L.A. Plan Would Lump Requests for Zone Changes

San Fernando Valley homeowner leaders have complained for years that the city’s practice of granting zone changes piecemeal undermines their efforts to control crowding in residential neighborhoods.

Now some leaders say they see a partial solution in a new method proposed for the way the city processes zone-change requests.

The new procedure, which faces an important City Council committee vote Tuesday, would lump together all zone-change requests for the Valley at one hearing every six months.

Zone-change applications for three other geographical areas of the city--the Westside, Central City and Harbor area--would similarly be lumped together twice a year under the proposed ordinance.

Under the current system, such requests are considered all year, with as many as a dozen going before the Planning Commission each week.

Homeowner leaders say the proposed method, called “batching,” would give opponents a chance to marshal their forces against the applications, most of which seek an increase in the number of homes that could be built on a given parcel.

‘More Effective’

“Instead of trying to go back a hundred times and fight every one of these zone changes, which is impossible with our resources, we could get our people together twice a year in force and be much more effective,” said Daniel M. Shapiro, president of Studio City Residents Assn.

Builders’ representatives, usually on the opposite side from homeowners in zoning and planning matters, have said they like the proposal because it makes it easier for them to file some zone-change requests. Those benefits, they say, more than outweigh any delays to developers that might result from batching applications twice a year.

The proposal was approved unanimously by the city Planning Commission and is expected to easily win approval Tuesday from the council’s Planning and Environment Committee.

It must be approved by the full council and the mayor before going into effect.

The measure also would require that an environmental impact report be prepared on each batch of zone-change requests. That would force the city to consider cumulative effects of the changes, something homeowner groups have long wanted.

Such a report would specifically address such factors as increased traffic and noise and other potential adverse results from zone changes that would increase the number of people or businesses in an area.

Homeowners Powerless

For decades, the steady flow of zone changes has been bitterly criticized by owners of single-family homes in Los Angeles.

Homeowners complain of being powerless to halt the changes on a case-by-case basis.

“Requests for small changes seldom trigger the outcry and the show of force at a public hearing that are necessary to halt these rezonings,” said Tom Patterson, president of North Hollywood Homeowners Assn.

Homeowner activists say the cumulative effects of the small changes often undermines the local community plan, an advisory document drawn up by local residents and approved by the council.

The city’s 35 community plans, each representing one to three communities, take into account such factors as traffic congestion, separation of homes from noisy businesses and availability of parking and public utilities.

The city is under court order to reconcile differences between its zoning ordinance and the community plans. City officials estimate that the process will take at least three years. Although the state law on which the court order is based does not specify if zoning or the plans should take precedence, homeowner leaders consider the community plans sacrosanct.

At almost every session of the Planning Commission, which meets each Thursday in the Harbor area, the Valley or downtown, there are a dozen or more zone-change requests. These requests most often are for increases in population density on land zoned for apartments or condominiums, or in the size of a commercial building.

Under city law, only homeowners immediately surrounding the affected property are notified of the hearing. Opposition, if any, is usually limited to close neighbors.

Shapiro called it ironic that homeowner organizations often direct their energies to writing or rewriting local plans “even while they are being undercut by these small zone changes.”

‘No Easy Way’

Said Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino: “The local homeowner association, which has the ability to win some of these battles because it can generate heat, has no easy way to get involved in these individual battles.”

He predicted that, with the batching plan, organizations such as his would “spread the word and turn out in great numbers at these twice-yearly hearings.”

The proposal is likely to pass because it has been endorsed by several key developers and the Los Angeles-San Fernando Valley chapter of the Building Industry Assn.

The industry group is pushing the measure because it would permit developers to file their own zone-change requests in all cases, said Charles Novack, the group’s governmental affairs spokesman.

Initiating Changes

Zone changes that conflict with the local community plan now must be initiated by the council member in whose district the parcel in question lies. Builders complain that many council members delay processing potentially controversial requests.

“Yes, it gives opponents a better shot at some of these requests,” Novack said. “But it assures the developer or property owner that he can get a prompt hearing and a decision, rather than lengthy delays.”

Councilman Howard Finn, chairman of the planning committee, said he was aware of no opposition to the ordinance among council members.

“Everyone on all sides seems to agree that it will make the process more orderly,” he said.