Growth Plans for Los Angeles

In response to “No Growth or All Growth?” editorial, Jan. 16:

Los Angeles is a special city, with unique possibilities. Here in Los Angeles, we take seriously the need for development that is sensitive to the environment and to the principles of good neighborhood planning.

While The Times (in its editorial) has a penchant for wrongly affixing a label of either “pro-development” or a “slow-growth advocate” to a city leader, I feel our city plan to manage and funnel our growth to the areas most in need cannot easily be categorized in either of these positions.

I remain committed, as I have been since I began serving as mayor, to creating jobs for the people of this city. New development is one such way to create employment opportunities. But, when I consider endorsing a proposed project, I look at a number of other factors to determine if it meets my goals for the city.

Any proposed project must be sensitive to its environment, and responsive to the needs of nearby residents. This simple credo was applied to the massive Porter Ranch project and the Santa Monica Airport expansion proposal; both fell short of my expectations, and I raised serious objections.

On Porter Ranch, The Times dismisses my action as not having any impact on the project at all. Well, the editors were certainly not looking at the same before-and-after comparison about the 1,200-acre project that I did.

It was clear the original Porter Ranch plan would significantly increase automobile trips, further degrade our air quality, waste natural resources, and exacerbate our short supply of affordable housing. I raised concrete objections. Within a week, the proposal was substantially re-configured and the specific plan rewritten.

These same criteria, specifically that a project contain the most up-to-date environmental and transportation planning, are applied daily to upcoming projects. As The Times points out, future development sites such as Farmers Market and the Ambassador Hotel will impact many. And I will carefully scrutinize and evaluate both.

In the case of Donald Trump’s announcement regarding the Ambassador Hotel, I have already conveyed my strong feelings to him that any project on that site must factor in the need for additional school space in the nearby area.

Reasonable, managed growth is the only way a city the size of Los Angeles can adapt to the new challenges of a new decade.

My goal has always been to see the city prosper as it grows. While some areas of the city have seen the fruits of this prosperity, others have been left behind. In the future, we will be asking developers to spread the benefits of new growth to other areas of the city. We will, of course, protect those neighborhoods already congested from further overdevelopment.

MAYOR TOM BRADLEY

Los Angeles