Council OKs Local Panels to Monitor Land Usage

The Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved the creation of neighborhood advisory panels that could wield unprecedented citizen influence over determining land-use policies throughout the city.

Officials predicted that the panels, to be appointed by members of the City Council, will eventually have the kind of clout that many in the slow-growth movement believe was missing when large developments that ushered in traffic and congestion were approved.

The new panels will be similar to advisory committees that operated on a temporary basis over the last two decades. But unlike the earlier committees, these will be permanent panels whose members could become well-versed in the complex land-use issues and wield influence in each of the 35 areas they will serve.

Their main duty will be the updating and revision of 35 community plans that make up the city’s master plan of development. A 1985 court ruling requires the city to closely adhere to the community plans, which city officials had previously tended to treat as merely vague guidelines for development.

Lack of Specifics

Although many City Council members expressed reservations about the committee plan, it ultimately was approved 11 to 1. Most of the objections centered on lack of specifics--for example, whether the panels, officially known as Community Planning Advisory Committees, will have a voice in shaping individual building projects.

But City Planning Director Kenneth Topping said that specifics will come later and hailed the experiment as a “significant day in the history of Los Angeles.”

“Essentially, if this action goes forward,” Topping said before the council vote, “it is a commitment on the part of the legislative body of this city to go into a period of permanent citizen input through a structure that will ultimately cover the whole city, area by area.”

Planning officials said the first of the panels could be formed by the end of the coming summer.

City Councilman Hal Bernson, whose West San Fernando Valley district uses advisory panels on a variety of issues, sponsored the new plan and said it would heighten citizen participation in crucial problems facing the city.

Opportunity for Input

“People need an opportunity to have, early on, input with their elected representatives and the elected representative needs that input also because it gives (them) the opportunity to know what is the sentiment in the community,” Bernson said. The new panels represent a hybrid of ideas by Mayor Tom Bradley, the city Planning Commission and several members of the City Council that were prompted by the 1985 court ruling as well as the passage of the slow-growth initiative, Proposition U, in 1986.

Several council members expressed reservations about the effectiveness of the new panels. Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, while voting for the creation of the new committees, said they should have even a greater say in the city’s future. Yaroslavsky also said that the mayor should have a voice in the selection of the panels.

“This is a far cry from what many, many people were searching for,” said Yaroslavsky, a co-sponsor of Proposition U and a likely candidate for mayor next year.

Bernson’s Planning Committee agreed, however, that the individual council members should appoint the panels without the mayor’s involvement. Bernson said the mayor has enough authority as is over land use, with his appointment of the Planning Commission, his selection of the planning director and his power of veto over council-approved projects. Councilman Ernani Bernardi cast the one vote against the new committees, saying they would make the planning process too parochial.