Mayor Unveils L.A. Growth Management Plan

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley on Tuesday proposed a $1.8-million growth management plan designed to give a new sense of unity and purpose to the city’s patchwork of strategies for dealing with growth amid traffic congestion, overburdened sewers, housing shortages and air pollution.

Bradley, who has been criticized in the past for reacting to those issues only when it was politically expedient to do so, caught many people by surprise Tuesday with a plan that seemed to come out of the blue.

“What we need now is comprehensive approach to growth management,” the mayor said.

His proposal received a mixed reaction.

City Planning Director Kenneth Topping called it “a new vision for the city.”

“It’s comforting to see that Mayor Bradley has finally got that slow-growth religion,” said Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who became a beacon for the city’s anti-growth movement during her successful election campaign two years ago.

Other people withheld judgment or said the mayor’s proposal appeared to duplicate policies already on the books.

“If it’s going to provide some unified vision as to what this city is going to look like in the next 20 years, then it is good,” said Dan Garcia, a former head of the city Planning Commission and a strong supporter of Bradley. “If it is just another layer of red tape that is going to restrict what property owners can do with their land, then it’s bad.”

Laura Lake, a member of the UCLA faculty and a leader of the city’s slow-growth movement, said: “My concern is that the city has wonderful plans and laws that it violates every day. Another plan, no matter how visionary it is, won’t change things unless there is a greater effort at enforcement.”

The City Council must vote on the appropriation to draft the proposed plan. If approved, the drafting process is expected to take about 18 months and cost an estimated $1.8 million. Final approval of the plan must also come from the council.

Bradley proposed the growth management plan at a joint press conference with City Councilmen Hal Bernson and John Ferraro. Neither is known as a close ally of Bradley or as a staunch advocate of growth control. However, the impetus for the growth management plan came from Bernson, who first proposed it to the council last year.

“We have had the reputation as a strictly reactionary city, reacting to lawsuits or political pressure when it came to planning,” Bernson said. “This (plan) is a chance to be proactive to show we have taken the helm and are really sailing.”

Bernson also pointed out that the proposed plan represents the city’s response to the urging of civic groups, such as the LA 2000 Partnership, that the city must put together a plan that encompasses the entire range of urban concerns from air quality to economic development to waste disposal to public safety.

“Unless we look at the interconnection of all the issues facing us, we won’t plan properly,” said Jane Pisano, president of the partnership. Pisano said she had not reviewed the mayor’s proposal.

Offering few specific new ideas, the proposal is meant as a policy umbrella bringing together a host of existing approaches that have been developed separately over the years to deal with the city’s deteriorating quality of life.

Perhaps the most important goal of the growth management plan, according to Planning Director Topping, who was present at the mayor’s conference, is “to actively guide development to areas of the city where it can be best accommodated and away from neighborhoods where it would have a negative impact because of traffic or because of a lack of affordable housing.”

Additionally, the purpose of the plan, said its sponsors, is to reduce traffic, protect the tranquillity of single-family neighborhoods, revitalize those neighborhoods where residents say they want more economic development and encourage the location of “urban amenities,” such as shops, restaurants and theaters, in densely developed parts of town that sometimes lack retail street life.

Moreover, the plan is supposed to establish “a framework for determining how controversial projects such as waste disposal transfer stations, low-income housing and, in some instances, schools and parks may be fairly distributed through the city,” according to a statement released by Bernson’s office.

Topping said the plan would make use of a variety of strategies, including a sewer permit allocation ordinance that allows the City Council to influence the direction of growth by limiting new sewer hookups; a jobs/housing ratio--as yet undetermined--meant to create enclaves of homes and offices that will reduce the number of commuters, and a proposal “to phase growth so it is in balance with the city’s existing and planned infrastructure.”

Topping said two studies will be conducted in the process of developing the plan. One will look at the impact of growth in various parts of town on transportation, he said, and the other study will examine the city’s economic base and say how the economy might be affected by growth restraints or incentives.

LOS ANGELES GROWTH RESTRICTION MEASURES 1986--A transitional heights ordinance establishes requirements for height gradations between single-family and commercial neighborhoods. 1987--Traffic Reduction and Improvement Plan (TRIP) ordinance establishes the framework for identifying congested areas and developing plans to accommodate increased traffic capacity. 1988--An interim sewer permit allocation ordinance limits new building to levels that can be handled by existing treatment facilities. January, 1989--Various city departments update the Air Quality Contingency Plan and give more than 60 proposals to the City Council. January, 1989--A mini-mall ordinance includes design criteria for malls and increases parking requirements to reduce the impact on neighborhoods. July, 1989--Under a “good neighbor policy,” the city begins to notify nearby cities and the county of major planning projects to allow for comment and review of land-use and transportation issues affecting the outlying communities. September, 1989--The Planning and Land-Use Management Committee recommends a site plan review ordinance that will require environmental review for buildings of 40,000 square feet or more and conditional-use permits for buildings of 100,000 square feet or more.