposals.”

A former fire engine workshop on Lambeth High Street in London is temporarily hosting the Migration Museum and the Fire Brigade Museum.
 U+I, one of the sponsors of the Centre for London report, has already leased several sites awaiting redevelopment to small businesses and community organisations for temporary use. Hesketh acknowledges property owners worry about reclaiming the space when the tenancy ends but says everyone involved needs to be clear that the situation is temporary.

The Migration Museum in Lambeth is currently occupying part of the former engine workshop for the London fire service. “Having this site has been totally transformative for us,” says director Sophie Henderson. “It has allowed us to prove the concept of what we’re doing, while we look for a permanent home.”

The building is slated for redevelopment by U+I into a mixed-use scheme but is still going through the planning process. Until construction starts, the museum is one of several thriving community organisations granted the option to use it. “It’s been a tremendous gift,” says Henderson. “We couldn’t possibly have done what we have in the past year without it.”

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Article: Dark Store Fight is Spreading

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

Andrew Small

Article: Can Los Angeles become a tech capital?

Google’s new Playa Vista officesPhoto by Connie Zhou, courtesy of Google

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

Changing real estate currents in Silicon Beach

This activity and talent base explains why nearly every tech giant has a significant presence in Los Angeles: Apple is leasing a space being built in Culver City near a new Amazon Studios office; Netflix continues to grow in Hollywood, leasing a new 13-story tower on Sunset to match its existing 14-story office; Google just opened a massive space in the cavernous Hughes Company airplane hangar that will, after renovations, contain 525,000 square feet of office space and expanded production facilities for YouTube; and Facebook is looking for 260,000 square feet of space in Playa Vista.

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.

 

Los Angeles City Council Districts: Economic Report 2018 to City Council

CF 18-0963      AT CITY COUNCIL 10/17/2018

MOTION (WESSON – ENGLANDER) relative to requesting the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to present its report entitled Los Angeles City Council Districts: Economic Report 2018 to City Council.

Recommendation for Council action:

REQUEST the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce to present its report entitled Los Angeles City Council Districts: Economic Report 2018 to City Council at its meeting of Wednesday, October 17, 2018.

New forms CP-3530 TFAR – Less than 50,000 Sq. Ft. and CP-3531 TFAR – 50,000 Sq. Ft. or Greater

Ordinance No. 181,574, effective 03/27/2011, amended in its entirety Transfer of Floor Area Rights in the Central City TFAR Area.  Its “purpose was to establish standards and approval procedures for the Transfer of Floor Area Rights in the Central City TFAR Area; to effect maximum coordination between the Community Redevelopment Agency and the City; to provide for the keeping of records of available Floor Area Rights within the Central City TFAR Area; to provide for an accounting of allocations of Public Benefit Payments and TFAR Transfer Payments derived from the Transfer of Floor Area Rights; and to facilitate those Transfers that generate Public Benefits.”  Moreover, the ordinance established separate procedures for transfers of less than 50,000 square feet and transfers of 50,000 square feet or greater.  (Section 14.5.1 Scope, Los Angeles Municipal Code)

Federal Opportunity Zones

CF 18-0112      AT City Council Meeting Date: 03/06/2018 Vote Action: Adopted Vote Given: (15 – 0 – 0)

CONTINUED CONSIDERATION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE REPORT and RESOLUTION relative to proposed Opportunity Zones in the City of Los Angeles.

Recommendations for Council action, as initiated by Motion (Buscaino – Price), SUBJECT TO THE CONCURRENCE OF THE MAYOR:

ADOPT the accompanying RESOLUTION to include in the City’s 2017-18 State Legislative Program, SUPPORT for the inclusion of the list (Attachment 2 to the February 26, 2018 Chief Legislative Analyst (CLA) report, attached to the Council file), as amended, of low-income Los Angeles Census Tracts for the Opportunity Zone Program, attached to the Resolution and the Council file.

INSTRUCT the CLA to evaluate the new Federal Opportunity Zones and report with recommendations on how to establish zones in the City of Los Angeles with consideration of the Promise Zones, Clean Up Green Zones, and the Transformative Climate Communities where possible.
AMEND the list of Los Angeles Census Tracts as detailed in Attachment 2 of the February 26, 2018 CLA report, attached to the Council file and Resolution, to:
Delete Census Tract No. 06037980014
Add Census Tract No. 06037297110

Fiscal Impact Statement: The CLA reports that there is no General Fund impact at this time.

