Another shoe drops in City Hall

Any guesses what happened after L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top appointee to the Planning Commission fired off a memo listing, point by point, how a new law to build more affordable housing is vulnerable to a lawsuit? That's right, Sandy Hubbard, an L.A. resident, filed a lawsuit to challenge that very law, David Zahniser reports.

Her arguments sounded remarkably similar to those offered by Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher in an e-mail last month to neighborhood activists. Usher is no fan of the so-called density bonus law, which allows residential projects to be taller and more dense as long as they have a few affordable units.

After Usher sent her e-mail, other neighborhood activists also hired lawyers to help them decide whether to file more lawsuits.

So a city memo became a how-to guide to suing the city. Talk about dense.

--Veronique de Turenne

 

Comments

[susie]

when you go from seven 700 public housing in Jordan Downs to 2100 units in
the same space, that is dense.

[julia s]

Planners and officials who push some of these projects KNOW they'll result in lower property values for the neighbors, and explicitly don't care. That means, they're taking action to intentionally harm others' property values and are liable to collective, class action lawsuits, big-time.

That's different from the former way of working with Community Plans, respecting zoning and the rest. Variances are one thing, plowing over the rules are another. NIMBYs who want no development and shake down developers, intentionally bypassing their elected officials as though they're fiefdoms, are one thing -- AB1818's potential to mow down all Homeowners is another. Even liberal softie Rosendahl, who tends to go with his heart not his brain usually, opposed the extremes that some of these projects take, like a huge building next to duplexes and single families.

BUT if this is a lawsuit waiting to happen, I hope Jane Usher sharpens her pen in giving advice to homeowners over what Ed Reyes, as head of PLUM, is planning. He said in Council on 4/1 and 3/18 that he is intentionally going to mow down ALL building and zoning restrictions in order to put high-density, subsidized projects (think Jordan Downs, Ramona Gardens) right next to the parks of "the westside, specifically CD5 and 11" he said one time, and on another occasion, added as the enemy, "the hillside federations and homeowners associations, who put property values ahead of social values....by not wanting our children to live where they should." In other words, he KNOWS his plans would decimate property values (in an already seriously down market), but he said, "as legislators, it's within our power to do that." And he clearly intends to -- to bring "TJ to the hills."

Thank goodness at least one woman in the city hasn't sold out her soul -- what kind of nitwits intentionally destroy property values and the fabric of society, instead of working their way up the ladder through education and hard work? Why, pro-illegal immigrant advocates like Reyes, Huizar and Alarcon -- and their allies in the hood, Perry, Parks and Wesson.

Their actual, stated plans are so crazy, no one would believe them until they hear Reyes and his colleagues say this in their own words. We NEED Jane Usher to validate the reality: these people want to make things as bad as we think.

[joseph]

I guess you don't have to worry so much about density posting fluffy gibberish from that Malibu trailer of yours.

[Veronique]

Hi Joseph -

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Actually, the trailer park is some of the densest development around.

Veronique

[The Answer]

Where do you people (Veronique) get your information? First of all, if city officials didn't care about property values, they would mow down homes and build car dealerships, because since Prop. 13, that's where the real money's at (and who's to blame for passing that backwards proposition? Not elected officials). The other thing is trying to convince "dense" people (Veronique) that we don't build housing projects anymore, as the ones cited by Veronique. That was done by the Fed govt., and in case you haven't read the papers lately, the Fed got out of that a long time ago. The fact is, we can't build truly subsidized housing (i.e., suburban development on 1/2 acre lots out at the urban edges) and continue to clog freeways. We need to go up, not across. Low density development within the city is an outdated model. Cities should never be static, especially Los Angeles. So get ready for the change because it's coming, and it's a GOOD thing.

[Perdido en el Ecuador]

Does this issue, like every other in this town, come back to race? Need I only site the "TJ to the hills" comment already made.

Maybe that's the discussion we need, but in a rational form, not the xenophobic diatribes about the Absolut ad.

[Seen the Light]

Hey Perdido, You ARE "Lost in Ecuador," all right. Everyone all over town is calling Ed Reyes "TJ in the Hills" Reyes, "Death Rey Reyes," and those are the flattering terms. The guy is blasting at whites/ the westside/ the hills virtually at every meeting: he did it again today.

The audacity of the guy coming right out and saying the stuff he does with a straight face, shows he's as "lost in Ecuador" as you are. He's trying to force such a clash of cultures on native "anglos" and doing it with such pompously self-righteously stupid rhetoric about "social values over property values," that if you wanted to find a Mexican politician who embodies all the worst fears of American society, you couldn't invent a better anti-model.

