Picking New Planner Is a Question of Power : City Hall: Council members and the mayor say they want a strong leader. But they are reluctant to give up their own authority.

As the city sets off on a search for a new planning director, Los Angeles officials must confront the politically sensitive question of how much power they are willing to relinquish to a Planning Department that has seldom set the agenda for managing the city’s explosive growth.

For reasons grounded in tradition and political reality, the city’s planning priorities more often than not have been set by forces outside the Planning Department. In the absence of consistent leadership, planning policy has been the product of lawsuits brought against the city, ballot measures, election-year politics by the mayor and City Council members and even legislative mandates from Sacramento.

The departure of planning Director Kenneth C. Topping, announced Tuesday, is seen by some at City Hall as an opportunity to replace an “indecisive” leader and shore up a weak and beleaguered Planning Department. But others, particularly City Council members, are reluctant to give up any authority over the volatile issues of growth and development that can polarize their constituents.

Virtually all agree that the task Topping faced, and his successor must address, was just short of impossible.

“The council members want to have their cake and eat it too,” said Councilman Michael Woo, who has a master’s degree in urban planning. “We want to feel that we have a highly competent Planning Department, but I don’t know if a majority of us would be willing to support a higher level of independence.”

The mayor and the council, Woo added, should look for a director who is willing to say “ ‘no’ to us.”

“Everybody wants to have a strong Planning Department, but everybody wants to be able to tell it what to do in their district,” said Councilman Hal Bernson, chairman of the council’s Planning Committee. “We don’t want someone who’s in anyone’s pocket.”

While Mayor Tom Bradley has not signaled a choice for planning director, aides insisted he will not be looking for a “yes” man.

“The planning director has one of the most difficult jobs in the city,” said Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani. “The mayor will be looking during the national search for person who is tough, who is an independent thinker and who is capable of saying ‘no’ to the council, the mayor, homeowners groups and developers when it is appropriate.”

Such a choice would represent a departure from the current model, critics say. Not only have Topping and his staff often deferred to council members on major projects, at times they have appeared to play second fiddle to powerful developers and their hired consultants.

Topping, who describes himself as “deliberative,” was virtually silent during the heated controversy over one of the largest developments in the city’s history--the vast Porter Ranch commercial and residential project that will rise from the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains in the north San Fernando Valley.

He and his staff are playing only a small role in the dramatic transformation of the Farmer’s Market area, the rustic retail enclave in the Fairfax District. Instead, Bradley and council members from the area are jockeying to take the lead on the project.

The role of private planning consultants in shaping the Porter Ranch and other major projects is troubling to planning experts such as Robert S. Harris, dean of the USC School of Architecture and a frequent adviser to the city.

“The private sector is heavily involved in city planning,” Harris said. “The Planning Department ought to have at least enough resources to make a collaborative effort to protect the public interest.”

Instead of presiding over major developments, the department, in the eyes of its critics, has become mired in incremental planning--neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street--that results in a patchwork of plans and policies, some overlapping and sometimes conflicting.

There was been “neither the time nor the ability to do long-term planning,” Harris said.

Among the neglected issues that his successor will have to face, say Topping’s critics, are formulating a comprehensive strategy for downtown growth, determining where building will take place along new rail lines and devising a policy to encourage more mixed-use development that allows housing, offices and stores to be built side by side.

Instead, the department has been preoccupied with neighborhood issues, usually in response to the demands of City Council members who want quick solutions to development controversies in their districts.

In some cases, council members go so far as to broker their own deals with developers whose projects could have enormous impact on their districts.

One such example is Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s successful effort to find a developer who would respect the wishes of her constituents while developing Playa Vista on the largest piece of vacant land along the city’s coastline. Planned largely by the developer, the result will be a city-within-a-city on more than 670 acres between Marina del Rey and the Westchester bluffs.

Meanwhile, the Planning Department has been reduced to addressing such issues as “where people should park for this restaurant or what hours it should stay open on weekends,” said a council aide long familiar with the department’s operations.

Further complicating the department’s role is the skirmishing that has occurred between the council and the mayor’s office over planning issues.

By tradition, council members have virtually total control over planning matters in their districts because colleagues rarely interfere in one another’s territory. Recently, Bradley has attempted to inject himself into the process as he tries to distance himself from development interests. In the case of Porter Ranch, for example, Bradley sought to reduce the scale of the project.

“The mayor’s role, in general, is to keep track of the big picture and establish citywide goal and objectives for the Planning Department,” said Fabiani. “Sometimes that involves analysis of major projects that have an effect on the quality of life in the city.”

With no clear leadership having emerged on planning issues, the city’s planning policy as often as not is shaped by litigation and politics.

Proposition U, a ballot initiative passed in 1986, placed limits on building height. A homeowner’s group won a court case several years ago to force the city to reconcile its zoning ordinances with its community plans, which often were at odds with each other. Last year, Bradley pushed through a proposal to have all 35 of the city’s community plans revised and updated.

Work on these plans has lagged while the Planning Department struggles under a crippling load of requests for zoning variances, project approvals and other routine matters. Meanwhile, both homeowners groups and developers have found fault with the department’s performance.

“Ken Topping was caught in the cross-fire between the whole pro-development mentality of the City Council and the homeowners who are crying out for controls and limits,” said Gerald Silver, president of the Homeowners Assn. of Encino. “He’s good-natured and a good guy at heart, but he could not survive in that cross-fire and I don’t think anybody can.”

Times staff writers Mathis Chazanov, Jeffrey L. Rabin and John Schwada contributed to this story.