Community Impact Statement: None submitted.   AMENDING MOTION 13A (O’FARRELL – MARTINEZ for CEDILLO)

Recommendation for Council action, SUBJECT TO THE CONCURRENCE OF THE MAYOR:

AMEND the Economic Development Committee report to instruct the Chief Legislative Analyst to review the Promise Zone Census Tracts in Council District 13 and Council District One omitted from the list, as well as additional commercial tracts in Hollywood, for eligibility and inclusion into the final list.   AMENDING MOTION 13B (RODRIGUEZ – MARTINEZ)

Recommendation for Council action, SUBJECT TO THE CONCURRENCE OF THE MAYOR:

AMEND the Economic Development Committee report to include the following Council District Seven census tracts, that were inadvertently omitted, in the list of Primary low-income Los Angeles Census Tracts for the Opportunity Zone Program:

06037104703
06037104404
06037104320
06037104701
06037104310
06037106520
06037104201
06037104203
06037104704
06037106604


  • 03/07/2018 Council action final.  Mayor Concurrence with City Council (March 7, 2018)
  • 03/07/2018 Mayor transmitted Council File to City Clerk.
  • 03/06/2018 City Clerk transmitted file to Mayor. Last day for Mayor to act is March 16, 2018.
  • 03/06/2018 Council adopted item forthwith. Amending Motion 13B (March 2, 2018), Amending Motion 13A (March 2, 2018),  Report from Economic Development Committee (February 27, 2018)
  • 03/02/2018 Council continued item to/for March 6, 2018 .   Amending Motion 13B (March 2, 2018), Amending Motion 13A (March 2, 2018),  Report from Economic Development Committee (February 27, 2018)
  • 02/28/2018 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on March 2, 2018 .  Submittal by CLA – Updated Opportunity Zone List and Resolution (February 28, 2018) , Report from Economic Development Committee (February 27, 2018) ,  Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 26, 2018)
  • 02/27/2018 Economic Development Committee approved as amended .  Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 26, 2018)
  • 02/26/2018 Chief Legislative Analyst document(s) referred to Economic Development Committee.   Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 26, 2018)
  • 02/26/2018 Document(s) submitted by Chief Legislative Analyst, as follows: Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 26, 2018)

Chief Legislative Analyst report 18-02-0174, dated February 26, 2018, relative to the Federal Opportunity Zones in Los Angeles.

  • 02/23/2018 Economic Development Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on February 27, 2018.  Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 12, 2018),  Motion (February 6, 2018)
  • 02/13/2018 Economic Development Committee continued item to/for February 27, 2018 .  Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 12, 2018),  Motion (February 6, 2018)
  • 02/13/2018 Chief Legislative Analyst document(s) referred to Economic Development Committee.  Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 12, 2018)
  • 02/12/2018 Document(s) submitted by Chief Legislative Analyst, as follows:  Report from Chief Legislative Analyst (February 12, 2018)

Chief Legislative Analyst report 18-02-0110, dated February 12, 2018, relative to the Federal Opportunity Zones in Los Angeles.

  • 02/09/2018 Economic Development Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on February 13, 2018.   Motion (February 6, 2018)
  • 02/06/2018 Motion document(s) referred to Economic Development Committee.  Motion (February 6, 2018)

Transit Neighborhood Plans / Metro Orange and Purple Line Extensions / Preparation of Market Studies / California Employment Development Department / Agreement

CF 17-0471

Department of City Planning be authorized to negotiate and execute an agreement and any necessary associated agreement(s), subject to the approval of the City Attorney as to form, with the California Employment Development Department, to provide the City and any authorized contractor, with confidential employment data for firms located in select station areas along the Metro Orange Line and Metro Purple Line extension for use in the preparation of market studies for the Transit Neighborhood Plans program to: analyze employment trends within select station areas, allow the City to plan for future land uses that support vibrant neighborhoods and employment centers, and encourage further investment and employment growth around the region’s expanding transit network.


Click on the BLUE HIGHLIGHT to view official documents and reports.