Thank goodness his enemies like Zev Yaroslavsky are speaking out and rallying the troops. The NERVE of this idiot, who can't get out a whole word without stumbling, attacking Zev for "meddling in city policy." It's this moron who's proposing to undo every Community Specific Plan, every zoning ordinance, everything we've become as a city over 200+ years, in one, miserable term on the Council "The Answer" is right that we can't build "projects" as we did upto a decade ago with Fed funds, but Reyes is doing everything he can to do it anyway, by misinterpreting AB1818. (Then again, he's so dull he doesn't have to knowingly "misinterpret," he interprets what and how he wants and censors who and what he wants, because he's "Perdido en Tijuana."

[Seen the Light]

Hey Perdido, You ARE "Lost in Ecuador," all right. Everyone all over town is calling Ed Reyes "TJ in the Hills" Reyes, "Death Rey Reyes," and those are the flattering terms. The guy is blasting at whites/ the westside/ the hills virtually at every meeting: he did it again today.

The audacity of the guy coming right out and saying the stuff he does with a straight face, shows he's as "lost in Ecuador" as you are. He's trying to force such a clash of cultures on native "anglos" and doing it with such pompously self-righteously stupid rhetoric about "social values over property values," that if you wanted to find a Mexican politician who embodies all the worst fears of American society, you couldn't invent a better anti-model.

Thank goodness his enemies like Zev Yaroslavsky are speaking out and rallying the troops. The NERVE of this idiot, who can't get out a whole word without stumbling, attacking Zev for "meddling in city policy." It's this moron who's proposing to undo every Community Specific Plan, every zoning ordinance, everything we've become as a city over 200+ years, in one, miserable term on the Council "The Answer" is right that we can't build "projects" as we did upto a decade ago with Fed funds, but Reyes is doing everything he can to do it anyway, by misinterpreting AB1818. (Then again, he's so dull he doesn't have to knowingly "misinterpret," he interprets what and how he wants and censors who and what he wants, because he's "Perdido en Tijuana."

[Perdido en el Ecuador]

I don't think I have, in any of the blogs in the LA Times, ever read anyone complement any non-white elected official. What I do see is the typical avalanche of Latino and black elected officials being called stupid as Seen the Light refers to Ed Reyes. As best, non-white politicians are just pandering to their "ethnic" constituencies.

The truth of the matter is that a lot of people feel the same as Councilman Reyes. There is a lot of resentment among the working and middle classes of Los Angeles that the affluent and more connected are preventing the housing we need to be built. There are too many families who are being forced out and having to make the hellish commute from the Antelope Valley or the Inland Empire for their piece of the American Dream. Much of this is due to the anachronistic and class-based zoning regulations on the books. It especially has to do with the slow growth and NIMBY-ism of the 70s and 80s that is still strongly supported by the Westside and the West Valley.

The truth of the matter is that Los Angeles is becoming a mature and more dense metropolis. We need to build and plan for that reality. Otherwise we will be stuck in further traffic and become ever more fractured as a city. I would say that I am one of many people who believe Councilman Reyes is justified in attacking the forces that are preventing this city of going the direction it needs to.

It also appears to me that this debate is not just one between social classes but between 'ethnic' groups and that is what is making this discussion-of-sorts all the more vitriolic.

[Seen the Light]

By the way, that Shining Light of L A City Politics, is on Lou Dobbs Tonight today, for some reason of self-sabbotage, chosen by the pro-SP40 faction to speak for them. After showing a sympathetic view of the Shaws as a lightning rod for those who want to repeal SP40 protecting illegal gangbangers (yeah, I know there are those who'll correct my description of it, but that's what it does), and Mrs. Moore, with an overview of the situation, they cut to an interview with Ed Reyes, tryng to explain why the city is so adamant on "not allowing cops to ask about illegal status, even when stopping a suspect for something else. (Yeah, I know they're allowed to, but many of THEM don't even know that, this little fact being deliberately hidden from them by politicians who think the issue is "too politically volatile," per your own article today.)

"Asking someone's legal status would be too divisive," stammers Reyes, "because it would single out one community against another. We are all one city, one economy, the Latino community is so much a part of our city, our community, our economy is not ready for this." (He LOOKED even stupider than he sounds here, hard as that is to believe.)

Then cut to Bratton, stonefaced and robot-voiced, voicing his support for SP40.

Dobbs was incredulous at Reyes -- I guess they DO grow them stupider out here. "I can't believe that that man, that City :Councilman, would stand there and with a straight face, tell a family grieving for the death of a son which could have been prevented, should have been prevented, that 'the economy is not ready to do anything about this,' is unbelievable"

Then he added how he's lost respect for Bratton, if he can parrot something like this for political expediency. Dobbs added his disgust for the whole City Council, everyone running the city and responsible for this at any level (Gil Cedillo and Nunez, are you listening?). BUT added several Councilmen are privately opposed and want to re-evaluate SP40 and how gangmembers are dealt with. (We KNOW they're intimidated by screams of racism by Reyes/ Alarcon/ Huizar/ Cardenas.)

