Council Bid to Waylay Prop. U Hits Legal Snag

A new legal obstacle is threatening the Los Angeles City Council’s controversial effort to head off some effects of the slow-growth initiative on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The council is attempting to pass an ordinance to dilute the initiative before it can be approved by the voters. But Monday, two advocates of the slow-growth ballot measure disclosed that city officials had not given adequate public notice of a required hearing on the ordinance. The hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Unless critics of the initiative find a way around the new obstacle, it could mean a dead end for their legislative counteroffensive, which has already cost the city more than $18,000.

‘Loophole’ Ordinances

The authors of the ballot initiative, council members Marvin Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky, revealed the public notice snafu at a City Hall news conference. They called on City Hall critics of the initiative to abandon attempts to enact what they describe as “loophole” ordinances.

“This is an open-and-shut case,” Yaroslavsky said of the notice error. “This is not a judgment case. It is a flagrant violation.” Some such legal error was inevitable, the councilmen said, because City Council and Planning Commission critics of the initiative have been trying to ram through in just a few weeks decisions that would normally take months of study and hearings.

“If they want to abide by the law, they have to drop this idea (of hurried legislation),” Yaroslavsky said.

Critics of the initiative were unsure of their next step. Daniel Garcia, president of the Planning Commission, conceded that the notice problem was a “pretty big mistake,” but called the statements by Yaroslavsky and Braude “very premature.”

“We may have to give this whole thing up,” Garcia said.

The city attorney’s office last Friday advised council members that the ordinance should not be adopted unless public notice is given, as required by law. Garcia said he and City Council President Pat Russell, another growth limit initiative critic, wanted another opinion from the city attorney before deciding whether to drop their effort. “The relevant question, given that defect, is, can we defend this action in court if someone sues? . . . I don’t know the answer. . . .”

If the council is forced to comply with legal public notice requirements, approval of its ordinance would be delayed until after the election and would foil the whole purpose of the effort, which is to put 12% of the city’s 29,000 acres of commercial property out of the initiative’s reach before the measure’s expected passage.

The initiative, Proposition U, would cut by half the size of buildings allowed on more than 70% of the commercial and industrial property in the city, excluding areas reserved for intense high-rise development such as downtown, the Wilshire corridor and Hollywood. It has broad-based support among suburban homeowners groups.

The measure’s critics, led by Russell and including development interests, have claimed that the initiative is too sweeping and could jeopardize economic prosperity and jobs.

Many critics were convinced that a political campaign to defeat the measure was a lost cause. Attention focused instead on getting pre-election legislation passed that would curb its effects.

One ordinance that would, like the initiative, limit commercial growth has been approved by the council. But it also attempts to set aside far more areas for intense commercial development, including about 200 individual commercial projects and more than 30 additional commercial centers.

A second, more controversial ordinance--the subject of both Thursday’s hearing and the notice problem--is the heart of the council’s strategy. It is believed to be the largest single legislative effort of its kind, a massive proposal to give thousands of commercial properties from San Pedro to Pacoima new zoning designations that would would remove them from the initiative’s limits.

City law requires a 24-day notice for zoning hearings, with one notice sent to affected property owners and another published in a newspaper. City planners, in their hurry to prepare for the meeting, were 10 days late in publishing the newspaper legal notice.

Ironically, the hastily arranged hearing, for which 56,000 notices were mailed to affected property owners, was scheduled after earlier warnings by the city attorney’s office that the council was pushing through the exemptions without adequate public participation.