Blake Deal: Los Angeles voters must seek balanced approach to development

Los Angeles citizens will soon come to blows over whether or not they choose to restrict residential development near one of Hollywood’s most historical sites.

In March, the Los Angeles City Council approved Sonny Kahn’s Miami-based skyscraper firm Crescent Heights’ plan to build two residential towers, called the Palladium Residences. Their name comes from the fact that they will be constructed near the Hollywood Palladium, a concert hall which recently became a recognized historical-cultural monument by the City Council. However, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is suing the city of Los Angeles for violating existing zoning limitations by approving this development, impeding its construction. Furthermore, the foundation is working in concert with the Coalition to Preserve L.A. to bolster support for the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative, on the ballot in March 2017, that would set a two-year ban on zoning changes, preventing tower construction during that time.

One of the main issues in this controversy is whether or not the Palladium Residences would benefit the LA housing market by lowering costs and ensuring housing for future and current residents. Whichever way one answers these questions, one thing is for sure: The City Council ought to be holistic in its approach to public planning and resist the urge to defer our city’s messes to future officials.

In the same way Westwood currently suffers from a lack of public retail and housing strategies, the broader LA area is suffering as well. According to a 2014 UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs study, LA residents have a whopping 47 percent rent burden, making it the most unaffordable housing market in the entire country, even worse than San Francisco. To add a cherry on top, not only does Los Angeles have the worst housing market, but Westwood is the most expensive housing market within the city. For city officials, something needs to be done to counter these statistics, and further residential development may be the answer.

Just like our housing crisis, the city of Los Angeles has already dropped the ball when it comes to our water infrastructure. Due to poor planning, Los Angeles now has to deal with nearly century-old water mains bursting all over the city, including UCLA during summer 2014, resulting in millions of dollars in damages and sharp increases in utility costs. Rather than fixing problems incrementally over time and having the foresight to solve issues before they start, Los Angeles instead has to scramble to quickly find remedies to compensate for its lack of long-term planning. The Palladium Residences now represent a microcosm of a housing and infrastructure crisis that has been looming over the city for years.

Unfortunately, when it comes to whether or not the Palladium Residences would be able to lower Hollywood residents’ rent burden, nobody really seems to know what the best outcome will be, no matter which position one takes.

Michael Weinstein, head of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation suing the city of Los Angeles, argues the residential towers will only increase gentrification and traffic. Those of the opposite persuasion, like Conor Friedersdorf of the Los Angeles Times, argue it is dishonest to characterize the towers as “luxury” apartments simply because they do not offer 100 percent affordable housing and that the initiative Weinstein proposes will exacerbate current housing crises. Dennis Romero of LA Weekly sides with Friedersdorf in favor of development, but clarifies that increasing the supply of housing units may harm individual neighborhoods, even if it benefits Los Angeles generally.

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However, the initiative is not only about housing prices, but about how Los Angeles will conduct community planning for years to come. Another point to keep in mind is Weinstein’s concerns about the city’s revised plans to carry out their 35 community plans over the course of two years, as opposed to the 10 years Mayor Eric Garcetti proposed. If the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative passes in March, it may entail quicker community planning at the risk of stopping necessary development, whereas increased development now may entail a long and expensive 10 years of community planning.

There is no easy solution to our housing crisis, but voters need to be on the lookout for a few important points that stand out in this controversy, and that includes first and foremost being concerned with Los Angeles’ long-term future, a future relevant for many UCLA graduates. There are rarely any quick fixes when it comes to city planning on such a massive scale, but we can educate ourselves by reading up on what the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative entails, and whether or not zoning changes are necessary to increase needed development or if further development will do nothing but harm Hollywood residents.

If the City Council violated its zoning and height laws, it wasn’t because it was in bed with evil elites, but because Los Angeles is desperate to minimize skyrocketing housing costs. To the contrary, our current crisis may indicate how unwilling the council is to approve development in times of need.

The city ought to stop procrastinating when it comes to infrastructure and housing. We all hate paying more for services and being inconvenienced, but it is far better to be slightly inconvenienced incrementally than to be hit hard all at once. Many like Friedersdorf and Romero oppose Weinstein, favoring the Palladium development, but Weinstein makes a great point by reminding us of the failing state of our community plans. The unsatisfactory options we now face are in part due to these outdated plans and the city’s apparent unwillingness to take them seriously.

There is no way we can “preserve LA” without exacerbating the dilemmas this city already faces. If the city council is to err either on the side of development that will likely benefit the city as a whole while inconveniencing particular neighborhoods, or “preserving” a few neighborhoods to the further detriment of the city, they ought to keep the city in mind. If only the decision were that easy.

The looming initiative puts voters in a tough spot. Los Angeles is a growing city and will continue to grow for years to come. Neighborhoods will keep changing, the population will keep rising and the only way to respond to such changes is to minimize the damage now so that the city does not have to take drastic measures later. Voters will have to decide if the Palladium Residences minimize the damage waged by our city’s housing crisis, or if we should hold off on development to reassess our situation at the expense of making it worse. Voters will have to face this mixed bag of controversy come March 2017.