Council Sharply Curbs Growth in Hollywood : Approves New Plan to Restrict Commercial and Residential Development Over 23 Square Miles

In a far-reaching bid to prevent revitalization efforts in Hollywood from overrunning the community, the Los Angeles City Council gave final approval Tuesday to a plan that sharply restricts commercial and residential development over the next 20 years.

The new Hollywood Community Plan affects a 23-square-mile area that encompasses the commercial heart of Hollywood as well as neighboring residential hillsides and flatlands. While the plan focuses on an area outside the smaller 1,100-acre downtown Hollywood redevelopment area, it imposes new restrictions within that area, too.

The plan, a revision of the community’s 1973 plan, serves as a blueprint for development in Hollywood by setting limits on the size and height of new projects, downzoning some properties and designating certain areas for commercial or residential growth.

Growth Rates Slashed

Throughout Hollywood, the new plan cuts by one-third the residential growth permitted in the old plan, and reduces commercial growth by two-thirds.

City officials said they tried to strike a balance between the need to revitalize Hollywood and the desire to protect residential areas from worsening traffic problems. Without the new restrictions, officials said, residential neighborhoods would have faced widespread encroachment by commercial development and already congested intersections would have approached gridlock.

“We tried to find some way to get control of the situation while at the same time not killing off the natural market forces that seem to be pushing development in the direction of Hollywood,” said Hollywood-area Councilman Michael Woo. “It is a very complicated contradiction between trying to promote certain forms of development while trying to minimize others.”

The plan has been supported by most homeowner organizations in the area, but some residents have complained that it does not go far enough in limiting development. Local business leaders say it will hurt their efforts to pump new life into the community.

“It could create some roadblocks to the rejuvenation of a community that badly needs it,” said Bill Welsh, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “By its action, the City Council may be saying, ‘Wait a minute, Hollywood, try to get along as you are.’ ”

The plan, unanimously approved by the council, not only restricts commercial growth, but also funnels most of that growth into “clusters” in downtown Hollywood and near the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. Commercial development outside those areas has been set aside for neighborhood-related businesses only.

The plan virtually prohibits large multi-unit apartment buildings outside of the redevelopment area. It was community outrage over a rash of new apartment buildings three years ago that prompted city officials to begin revising the earlier plan.

City planners estimate that the new plan will allow Hollywood to grow by 100,000 fewer residents over the next 20 years. Under the 1973 plan, the community’s population was expected to reach about 330,000 residents, compared to 231,000 envisioned now. According to city statistics, 205,000 people currently live in Hollywood.

In the more limited redevelopment area, the plan reduces potential commercial development from 45 million square feet to 24 million, although developers will be able to build larger projects with special city permission. Boundaries of the redevelopment zone are near Vermont Avenue on the east, Santa Monica Boulevard and Fountain Avenue on the south, La Brea Avenue on the west and Franklin Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard on the north.

Two years ago, the City Council approved a redevelopment plan for that section that is separate--and smaller in scope--from the community plan. Plans for the smaller redevelopment area fueled intense controversy over how much new building should be allowed.

In creating the redevelopment zone, city officials, joined by builders and commercial interests, sought to revitalize a community in decline since the heyday of Hollywood as a thriving entertainment capital. But residents, especially those living near Hollywood Boulevard, resisted the buildup.

They feared an onslaught of new construction would overwhelm their neighborhoods. Many challenged the motives of property owners and planners and now are locked in a legal dispute with the redevelopment agency over the validity of the zone.

No Amendments

City planning officials said, however, that the redevelopment project was not an obstacle in revising the broader community plan since the new restrictions do not impinge on the redevelopment guidelines. As a result, they said, the redevelopment plan will not need to be changed or amended because of Tuesday’s council action.

Cooke Sunoo, project manager for the Hollywood redevelopment project, said the lower densities mandated in the revised community plan actually reflect proposals now being submitted by developers to the redevelopment agency. He described the new plan as highly significant because for the first time it sets realistic development goals for Hollywood.

“It starts to recognize the actual potential of development as contrasted with some earlier planners’ dreams that envisioned much denser development,” Sunoo said. “Those earlier planners’ dreams would have overdeveloped the Hollywood area.”

Even so, the community plan does not close the door entirely on higher density development in the redevelopment area. At Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, for example, the plan allows developers to build projects three times the size of their lots, down from six times under the 1973 plan. But if developers meet certain design and transportation requirements, they could get permission from the City Council to build 4 1/2 times the size of their lots. And if the council decides the development meets certain public needs, it could grow as large as six times.

Local Limits

Michael Davies, one of the city planners who worked on the revised plan, said the Hollywood plan is the first in the city that places restrictions on growth by taking into account the limits of local streets, sewers, storm drains, schools and police and fire protection. In the past, he said, the city’s 35 community plans mapped out growth with the expectation that the so-called infrastructure would fall into place.

“This community plan sought from its inception to relate development capacity to the very real constraints which exist in urbanized areas of the city such as Hollywood,” Davies said.

The community plan revision, three years in the making, was in large part a tedious review of more than 500 so-called sub-areas designated by the Planning Department. At numerous public hearings and meetings, dozens of residents and property owners asked for specific changes to zoning and plan designations--everything from higher height limits for several movie and television studios to requests to spare historic homes.

Opposed by Many

Many property owners--both residential and commercial--opposed downzoning, while others complained the plan would “Manhattanize” the community by allowing high-density commercial centers in downtown and east Hollywood. The plan was originally scheduled for final City Council approval in October, but last-minute changes sent it back to the Planning Department for further revision.

City officials said they will now turn their attention to a transportation plan for Hollywood, which is required by the community plan. The transportation plan will recommend better ways to move traffic through Hollywood and accommodate growth over the next two decades.