MasterPlanning!: What It Will Take, Part 1
by Tony Chavira
What will it take to begin the construction of a ten-story building in downtown Los Angeles?
Let’s assume that you already own the property. First, you will probably have to consult with an architect and ask that they serve both as your designer and as a tour guide through the complex and convoluted network inadvertently masterminded by the city of Los Angeles. Even if you have all of the money required to put together this structure, there’s still no guarantee that you’ll have something built when the curtains close. But having a lot of money is always a pre-requisite, since you’ll undoubtedly need to throw huge wads of cash into each step of the building process.
The cost of making changes to your project and opportunities you will have to influence the outcome of your project are negatively correlated. When you’re first planning a structure, you have all of the influence in the world and inserting your opinions or discussing your vision won’t cost you anything. It is, after all, your project. But as you make your way around the bend through design development into creation of construction documents, you’ll find that the fees start to increase exponentially for every major or minor change you saved until too late. Did you forget to mention that you wanted to have restaurant space on the bottom floor of your loft structure? That simple statement will cost you nothing in the first stages, but possibly destroy your budget beyond recovery if you mention it during the construction process.
To be brutally clear, a ten-story building involves a lot of rules from a lot of agencies. Depending on your budget, location or plans for the structure, you may have a completely different starting agency. If you don’t have quite enough cash, you’re likely to start at the Community Redevelopment Agency. Not that they’ll give you money, but CRA-LA has a decent system set up to pull together partners and put together projects. Of course, that money always comes with strings attached, and your all-marble luxury lofts may get downsized to moderate-income ones, maybe even include (gasp!) low-income spaces. CRA-LA’s also a good place to start because they can help point you to the next agency. They may even give you a roadmap. They’ll likely send you next to the Zoning Department to find out what can and cannot be built on your own land. You wouldn’t want to construct a loft building on wholly industrial space. Where would your tenants go for lunch?
If you have plenty of money but you don’t have the land, you might get lost in the whirlwind of projects offered up by the Mayor’s Office, the CRA, or the Community Development Department. Naturally, each of these offices will have their pluses and minuses and their own bureaucratic system to navigate before you get to the building part of your building: the Mayor’s office might be pitching pet projects you’re just not interested in; the CRA might want you to invest cash into a project area you want to avoid at all costs; the Community Development Department might want you to invest in project elements outside of your scope of investment, like spaces for restaurants or small businesses. Or each of them will provide you with exactly the opportunity you were looking for. You never know. Regardless, you can’t just go straight to zoning without a formal thumbs-up from a political official. Why? Who knows, but I have personal experience trying it out and failing.
If you have both the cash and the property, you still don’t have the go-ahead to start up your ten-story loft project. You’re going to have to head to the Assessor’s Office to find out who’s living around you and give them all the necessary heads-up. You’re certainly going to have to go to some sort of planning board with this size project; it’s unavoidable. At the highest order, the CRA-LA has a redevelopment plan that envelops your area of downtown. It might have a hundred million reasons why you can’t build exactly what you want. They might have restrictions for building height, signage, parking, or any number of things you could ever think up. But, you hope, they want more housing in that area. The Planning Department is in charge of the (relatively) newly-founded Urban Design Studio, which has a design plan on-hand for your downtown community. Being part of that community, your building will likely need their input (or at least adherence to their guidelines). This is where you’ll begin to see your budget slowly being depleted, even before the design process for your structure begins. Certain things will need to be taken into account: streetscape, façade, signage, etc. And if you want to plant your building in Downtown, you’re going to need to add these things. Out-of-pocket.
But that’s the price you pay, and it’s usually for the better anyway. Right? The city has their plans drawn out and mandates set on paper in order to bring people into Downtown. You both want the same thing, so it doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice. Finally, you and your architect can design your building. And it is probably about six to ten months from when you first approached them.
