Private Deal on Westwood Development Draws Fire : Construction: A review panel member had agreed to drop his appeal of a project’s approval if the builder would add more open space.
The propriety of a private side agreement between one member of the Westwood Design Review Board and developers whose project was reviewed by the group is being called into question by Los Angeles planning commissioners.
One planning official went so far as to say the private covenant “could be construed as blackmail.”
The issue was raised at a recent meeting by Planning Commissioner Ted Stein, who presented a copy of the agreement between design review board member Richard Agay and Westwood developers Jacob, Caroline and Darius Khakshouri. They are building a 17-unit condominium project on Veteran Avenue.
In the agreement, Agay promised he would not appeal his own board’s approval of the project if the developers agreed to provide more open space than the full board had required. Agay disagreed with the board’s decision.
Agay, an attorney, said the agreement, called a covenant, is perfectly legal because he was acting as a private citizen. “The covenant doesn’t run for my benefit. It runs for the benefit of the people of the city of Los Angeles. . . . I just got it done,” Agay said.
Commission members, however, were troubled by the prospects of a design review board member making side agreements with a developer.
Stein termed the practice inappropriate. It “sends out the wrong message for a design review board member . . . to conduct private agreements,” Stein said.
Planning Commission President William Luddy said the agreement implies that developers must not only please the majority of the board, but must also meet the demands of one member with a separate agenda.
“I find it a very distasteful procedure,” Luddy said in an interview.
Citizen review boards, of which there are only a handful in the city, are appointed by their district council members to advise the planning director, who can affirm or modify their recommendations on certain design issues.
The Westwood board was the first such group established by a 1988 city ordinance and is considered the most aggressive. The flap over the private agreement is the latest wrinkle in an ongoing turf war between the Westwood group and city planning officials.
Planning officials are worried that the boards, which many city areas are clamoring for as part of a hands-on, neighborhood effort to manage growth, will usurp the legal authority that should rest with city officials.
Review board members are equally frustrated because they are unwilling to spend many hours studying and debating detailed architectural plans only to have the actual projects changed after the matter leaves their hands. “We want to review projects, not paper,” Agay said.
Deputy Planning Director Bob Sutton said the review board lacks the authority to make covenant agreements with developers, and he questioned the propriety of an individual board member making an agreement. “We don’t support private covenants,” Sutton said. “That could be construed as blackmail.”
Westwood-area Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the author of the design review board ordinance, was unavailable for comment. His planning deputy Ginny Kruger said she saw the Agay agreement as a separate issue from the review board’s ongoing search for a tool to ensure that what gets built is what the board and the planning director approve.
“The goal of the board in my view is absolutely laudable,” Kruger said. As for Agay’s separate agreement, Kruger said, “I think his heart is in the right place.”
Agay’s view on how much open space is required under city guidelines differs from the rest of the board he sits on. After the board approved the project, Agay filed an appeal with the Planning Commission, which he dropped after making the private agreement. An appeal could slow down the permit-granting process.
He has appealed other decisions of his board, but this is the first time he has worked out a separate agreement with developers.
The city attorney’s office has said it is legal for a review board member, acting as a private citizen, to appeal a decision of his own group. But the commission is awaiting the city attorney’s opinion on the legality of the private agreement. Commission President Luddy said the matter may more properly fall within the city’s new ethics law.
Fellow design review board member Ryan Snyder said he was troubled by Agay’s appeals and the private developer agreement. “I think as a board member you have to withdraw yourself from a case or vote on it and stick with what the board does,” Snyder said. “It’s probably not a good idea to be making agreements with a developer outside the board.”
