Panel Attempts to Limit Effects of Growth Issue

A key Los Angeles City Council committee intent on heading off the full effectiveness of a November ballot initiative designed to sharply limit commercial construction moved Tuesday to exempt several city business districts from the measure.

The action was quickly attacked by the initiative’s backers, who charged council members with attempting to undercut the measure and deny voters the right to determine future commercial growth.

“I don’t see how any council with a straight face (can take action) with the prescribed intent of circumventing the initiative,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, co-author of the measure.

But members of the Planning and Environment Committee argued their actions are needed to correct deficiencies in the initiative, which they say would curtail growth too severely.

One of those pushing strongest for the changes was Planning Commission President Dan Garcia, one of the original key backers of the initiative who has expressed support in recent months for legislative efforts to soften the measure’s impact in some areas.

The initiative would cut in half the permitted size of new commercial buildings on about 85% of the city’s commercial property. It would not apply to high-density business districts such as downtown, much of the Wilshire Corridor and Hollywood.

The Planning and Environment Committee, despite concerns expressed by the city attorney’s office, ordered an ordinance drafted that would add several more parts of the city where the initiative could not be enforced. Receiving the exemptions would be 28 regional and community commercial centers, two “enterprise zones” in low-income areas and more than a dozen redevelopment projects.

Expanding the areas exempted from the initiative would be written into a comprehensive ordinance that critics of the initiative have been developing to lessen its impact.

The ordinance would impose new size restrictions on a substantial share of the city’s commercial buildings, but it would grant far more exemptions for commercial centers and development projects approved but not yet built.

The ordinance would exempt properties by assigning them height district designations not affected by the initiative. The city attorney’s office has advised the Planning Department that the council probably cannot make those changes without notifying surrounding property owners and holding public hearings.