Slowdown : Backdown : Downtown : Council Retreats in Bid to Shield Growth Areas

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday partly--and only temporarily--retreated in its effort to shield a broad range of commercial areas from the building limits of a slow-growth initiative on the November ballot.

Last week, the council tentatively approved a rushed-along ordinance to restrict the full effectiveness of the initiative, Proposition U, despite warnings from the city attorney’s office that some provisions violated laws requiring public notification and hearings.

In an unusual procedure, the council majority ignored its lawyers’ warnings and moved to deflect the initiative’s restrictions by agreeing to re-label properties in more than 30 commercial areas with new zoning designations. In effect, the city attorney’s office said, the council was ordering zoning changes without public hearings that would give property owners a chance to protest. Such hearings are required by law.

Responding to criticism, the council on Wednesday gave up trying to rezone without hearings. Then it tentatively approved what was left of the ordinance.

The measure still attempts to exempt many commercial areas and hundreds of development projects from the initiative’s building limits. But the city attorney’s office said the exemptions would be wiped out if the initiative is approved, because the voter-backed initiative would supersede the council-passed legislation.

“I was not happy disagreeing with the city attorney. I don’t think it’s good public policy,” said Council President Pat Russell, explaining the reversal.

But Russell, a leading critic of the initiative who has the support of Mayor Tom Bradley and business and development interests, has not given up.

She said her new strategy is to hurry along a separate ordinance that would revive the zoning changes but would assure property owners of hearings. But, officials said, hearing notices would have to be sent to as many as 10,000 property owners, no matter how it might encumber the Russell plan. However, the city attorney’s office said, Russell’s latest attempt to weaken the initiative is legal.

Sponsored by Councilmen Zev Yaroslavsky and Marvin Braude, the initiative would slash by 50% the size of buildings allowed on most of the commercial property in the city.

The council’s alternative ordinance would also require smaller buildings on much of the city’s commercial property and additionally control the height of buildings near residences. But the council ordinance also exempts from the restrictions nearly 500 projects across the city that are approved or proposed but not yet built.

In addition, it exempts commercial areas from the building limits--more than the initiative would--ranging from low-income areas such as Pacoima, where the city is trying to stimulate development, to booming areas where huge office projects are expected, such as near Los Angeles International Airport.

Russell argued that the revised council ordinance, which will be back for final approval next week and become effective just three days before the election, is a better balance of concerns about overdevelopment and the need to preserve the city’s “economic viability.” Notification of public hearings is not required for the revised ordinance.

“We do not want to abdicate our responsibility on such important issues,” she said, defending the council’s efforts to provide for more commercial development than the initiative. She said the areas that the council is attempting to exempt are “where people said they want development” during the preparation of the city’s community development plans.

But Yaroslavsky said, “Let’s get to the root issue . . . it is an effort to get around Proposition U.” Predicting that the exemptions of commercial areas would be challenged in court, Yaroslavsky told his colleagues, “You can’t get away with it. There’s going to be legal action and it will be messy and embarrassing to all of us.”