Plan to Weaken Growth Proposal OKd by Council

A divided Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday gave final approval to the first of two legislative attempts intended to lessen the effects of an initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot that would limit commercial development over most of the city.

On an 8-4 vote after a new round of contentious debate, the council approved and rushed to Mayor Tom Bradley an ordinance that would become effective a few days before the public votes on the initiative.

Supporters of the ordinance claim it represents a balanced and reasonable alternative to the initiative, Proposition U, which would cut in half the size of new buildings allowed on most of the commercial property in the city.

The debate represents the deep differences on the council, as elsewhere, over how the future of Los Angeles is best served, whether by sharply curbing future commercial building, as the backers of the initiative favor, or by allowing greater leeway for commercial development to expand.

The ordinance, like the initiative, would roll back the size of buildings allowed on much of the city’s commercial property. But unlike the initiative, it provides for exemptions for more than 200 individual projects and more than 30 additional commercial areas in the city.

Council President Pat Russell, who has led the push for the ordinance, mounted her strongest attack yet on the initiative, charging that its sweeping building limits amount to a “complete dismissal of our economic responsibilities” to provide jobs and revitalize aging commercial districts.

However, the two council members who authored the initiative, Zev Yaroslavsky and Marvin Braude, charged that the ordinance is part of a strategy to undermine the initiative and create “special-interest exemptions.”

“Mrs. Russell, who are you trying to fool?” Braude asked. “This is a loophole ordinance.”

The initiative’s backers have argued that exemptions from the building limits should only be considered on a case-by-case basis after the election. The so-called “Neighborhood Protection Ordinance” approved Wednesday was the less controversial of a two-part package being pushed by Russell with the backing of her council allies, Bradley, the city Planning Commission and business and development interests.

The city attorney’s office has advised the council that if the initiative passes, the exemptions approved Wednesday would probably be wiped out.

As a result, Russell is attempting to produce before the election a second, more hotly contested ordinance that would give the exemptions stronger legal protection. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of commercial properties would be assigned new zoning designations not subject to the provisions of the initiative. Zoning designations are bureaucratic labels that determine what can be built on a particular property.

City planners say the second ordinance will be the most extensive and most hurried single rezoning effort in memory. After working Saturday and Sunday on overtime at a cost of $5,500, members of the planning staff met a Monday deadline to mail out more than 56,000 public hearing notices to property owners throughout the city. The notices went to owners of property that would be rezoned and to other property owners nearby.

A one-day Planning Commission public hearing on the rezonings, affecting properties from San Pedro to Pacoima, is scheduled Oct. 23 at the Van Nuys Women’s Club.

“That’s going to be some spectacle,” Yaroslavsky said.

The rezoning ordinance will be given preliminary approval by the council the day after the hearing and final approval on Halloween--four days before the election.

Two weeks ago, the council tried to rezone the same properties without notifying affected property owners or holding public hearings. However, it backed down after the city attorney’s office said the action was illegal.

Whether the latest effort will be an adequate public hearing process for such a large action will have to be determined afterward by the courts, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office said.