05/03/2017 Council action final. Motion 04/25/2017
05/03/2017 Council adopted item forthwith. Motion 04/25/2017
04/28/2017 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on May 3, 2017.  Motion 04/25/2017
04/26/2017 Motion referred to Council (tentatively scheduled for May 3, 2017).  Motion 04/25/2017

DCP to administratively renew Conditional Use Permits every five to 10 years

CF 16-0738 

Communication from Deputy City Clerk (December 19, 2017)

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.
  • 03/08/2017 Council Action (March 28, 2017) . Report of City Planning and Management Committee (February 28, 2017)
  • 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)

 

LA Controller Galperin Makes Transparent LA City’s “Underutilized” Properties

PropertyPanel.LA, (Visit Website)
City Controller Ron Galperin recently released PropertyPanel.LA, an interactive, searchable map of the extensive real-estate portfolio owned by the city of Los Angeles. Galperin, who is nationally recognized for his innovative approach to data-driven governance, joined TPR to expound upon the civic value of data transparency and the transformative potential of LA’s “underutilized” real estate.

Short-Term Rentals / Transient Occupancy Tax / Citys Affordable Housing Trust Fund

CF 14-1635-S1   STATUS – RECEIVED AND FILED

As the City of Los Angles is suffering an affordable housing crisis, various media outlets and studies report that the proliferation of unregulated short-term rentals contributes to a tighter housing market, a loss of potential revenue to the City and an overall decrease in the quality of life for residents near these rentals.


  • 06/01/2017 File expired per Council policy.  (June 1, 2017)
  • 04/22/2015 Motion document(s) referred to Budget and Finance Committee.  Motion (April 22, 2015)

Executive Directive No. 6 – Support for the Film Industry – Issued March 4 , 2015

Executive Directive No. 6 – Support for the Film Industry

The film and entertainment industry is one of the most important industries in the City of Los Angeles, the creative capital of the world. The industry generates billions of dollars for the local economy and employ s hundreds of thousands of workers. With the recent passage of California Assembly Bill 1839 (the California Film and Television J ob Retention and Promotion Act), the extension of the City’s Filming Use Fee Waiver , and the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Motion Picture and Television Production, the City must collaborate more closely with and support the film industry . As such, City Departments’ interaction with the film and entertainment industry needs to be consistent, streamlined, and efficient.

Short-Term Room and Home Rental Regulations/Review

CF 14-1635       STATUS – RECEIVED AND FILED

The “sharing” or “peer -to -peer” economy has grown rapidly in Los Angeles. It is redefining the way that goods and services are exchanged among citizens, businesses, and governments. People have shared their assets informally for centuries, but now with the advent of the internet, innovative network technologies and social tools have made sharing, lending, trading, and renting assets easier and safer. This development has had impacts that are both beneficial and harmful.


  • 06/26/2017 Memorandum to File (June 26, 2017)
  • 08/18/2015 Community Impact Statement submitted by Hollywood United Neighborhood Council.  Refer to CF 14-1635
  • 08/17/2015 Community Impact Statement submitted by West Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.  Refer to CF 14-1635
  • 05/25/2015 Community Impact Statement submitted by Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council. Refer to CF 14-1635
  • 04/21/2015 Community Impact Statement submitted by Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council.  Refer to CF 14-1635
  • 01/28/2015 Community Impact Statement submitted by Venice Neighborhood Council.  Refer to CF 14-1635
  • 12/03/2014 City Clerk transmitted Council File to Economic Development Committee. Motion (December 2, 2014)
  • 12/02/2014 Motion referred to Economic Development Committee; Planning and Land Use Management Committee.  Motion (December 2, 2014)

Lifestyle Center

Council File No. 14-0885

On June 25, 2014, a motion was made by  Council District 7(Fuentes – Huizar) instructing the Planning  department, with the assistance of the Economic and Workforce Development Department, and in  consultation with the City Attorney and Council District 7, and representatives from the appropriate County and State agencies, to prepare a report on the creation of local financial and land use incentives for the development of Lifestyle Centers. To be known as “Lifestyle Centers”. Lifestyle Centers attempt to combine commercial, housing, and community spaces into a comprehensive design environment that encourages livable and sustainable neighborhood development.

ENTERPRISE ZONE LAMC REGULATIONS

The Departments of Building and Safety and City Planning will continue to apply zoning incentives to those areas that had been previously designated as Enterprise Zones. The Department implements several zoning incentives that furthered State Enterprise Zone goals. Such LAMC regulations include reduced parking requirements – Section 12.21-A,4(x), increased building or structure height – Section 12.21.4, and exemptions from conditional use permits for major projects – Section 12.24-U,14(c)2. In adopting these regulations, the City provided additional incentives in designated areas beyond those provided by the State.

Regardless of the status of Enterprise Zones, City zoning regulations pertaining to those areas, which were approved by City Council resolution, are still valid. This is further supported by a City Council motion to “continue and increase city-level incentives” in Enterprise Zones (Council File 13-0934).