EIR Review Panel Called Out of Balance : Growth: Critics say board studying new procedures should be scrapped because only one of 11 members represents homeowners.
An 11-member committee set up to recommend improvements to Los Angeles’ often controversial environmental review process has only one bona fide representative of homeowner interests--a fact homeowner leaders call outrageous.
The homeowner activists also note that the committee was created after developers complained about a new city policy, which weakened the influence builders could wield over the environmental review of their projects.
“This isn’t fair,” said Barbara Fine, a vice president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., the city’s oldest homeowner federation. “It amounts to stacking the deck.”
Gordon Murley, federation president, said he will demand that the city’s new planning director, Con Howe, whose appointment was confirmed Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council, scrap the panel and revamp its membership.
“It’ll be a test of whether Mr. Howe is going to be an independent planning director or a tool of the mayor’s office,” Murley said.
The advisory panel was established by Melanie Fallon, then the city’s acting planning director, after the building industry and the city’s Planning Commission loudly objected to a directive Fallon signed and unveiled Dec. 31, outlining new procedures for preparing environmental impact reports on major building projects.
The most controversial of the proposed procedures called for city planning officials to regulate all contacts between developers and the private consultants they hire to do the reviews. Under the city’s procedures, the reports are primarily prepared by these consultants and reviewed later for objectivity by city planners.
Fallon, seeking to still the uproar over her efforts to be appointed permanent planning director, rescinded the guidelines within days.
In late January, before Howe was named director, Fallon agreed to set up the advisory panel to help draft the department’s new guidelines.
The lone homeowner representative on the panel, which is meeting weekly for the next two months to draft environmental guidelines, is Bill Christopher, coordinator of PLAN/LA, an umbrella group of homeowners from throughout the city.
Among the committee members are two prominent developers: Nelson Rising, an executive with Maguire Thomas Partners, involved in developing the huge Playa Vista project in Marina del Rey, and Brian Weinstock, a major Southland home builder. Among two developer attorneys is Cindy Starrett with the firm of Latham & Watkins, which represents major builders in Central City West and Warner Center.
Also on the panel are lobbyists and developer representatives, such as Paul Clarke, who most recently handled public relations for the giant Porter Ranch project in the San Fernando Valley; Gary L. Morris, a consultant who represents Warner Center property owners in the Valley; and Dwight Steinert, a consultant with Engineering Technology, which represents developers.
Fallon acknowledged naming the panelists on the Ad Hoc Task Force on EIR Procedures committee and said she struggled hard to make sure it was balanced. Morris and Starrett said they agreed that the panel was balanced.
Christopher, Mayor Tom Bradley appointee to the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals, refused to comment when pressed to say whether he believed the panel was balanced.
