Westside Growth Rate Lags Behind Rest of County

The population of the Westside, birthplace of Los Angeles’ slow-growth movement, has increased by about 79,000 since 1980, a pace considerably slower than the rest of the county, according to a new study.

Though boosted by a flurry of apartment construction, especially in Westwood and Hollywood, the Westside’s population increased just 8.2%, to 1.05 million, in the eight years ending in January, 1988, county analysts say.

By comparison, the countywide population increased by 930,091, or 12.4%, the county Department of Regional Planning reported recently.

May Surprise Residents

The Westside’s relatively slow rate of growth may surprise residents in areas such as Palms, Mar Vista and Brentwood, who have seen apartment buildings replace many single-family homes in their neighborhoods.

County analyst Terry Bills, a Mar Vista resident, was so struck by the new figures, that he double-checked them, he said.

“The data is right. It’s simply that when we live close to construction, we tend to see it as more pervasive than it is,” he said.

For example, Bills said that near his home is a street “that used to be one long block of single-family homes. In nine months, there literally were only three left. The rest had been replaced by three-story apartment buildings.”

Though growth was often modest, every Westside community--except Marina del Rey--increased in population through 1987. And preliminary figures suggest the trend probably continued through 1988.

The entire county grew by at least 120,000 people last year, say county analysts, who base their estimates primarily on building and demolition permits.

“Many of the Westside units that I see when driving around may not have been on line for the (January, 1988) count,” Bills said. “I expect to see them pushing up the 1988 figures.”

Those figures, however, are not likely to match the growth that resulted from the construction spurt of the mid-1980s because of restrictions enacted last year by the Los Angeles City Council on development in Hollywood and Westwood. Those two areas accounted for more than half of the Westside’s population increase in the 1980s.

Hollywood grew by 15.1%, or 29,061 residents, thousands of whom are Latino and Armenian immigrants, say city and county officials. That population increase ranked second among the 320 statistical areas into which analysts divide the county.

Westwood Surges

In addition, Hollywood was ranked fifth in new dwellings, with an increase of 6,671 despite a reduction of 100 in single-family homes. In the last half of 1987 alone, 3,786 new apartments were built, Bills said.

Westwood also ranks among the fastest-growing areas in the county this decade, its population surging by 22% to 60,868. Its comfortable, small-city character has been altered as homes and duplexes have been replaced by apartments and condominiums.

In eight years, the number of Westwood’s single-family homes dropped by 126 to 7,753, while multifamily units grew from 17,565 to 22,279, the county reported. About 1,150 apartments were completed during the last half of 1987 as community anger over change came to a head. In January, 1988, the City Council cut in half the number of apartments and condominiums it would allow in Westwood over the next 20 years.

Sandy Brown, a director of Friends of Westwood, which opposes the proliferation of apartments and large office and commercial projects, said the new data supports what she has been seeing for years.

“When you take down a building that normally houses eight residents and replace it with something that houses 22 or 44, then I’m not surprised by this increase,” Brown said.

She cautioned against comparing the Westside’s modest growth rate with those of the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys and Diamond Bar and Walnut in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. Population increases in some of those areas approached 100%.

“They’re building large-scale developments on vacant land, while our complaint is replacing land that is already covered with something with higher density,” she said. “We get hysterical if 10 condos are going in. If you take the same project and put it into another part of the county, they’re shocked that (it) would concern us.”

The problem for the Westside is not growth, but the lack of sufficient sewers and streets to support it, Brown said. Even the city’s revamped community plans for Westwood and Hollywood do not go far enough to slow apartment and commercial construction.

“I think we’re going to find ourselves with even greater gridlock than we have now, if that’s possible,” Brown said.

Apart from Westwood and Hollywood, the only Westside areas with double-digit percentage growth were Brentwood, Malibu and Palms. The booms in Brentwood and Palms were characterized by a reduction in single-family homes and construction of thousands of new apartments, the county reported.

