Poor Planning, Design Irk Public

Lotus land is turning into a wasteland, at least according to many of the increasing telephone calls, letters and comments received here.

They charge, in so many words--and with varying passion--that the lack of sensitive planning, sympathetic design and conscientious development are chipping away at the livability of Los Angeles.

That they are concerned with the shaping of the Los Angeles cityscape is heartening. From downtown north, south, east and west, across the sprawling valleys, there seems to be a rising consciousness that planning and design are critical ingredients in the social and economic health of the city.

What is disheartening is that this consciousness is being prompted by bad planning and design in numerous proposals and projects that citizens feel are threatening their homes, businesses, neighborhoods and life styles. And they are getting angry, as evidenced by the tone of community meetings and by recent lawsuits.

It would be a mistake to simply dismiss the protests as the selfish rantings of no-growth advocates. While a few obviously are, more seem to stem from a reasonable desire that developments be humane and better serve the long-range interests of their communities.

What many of the protesting groups and individuals simply are asking is that they be allowed to play a legitimate role in the development process, have their questions answered with civility, be shown viable alternatives and not be cavalierly dismissed or buried under a costly pile of slanted studies.

After all, it is the communities that will have to live with the projects, be they street widenings, shopping malls, office towers, cultural and entertainment centers or housing complexes, not the sponsoring developers or bureaucrats or the compliant council members.

Though the portrait they paint of Los Angeles is not as apocalyptic as, say, Tod Hackett’s in Nathanael West’s “Day of the Locust,” a recent sampling of concerns witnessed across the city and received here raises some provocative planning and design issues.

There was the mayor’s Little Tokyo Community Development Advisory Committee expressing concern about how the federal government was locating facilities downtown, “a coalition of concerned communities” questioning the impact of various developments in the Westchester area and a North Hollywood resident protesting the massing of new apartment complexes rising near his house.

Also outraged by complexes “destroying the flavor and scale” of their communities were residents in Sherman Oaks, Topanga Canyon, South Pasadena and Highland Park. And a Brentwood homeowner wondered why the Getty Trust has to build its art center in the Santa Monica Mountains, “damaging the environment and aggravating suburban sprawl,” and not on a more accessible and urban site.

Meanwhile, a Venice resident wanted to know how through traffic in the alley behind her house could be discouraged because “it has become quite dangerous during the rush hour.” And in Santa Monica, a builder was bemoaning that city’s lack of imagination and will to address the housing problem there. “All they do is talk, and talk,” he said.

There also were “urgent” calls about proposed street widening and sidewalk-narrowing projects, replete with the destruction of trees, front lawns and neighborhood ambiance. Included was one concerning the fate of the singular Ship’s diner at the northwest corner of Washington Boulevard and Overland Avenue, a 1950s delight that lends Culver City a rare sense of history, and patrons a sense of place.

It seems the local redevelopment agency wants to knock down the thriving Ship’s so Overland can be widened and, not incidentally, provide an adjacent smear of a shopping mall a few more parking spaces. So much for an agency dedicated to the eradication of blight and deterioration.

Happily, the public hearing held on Martin Luther King’s birthday was continued until May 5, thanks in part to the pleas of the vigilant Los Angeles Conservancy. This, hopefully, should give the opponents of this sacrilege time to rally the forces of reason and the city to reexamine the plan. Keep tuned.

In the meantime, those shaping Culver City and others concerned with the Los Angeles landscape, its rich history and potential, would do well to attend an illustrated lecture on “The Power of Place” next Sunday, at 3 p.m. at the Embassy Auditorium, 843 S. Grand Ave. (For tickets and information call the L.A. Conservancy at 623-CITY.)

The lecture is an effort by Dolores Hayden, UCLA professor of planning, and others to preserve and promote “places” expressing the city’s social and economic development. Though for the most part an abstract concept, the effort does have the potential of lending the city a needed sense of history. And with a sense of history comes a sense of place.

Another forthcoming lecture of note will be by peripatetic architect, educator and author Charles Moore, a pioneer in attempting to achieve a sense of place through very conscious, if not self-conscious, design. He is scheduled to speak at UCLA Feb. 20 at 8 p.m. in Room 1102 of the Architecture Building. The room should have a sense of place, if only for an evening.

One of Moore’s recent projects that deserves more than a glimpse is Volume II of “Center: A Journal for Architecture in America,” which he edited with Wayne Attoe. Produced by the School of Architecture at the University of Texas and distributed by Rizzoli Press) the issue is entitled “Ah Mediterranean! Twentieth Century Classicism in America.”

As can be expected from a Texas publication, the perspective is of Texas, with occasional glimpses at California. But it is an engaging, stimulating perspective, and makes one long for a publication of similar editorial quality in Los Angeles. Such a publication could help in the continuing search here for that elusive sense of place.