L.A. Planning Office Offers Own Plan for San Pedro Growth

The debate over how to govern growth in San Pedro took yet another twist this week, when the Los Angeles Planning Department proposed an interim control ordinance that is significantly different from the one drafted by a citizens committee and Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.

Declared Flores aide Mario Juravich: “You have a whole brand new ballgame here.”

The new version is more streamlined than the Flores proposal, and the hearing examiner who drafted it contends it would be far easier for city officials to enforce.

But the revision is drawing complaints from Flores’ staff and community leaders, who say that in the interest of simplicity, hearing examiner Michael Davies has ignored their chief concern: the demolition of single-family houses to make way for apartments.

Both proposals will be considered by the Los Angeles Planning Commission next Thursday. The commission may choose one or the other, combine elements of the two or reject them both.

The Davies proposal would downzone San Pedro across the board, restricting development evenly throughout the community.

But it discards a key provision of the Flores plan--a requirement that no new apartments be constructed on blocks where at least 50% of the housing stock is composed of single-family homes or apartments.

Critics say that leaves a crucial loophole in the temporary law, which is intended as a stopgap measure while the San Pedro Citizens Advisory Committee considers permanent controls.

“I think that’s a mistake,” said Doug Shepardson, a slow-growth advocate who sits on the citizens committee. “I think he (Davies) is more concerned about staff workload than preserving San Pedro’s single-family home community.”

Said Juravich: “Overall, it (the Davies plan) might mean fewer units in San Pedro as a whole. However, those individual blocks that right now are 50% or more developed with single-family are not protected from additional multifamily. . . .

“I think Joan’s proposal is what our constituency has been asking, stating that this block over here is predominately single-family and duplexes and we want to retain them as such. Joan’s proposal will do that while the alternative will not.”

Financially Unfeasible

Davies, however, said that his proposal will protect single-family neighborhoods by making apartment development financially unfeasible.

The Davies draft has also aroused the ire of developers, who are hollering about a provision that would move up the effective date of the ordinance by more than three weeks--from July 1 to June 6.

Many developers rushed to submit building plans to the city during the last three weeks of June, believing that if they did so by July 1, they could build without having to comply with any new restrictions.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Gordon Inman, a prominent local developer, said of the proposed change. “You can’t do that to people. You can’t give a tentative date of July 1 and say, ‘Now we’re changing it to June 6.’ It’s not reasonable. . . . There’s probably hundreds of thousands of dollars out there invested in this stuff.”

The community outburst over the Planning Department’s proposal sets the stage for a lively hearing next week. Juravich said he expects the councilwoman to instruct him to back her version when the matter comes before the Planning Commission.

Two More Chances

Should the commission ignore Flores’ wishes, she will have two more chances to advocate her views before the ordinance becomes law. The proposal must also be approved by the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, and then by the full council.

The two proposals do have some similarities. Both would remain in effect for a year. Both include a list, submitted by the San Pedro Bay Historical Society, of several hundred buildings that may not be demolished because of their historic or cultural significance. The Davies draft, however, would permit renovation of those buildings, whereas the Flores version would not.

Both drafts also require that new apartment buildings contain no more than four units and both do not allow alleys to be included when a developer is calculating the size of his lot.

But the ordinances are significantly different in their approach to curbing apartment development.

The Flores draft ties density to lot size. On lots totaling 6,000 square feet or more, it would allow builders to develop one unit for every 2,000 square feet of lot space.

For lots smaller than 6,000 square feet, the Flores ordinance would permit apartments only on blocks where single-family homes and duplexes make up less than half the housing stock. On such blocks, builders could erect one apartment for every 1,500 square feet of lot space. On a typical San Pedro lot, that would amount to three units.

Density Tied to Zoning

The Davies draft is far simpler. It ties density to the zoning code.

Under the Davies plan, areas zoned RD2--which now permit apartments--could be developed for duplexes. Areas zoned RD1.5--which permit one apartment per 1,500 square feet--could be developed under the more restrictive RD2 zone, which permits one apartment for every 2,000 square feet. On the standard 5,000-square-foot lot, that would enable a developer to build a duplex.

“My feeling was that those kinds of restrictions fairly effectively dampened development pressure on these neighborhoods,” Davies said.

Juravich and others, including advisory committee chairman Noah Modisett, say that the Davies plan threatens single-family neighborhoods by allowing developers to build apartments there. They note that a builder could put up five units by tying two lots together.

Davies, however, argues that his proposal would deter such development because it calls for a maximum of four units per building. Under his plan, he said, a developer would have two options--both unpalatable. He could build a single-family home and one four-unit apartment house, or build one duplex and one three-unit dwelling.

“I don’t think the economics are there for someone to do that,” he said. “I have confidence in the for-profit housing sector that they take out their calculators and they run the numbers and on that basis, they say yes or no strictly on dollars. And frankly, I don’t think it really works out.”

Plan Called Unworkable

Davies said the Flores plan is unworkable because it would require a member of the planning staff to check the housing stock on any given block each time a permit is issued.

But Juravich said other interim control ordinances in effect elsewhere in Los Angeles require the planning staff to make similar checks. “We are not inventing a new wheel here,” he said.

As for why he switched the cutoff date to June 6, Davies said it is standard planning practice to link the cutoff date to a “milestone date”--for example, the date an ordinance is introduced to the City Council, the date a public hearing is held, or the date the ordinance is approved.

In this case, the nearest milestone dates were June 6, when the ordinance was introduced, and July 10, the date Davies held a public hearing.

Davies said he selected June 6 because he believes that builders and real estate agents had been aware since early April that an interim control ordinance was on the drawing boards. His report cited a community meeting in May, various newspaper articles and an “Urgent Message” published in April by the San Pedro-Wilmington Board of Realtors that warned of controls on building.