County figures show that overall, Westside housing stock increased from 471,301 to 497,695 by 1988. But the region’s ratio of single-family homes dipped because apartments accounted for nearly all new housing construction. About 18,000 of the 26,394 new dwellings were apartments in Hollywood, Westwood, Brentwood, Mar Vista and Palms, figures show.

2 Trends Meld

While two Westside cities--Santa Monica and West Hollywood--are among the 10 most crowded in the county, two trends have melded, leaving the size of the average area household below the county average of 2.77, the county reported. The household size is about the same as in 1980, with about 2.1 people per residence.

The replacement of single-family homes with apartments has reduced the number of residents per household while an influx of large immigrant families has increased crowding in some communities, Bills said.

Both trends are evident in Hollywood, he said, “so you have counterbalancing trends.”

While Westside growth has clogged streets and taxed many municipal services, generally it has not resulted in overcrowded schools, a common side product of a swelling population, school officials say.

Culver City, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica/Malibu all show increasing populations but declining school enrollments in the 1980s, school districts report.

Even Los Angeles Unified, which has seen its overall enrollment climb by 75,000 students this decade to about 600,000, had a Westside increase of only about 1% a year from 1980 to 1986, when it peaked at about 75,000. Since then, enrollment has declined, said Jim Whithorne, chief of the district’s maps and boundaries section.

Many students in Westside schools are bused from crowded schools elsewhere, Whithorne said, diminishing the significance of enrollments as a reflection of change in neighborhoods that surround the schools.

“But generally I can say that the major part of our growth is not being experienced on the Westside,” he said. “Whether it’s a modest decline or remaining at the same level, I can’t say.”

POPULATION CHANGES

1980 1988 % Change Adams-La Brea 48,877 52,270 6.9 Marina Expressway (Barnes City) 28,177 29,791 5.7 Bel-Air 7,694 7,720 0.3 Benedict-Coldwater 12,507 13,583 8.6 Beverly Hills 32,646 34,994 7.2 Brentwood Hills 12,639 13,147 4.0 Brentwood/Sawtelle 42,161 47,224 12.0 Crenshaw 66,141 68,442 3.5 Culver City 38,139 39,669 4.0 Hollywood 192,568 221,629 15.1 Malibu, East 5,961 6,949 16.6 Malibu, West 9,953 11,462 15.2 Marina Del Rey 6,693 6,285 -6.1 Mar Vista 57,121 60,297 5.6 West Wilshire 80,259 83,607 4.2 Pacific Palisades 23,447 24,159 3.0 Palms 47,052 52,270 11.1 Santa Monica 88,314 94,112 6.6 Venice 38,282 39,148 2.3 Westchester 41,037 43,827 6.8 West Hollywood 35,703 38,324 7.3 Westwood 49,907 60,868 22.0 Westside Total 966,150 1,045,425 8.2 Countywide 7,477,421 8,407,440 12.4

Source: Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning

WESTSIDE HOUSING

Total Dwellings % Vacancy Rate 1980 1988 1980 1988 Beverly Hills Area 46,605 51,647 7.28 3.80 Hollywood Area 120,572 127,646 5.89 6.78 Malibu Area 6,779 7,460 13.59 5.78 Palisades/San Vicente Area 16,981 17,771 3.88 5.16 Santa Monica/Venice Area 132,143 138,555 5.08 3.83 Adams Area 88,463 91,508 4.00 4.24 West Wilshire Area 41,976 43,304 3.52 4.54 Westside Total 471,301 497,695 Countywide 4.31 4.02

Persons Per Dwelling 1980 1988 Beverly Hills Area 2.05 2.07 Hollywood Area 1.97 2.14 Malibu Area 2.49 2.43 Palisades/San Vicente Area 2.65 2.64 Santa Monica/Venice Area 2.06 2.06 Adams Area 2.26 2.30 West Wilshire Area 1.91 1.93 Westside Total 2.05 2.10 Countywide 2.69 2.77

Source: Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning