Ouster of City Planner Sought : Job Is Too Complex for Hamilton, Officials Say

Top city officials are leading a drive to replace Los Angeles Planning Director Calvin Hamilton, who has held the job for more than 20 years, because they say he is not up to the demands of a new, increasingly political era in urban planning.

The effort to dislodge Hamilton is led by City Council President Pat Russell and other members of the council who say they have discussed the matter with Mayor Tom Bradley and have met no resistance.

Russell said last week in an interview that the city needs a better administrator in charge of the Planning Department.

“Cal’s style is visionary and that has served a purpose. But we’re entering an era of implementation, and we need those kinds of skills.”

The movement against Hamilton extends beyond City Hall and brings together people such as homeowners and real estate developers, who normally are on opposite sides of planning issues but who have lost confidence in Hamilton and use words like “indecisive,” “uninterested” and “unreliable” to describe him.

“The Planning Department is adrift,” said Norman Emerson, who has become an informal adviser to Russell and is in charge of public affairs for Voit Cos., one of the largest developers in the city. “There is an environment of uncertainty that concerns everybody, whether they are homeowners or developers. People don’t know what to expect. For developers, that translates into some bottom line dollar concerns,” Emerson said.

In an interview last week, Hamilton said he is aware of the growing discontent and indicated that he might resign, although not immediately.

“I suppose within the next year, if you look at it totally objectively, it would not be inappropriate for someone who has been here as long as I have to step down and help the city choose a successor,” the 60-year-old Hamilton said.

“I suppose if the council and the mayor want a new perspective, they have that right.”

Distinctive Image

Hamilton, tall and angular and dressed flamboyantly in plaid pants and double-breasted blazers, presents a distinctive image in a mostly colorless City Hall. During appearances before the council, his thoughtful, languid manner contributes to his image as a visionary who is more comfortable with concepts than details.

Hamilton is best known for his work on the Los Angeles General Plan--a guide for future development that divides the city into commercial and residential spheres and runs counter to the city’s older zoning code, which permitted considerable commercial development in many residential areas.

The purpose of the General Plan, which envisions about 20 commercial clusters surrounded by residential neighborhoods, is to make it easy for people to live near where they work, but in neighborhoods free of commercial development.

Ironically, it was the city’s inability to convert the plan into action--a failure that led to a messy lawsuit and to a court decree requiring a massive rezoning effort--that precipitated the current campaign against Hamilton.

Massive Job Ahead

The pressure to replace him comes as his department prepares to comply with court-ordered rezoning--a massive assignment covering about one-fourth of the city’s land area. It is to be a three-year, $3-million job that will attempt to process as many as 14,000 pieces of property a month.

The primary intent of the rezoning is to make the General Plan a reality by prohibiting commercial development in areas of the city designated by the plan as residential. But there will be exceptions. Arguments will be made that in certain neighborhoods, where development already has occurred, the plan is no longer relevant.

And it will be up to the planning director to recommend what is right.

Watching him closely will be the neighborhood groups that sued to get the plan enforced and the developers who stand to lose building opportunities worth billions if the plan is rigidly enforced.

Both Sides Worried

Both sides are uneasy over the prospect of Hamilton, who has never seemed comfortable in the midst of controversy, presiding over such a politically volatile process.

“It will put a great deal of pressure on Hamilton and, frankly, not many people think he has the credibility to carry it off,” said a spokesman for the homeowner groups that filed suit.

In a recent interview, Dan Garcia, president of the city Planning Commission, which oversees the Planning Department, criticized Hamilton for “prolonged absences” from his job and for “uneven administration.”

But Garcia also warned about the consequences of the movement to replace Hamilton.

“There are a lot of people who have ganged up on Cal right now whom you don’t ordinarily see together,” he said. “They are playing a high-risk game, betting on getting someone in there in Cal’s place that they can control.

“When it’s over some of these people may be kicking themselves.”

Some Risk Involved

Jerry Daniel, recently retired chairman of the Hillside Federation, the neighborhood organization that sued the city over the General Plan, said there is a risk that Hamilton’s successor will be hostile to homeowners’ interests. But he said he still thought Hamilton should go.

“I think he should leave,” Daniel said. “I would hope that the mayor and Pat Russell would be even-handed in their choice of a successor.”

The campaign to oust Hamilton takes place at a time when city planning is gaining stature in the eyes of development advocates like Russell, who recently appointed herself to the council’s Planning and Environment Committee, which has come to be regarded as one of the council’s most influential committees.

Once disdained by development advocates as a roadblock to progress, planning--in the right hands--is now seen as a means of encouraging growth.

Congested Areas

For example, Russell is advocating an ordinance that would allow developers to continue building in congested areas, provided that they help pay for improvements in local transportation systems.

Russell said recently that Hamilton had been very receptive to her proposal, but added that she worried about his ability to administer her proposal if it became law.

“It’s the practical side that causes concern,” she said.

Hamilton has been in trouble before. He was suspended from his job last year for six weeks after it was learned that he used city staff members to help promote a private international trade and tourism organization that he set up. It was also disclosed that Hamilton’s enterprise accepted rent-free quarters from a prominent developer who had frequent dealings with the Planning Department.

Considerable Job Security

Hamilton kept his job with the city partly because of past accomplishments and partly because, under the city’s Civil Service system, it is not easy for the mayor or the council to fire a department head.

Last week, Hamilton made it clear he did not want to step down until the court-ordered process to enforce the General Plan is well under way.

“I want to see this thing launched and going,” he said. “I believe it would be a mistake at this point to shift.”

Officials want to avoid a bitter fight with Hamilton, one in which they might have to air their case against him in a Civil Service hearing, or even in court. They say they hope they can persuade him to step down quickly and quietly.

They say they would need the mayor’s help in such an endeavor and are confident they can get it.

Bradley’s spokesman on the issue, Deputy Mayor Tom Houston, refused to comment on the matter when he was contacted last week by The Times.

Asked if he would resign now if Bradley asked him to, Hamilton last week refused to commit himself.

“I can’t answer that until I talk to the mayor,” he said.