It’s a beautiful design! Modern and sleek! A sure eye-catcher! Perfect for attracting the hippest of the trust-fund hipsters! But hold on a moment: you need to present this design to the community! The Neighborhood Development Council in the Central City Neighborhood Council needs to check out what you’re trying to do and (essentially) approve it. It’s got to fit into the neighborhood perfectly (from their point of view), right? You might also pass it around to the Urban Design Studio again. Maybe the Mayor’s Office. Got to make sure that everyone approves of the project you’re solely financing. What happens if they don’t like or approve of it? Well, you have two options. One, you hire a public relations expert, a lawyer, and a negotiator to sit with the city and community to make adjustments. Two, you pay off everyone in sight until you get what you want. Either way, this is probably another four- to eight-month delay.
Finally, the community and city are satisfied and the first round of schematic designs, floor plans and elevations appears. Things are looking good as the construction document phase begins, and thus begin the unavoidable visits to Building and Safety, the city Planning Department and the city Housing Department. You thought it daunting before? This is where the bureaucracy really becomes intimidating. Why is that? Because you are dealt-with person to person, and opinion sometimes matters more than policy. Let’s say that your building design is exactly one foot too far into the sidewalk. Subtracting a foot from your building would cost a lot of money at this far-along stage, and it doesn’t seem like the incursion hurts the streetscape. You’ve spoken to the architect and they even said that several of the buildings in the area have broken this ordinance. So you approach the planning commission twice and you get two answers, one for each visit. One planner can tell you “absolutely” and the other says “absolutely not.” Naturally, the planner who is higher on the food chain calls the shots, but why would they even bother saying “yes” if “no” was equally viable? The answer is because there is a ton of subjectivity involved in planning and building. No two planners will see a project the same way. For every one that’s excited about your amazing design, there’s another waiting to tear it to bits to fit a very literal, very bureaucratic uniform code.
The law is the law, and now you wait and watch your dollars trickle away as your architect submits your plans to planning, zoning, building and safety, housing, the fire department, and the police department. This process alone, including changes that your architect will have to make, will most likely take about a year and a half. Our company once waited eight months for a signoff from the fire department (thanks, city of Santa Ana). Not to mention the wide array of tests that will be required during this period: environmental impact reports, traffic report, soil reports, etc. And, heads up, you’re paying for each of these tests. But maybe that’s just the price you pay. And it’s usually for the better anyway, right?
At this point it’s almost three years from when you first decided to build your ten-story loft structure, and still nothing is built. But if you’d been smart and planned your budget conservatively and carefully with your architect from the beginning, you will finally break ground. Now, if you took money from an agency, you may have to bid for a contractor through them. Not a problem, though, they’re the government. They wouldn’t want to screw up your project by hiring crappy contractors. Though, if you’ve ever hired a contractor, you know that anything can go wrong for any reason anyway.
Of course, you’re going to have agencies constantly looking over your shoulder: Building and Housing Department inspectors, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Planning Department, the Neighborhood Council, possibly the City Council and the Mayor’s Office (most likely to make sure that you’re doing everything you told them you’d do). Construction delays always happen. Let’s say that your ten-story loft building is completely built in a little over a year. Four or five years from start to finish.
This doesn’t include listing your property or working with the HUD, county or regional boards. This is just the city of Los Angeles. But maybe that’s just the price you pay. And it’s usually for the better anyway, right?
Not always. You see, this whole process can be avoided. Money and connections are all you need. Look at L.A. Live, for example: the developers got the land and did whatever they wanted with it. In fact, non-profit community organizations had no choice but to force them to give something back to the city, instead of stomp the land flat and do whatever they hell they wanted with the lot. Are those street signs on Figueroa and Olympic legal? How many problems did they have installing the below-grade parking? In fact, who paid for the trees with the glowing light-icicles during the winter? If your building would take four years for completion, you’d think that L.A. Live should probably be something like 20 years. But investment for L.A. Live began in 2001, and they even asked for public funds. It took them only five years to begin construction, which will end in 2010. Why were they able to piece together a megadevelopment in the same time it might take you to do a single building? What about all the lobbying? The political approval? The code subjectivity and nitpicking? The constant feedback and adjustments? That place should’ve been delayed to high heaven. What makes them so special that they seem exempt from the same system you’d have to fight tooth and nail?
Money and connections are all you need.
But maybe that’s just the price you pay. And it’s usually for the better anyway, right?
www.racaia.com | tony@fourstory.org
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