Limit on L.A. Development Qualifies as Ballot Initiative

An initiative that would sharply reduce commercial development in Los Angeles and that is likely to draw powerful political forces into pitched battle has qualified for the November city ballot, officials said Friday.

Based on checking a sample of about 105,000 signatures submitted last month by the measure’s sponsors--City Council members Zev Yaroslavsky and Marvin Braude--”it was clear they had no problem” reaching the 69,516 voters’ signatures required, said Bernie Barrett, a senior election official in the city clerk’s office.

City Clerk Elias Martinez will officially notify the City Council next week that the measure has qualified, Barrett said. The council then has 30 days to adopt the measure or place it on the ballot. Although the council has the option of calling a special election, it is expected that the measure will appear on the November general election ballot.

Yaroslavsky, who has ambitions to be mayor and is associated with the influential Westside political organization headed by Democratic Reps. Howard Berman and Henry Waxman, said the initiative is “about creating a more livable environment in Los Angeles.”

‘They Are Thirsting for That’

“It is the first time in the modern history of the city that the people will have the opportunity to directly affect land-use policy, and I think they are thirsting for that,” Yaroslavsky said. Developers, labor groups and several other council members, who have been gearing up for what is expected to be a well-financed campaign to defeat the measure, claim that the measure takes a “meat-ax” approach to planning that will not accomplish what homeowners really want.

Nonetheless, the initiative, which would cut by half the allowable size of future buildings on about 85% of the commercial and industrial property in the city, has the backing of many neighborhood groups concerned about traffic snarls and a proliferation of mid- and high-rise buildings adjacent to residential areas. Concentrated commercial districts such as downtown, the Wilshire Corridor and Hollywood would be exempt from the building limits.

Supporters of the initiative say it is needed because developers and lobbyists--through the largess of their campaign contributions--are able to kill or water down legislative efforts to curb development.

“Personally, I think it is the most important measure since Proposition 13,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “. . . The public is tired of the overdevelopment that is occurring. This measure is the ability of the public to get something done, to solve a problem, the same way Proposition 13 was the people’s way of changing (the tax) system.”

But Dori Pye, president of the 1,000-member Los Angeles West Chamber of Commerce, said the initiative “isn’t going to solve the traffic problem at all. . . . It’s a Band-Aid approach.

“You are going to see an awful lot of good development move away,” she said.

Beyond the issues of the measure itself are the potential political impact on the future leadership of the city. Council President Pat Russell, who Friday criticized the measure as “planning by initiative” with unknown consequences, is seen as a likely rival of Yaroslavsky’s for the mayor’s office in the future.

Alternative Measures

The thrust of the critics’ counteroffensive has been to develop alternative measures that would reduce the size and height of buildings in many of the same areas but give the council more latitude to grant exemptions.

Meanwhile, Mayor Tom Bradley, who will be challenging Gov. George Deukmejian on the same November ballot as the initiative, has taken no position on the matter. Aides have said he has been hoping council members could work out some sort of legislative compromise on the development issue--eliminating the need for him to take sides.

“We’re going to wait and see what’s what,” a Bradley spokesman said Friday.