This idiot Reyes, is the head of the Council's Planning Commission, who wants to put his equally stupid "vision" for planning into motion, by starting with putting this whole illegal immigrant population into the heart of the westside, hillsides and Valleys. Yes Lou, some of our "local leaders" are too stupid to be believed.

[sean]

Perdido, your problem and Reyes' is the outrageous sense of "entitlement" you feel: so what if you have to commute from the Inland Empire for "your share of the American dream." Since when is some illegal "entitled" to come here and live in Bel Air or the Hills overnight? Many Americans can't afford it despite working all their lives, and, and these are one of the perks people home to EARN by striking it lucky in business in Hollywood, business, etc.

Yet you get an iliterate, embarrassingly inarticulate and dimwitted numskull like Reyes and he (and you, as you state) feel "entitled" to just move across town into homes that people had to work hard to obtain. You want to move next door in projects (of course, you all feel entitled to mansions, and it's "so unfair" and racist that the city doesn't just hand you each one) so your kids "can live where they should." Oh, really, based on what "logic" are kids of illegal immigrants who make a low income "entitled" to live in the most expensive parts of town?

WHERE is that sort of Communist redisribution and taking of property being done? NOWHERE except of course, in societies like Castrol's Cuba, and look at the whole country now. You people want to move into the best areas, drive down the prices overnight and then have those awful "anglos" move out/ flee, so you can take their actual homes, too.

It is precisely this class envy that you admit, that that moron Reyes speaks out for again and again, which is the most dangerous aspect of having you people here in such large numbers. No respect for the gradual stages of American's rise to prosperity, maybe across generations: you look across generations and want what is theirs NOW.

You're right this is a chasm across socio-eocnomic AND racial divides -- although more socio-economic, since educated, upper-class Mexicans feel more connection to whites of the same class than to poor, uneducated Mexicans. (Why you're all coming HERE to this country, while educated, upper-class Mexicans in Mexico hide behind walls and gated communities from precisely the sort of "give me now!" mentality you and Reyes exhibit.

Your uneducated poor (who come here with less than an avg. of 8th grade education) have as many kids as they can bodily manage to prove the "manhood" of the men, usually min. 4-8, you can't afford them, you're all stuffed in a 2 bedroom apt. and DEMAND through your dullwitted, Communist-thinking electeds to TAKE land and space that belongs to Americans who have achieved prosperity precisely by doing the opposite of you: the more affluent the couple, usually the longer they've deferred having their kids, in order to build up a "nest" of home, job security, etc. They don't have kids until they're ready, then an average of 1-2. They do this because they enjoy the lifestyle of the westside and hillsides and coastal communities, which they've EARNED by their behavior.

Upper classes Mexicans (or African-Americas, etc.) tend to follow this same pattern, so it's definitely more a matter of class vs. ethnicity: it's just that the Hispanics we're getting are almost all of the lower, uneducated classes. Your sense of "entitlement" is especially outragous because westsiders and those in areas like Sherman Oaks spend FAR MORE in taxes than they get back: the bulk of money goes to educate the kids of illegals (2/3 the school population), for free clinics that are collapsing, for welfare, food stamps, police and gang programs, infrastructure and needed mass transit. If it weren't for the masses of poor, they/ we'd have a much higher quality of schools, hospitals, roads, police protection, EVERY service, for us and OUR kids. Just compare the westside to other cities costing the same.

As for "complimenting" Hispanic leaders: They just don't seem to deserve it here in L A. Reyes is the most openly dangerous and stupidist, but Alarcon and Huizar are right behind, in their attitudes, slum-like conditions of their districts, and lack of personal responsibility for cleaning up and improving their areas, just playing the "blame whitey and take his property and tax money" game. Cardenas is a little better, but not much, and his macho power trip on the gang programs issue has worn out the patience of every political and media observer, from conservative to extremely liberal. Then you have you first-ever Latino City Attorney, need I say more...

The Mayor himself is the most aware that you can't play the "bash-whitey" game, because this traditional financial and social base is already fed up. He's also tied to the big "anglo" developers, who keep him more real: No doubt telling him that moving masses of illegal poor into Brentwood isn't the best promo for the city, or way to guarantee a return on their investments. In that sense, he's the "smartest" but now, with the illegal criminal issue blowing up nationally, we'll see how he can deal with mainstream attitudes, if he can get out of the barrios.