MasterPlanning!: Why Fret? Do It Illegally
by Tony Chavira
Don’t bother going to the planning department anymore. They’ll just delay your projects or shut you down, and they’ve got a million little codes and rules standing between you and your building or modification aspirations. The degree of bureaucratic proliferation in the city of Los Angeles is tremendous. You’d do better without it.
One might argue that he should go through the proper city departments for safety purposes, to make sure that the building is fire-rated or to ensure that there isn’t asbestos leaking from the walls. I might agree, as I don’t enjoy walking up stairways that collapse, knowing that everything can suddenly burst into flames, or inhaling fiberglass particles. But builders and developers aren’t idiots. They know that a building is meant to be used and hire engineers for things like that. What actually strikes fear in their are city delays. Or worse, the threat of getting shut down altogether. Suddenly your money begins to trickle away as some obscure rule or regulation imposes changes on your project, and you’re forced to hire twenty new guys to do an assessment for something that seems tangential. All progress is halted and there’s nothing you can do about it. But really—really—why even bother? If the planning department shuts you down, just keep building your structure anyway! Disobey the government. Become a card-carrying confederate. (I’m only referring to local government, so please don’t go out and break any enforceable state or federal laws after reading this.
Being in a recession means that the most Southern California cities don’t have a lot of cash, especially to pay for lawsuits against developers. Clearly, this means that if you have the money, you can have your way with the landscape of Los Angeles. No one is going to stop you; the clay is yours to mold. Look at the guys putting up supergraphics and digital billboards. The companies putting up these gaudy showcases are following my advice to a T: do whatever you want and let the city squabble about it in the aftermath. The city’s not going to send someone to take any of these signs down. They’ll just demand that you do it or pay a fee, and once you have the supergraphic up, the advertising revenue can cover the cost of that measly fee. Without the cash to sue you or any real laws on the books for supergraphics, just expect the city to threaten you idly with an ongoing public tantrum. They’ll do that for a few months, and eventually one of two things will happen: the public will get pissed off and finally force action, or billboard legislation will go out of style and you’ll be able to develop freely again. More than likely, the latter.
Korean Air and the Thomas Properties Group recently announced that they were going to take over the Wilshire Grand Hotel downtown and turn it into a $1 billion mega-development. Naturally, the development news and blogosphere are bursting with giddy anticipation. Articles are being published about how the landscape of Los Angeles will be changed forever and how the Figueroa Corridor will never be the same (in the core of downtown, they mean). Why bother kissing some politician’s ring when you can get the public on your side with a little hype leaked to the press? Screw master plans, redevelopment plans or design guides. City plans are for chumps. Who’s going to stand in their way, the city council? The planning department? The CRA? It’s a sure bet that they’ve got a sweaty wad of bills ready for most contingencies.
But think about it for a moment: the developers simply announced that they would grace Downtown with a super-development, and it’s got a tentative completion date of 2014. We have been graced by the divine presence of development, and we rejoiced. This shameless showcase displays a tremendous amount of pretension on the part of Korean Air and the Thomas Properties Group, confirming everything we hate about bureaucracy in the city of Los Angeles: if you have the money to bypass bureaucracy, you can bypass bureaucracy. Who knows how many meetings they’ve had with the city of LA about any of these plans ... maybe twenty, maybe none. Either way, the city’s going to bend over backwards to accommodate them at every turn. Really, what else can a bankrupt city do except accommodate them? There isn’t enough cash to challenge them and not enough guts to stand up to them otherwise.
But do you think that the city would accommodate you that way? Here’s a handy step-by-step brochure for acquiring a Zoning Variance from the city of Los Angeles. I’ve pointed out each stage where you are going to encounter difficulty, each stage where you’re going to have to go in front of a group of people and beg for them not to add fees, bury you in paperwork, or shut you down altogether.
Whether you’re trying to add a restaurant to the bottom floor of your condo complex, a yoga studio to your office, or a hair salon in your home, you’re going to have to justify your logic at each step in minute detail. And not all of these rounds are in front of certified planners either. Some will be held in front of community leaders or politicians, individuals who only have a cursory understanding of your land lease agreement, your intentions, or the laws they help to enforce. You won’t have the excitement of the development media behind you; you won’t have the thrust of public opinion on your side. You can just as easily get shot down for being a sucky public speaker as for having an illegal variance request. The same project can be approved by one person in the planning department and rejected by another based solely on opinion. You don’t set the criteria and you don’t set the development agenda. They do, and the criteria are whatever they say they are. Unless you announce a multi-billion dollar development, that is. If that’s the case, carry on.
So don’t even deal with the city. Call their bluff and force them sue you. They probably won’t, and if they do, they’re enormous hypocrites.
What kind of democracy are we living in where big shots can rain their developments down on us at their whim while the average Joe Builder needs to beg and plead for small additions and changes? I want to believe so badly that you can’t pay your way above the law, but right now the city of Los Angeles is imposing that law on everyone but those who can afford to disobey it.
www.racaia.com | tony@fourstory.org
Comments
Revolucion, man.
A country (or city or county or state) is only as good as its bureaucracy.
Learned that from a political science professor.
And if we’re not a part of the solution, then we’re part of the problem.
Learned that from Eldridge Cleaver. (He did SOME things right.)
2009-04-18 by Donna Schoenkopf