Nothing Hits Home Like a Land-Use Controversy : Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick says everyone loses when planning is done by fiefdom. Development should instead be viewed with an eye to its citywide impact.

In my short time on the City Council, I have found that nothing creates controversy like land-use planning issues. As Times articles have reported, some constituents have been protesting my support for a child-care center, a Jack In The Box restaurant and a supermarket in my district.

It has become increasingly clear to me that the contentiousness surrounding these issues stems from the way we conduct the business of planning in Los Angeles.

All too often, a project is thrust upon a community without any neighborhood input and without any notice until a public hearing. The project’s neighbors feel burned and, regardless of the proposal’s merits, dig in their heels. The applicant, baffled by the sudden opposition, lashes out at homeowner groups. Everyone loses.

There is a better way. When developers seek support and input from their neighbors at the front end, there is less conflict and suspicion at the back. If the city prepared real plans at the start, we would avoid constant back-end battles, which have devastating impacts on business.

We can no longer afford heated rhetoric and pitched battles on every development issue. With businesses leaving Southern California and the San Fernando Valley, we cannot continue to pit developers against residents or businesses against homeowners. Los Angeles’ neighbors, from Burbank to Pasadena to Culver City, are out-hustling Los Angeles because they have reached social compacts on the way they will grow and develop. The city of Los Angeles, like these smaller cities, must begin to see land-use planning as a potentially powerful economic development tool.

This means our top priorities should include a compelling citywide vision. In my district, I will soon form Neighborhood Planning Advisory Councils to facilitate such upfront planning. Before supporting a project, I will insist that the developer seek early and substantive input from the neighborhood and the new councils.

My strong belief in community participation was why I introduced a motion that led to the repeal of an ordinance that resulted in citizens being charged thousands of dollars to appeal planning decisions. The city needs to streamline the planning process by putting its own house in order, not by placing unreasonable burdens on citizens.

Apart from involving citizens more broadly in our planning, we elected officials much change our own ways. I said during my campaign that I wanted to “take the politics out of planning.” For years, Los Angeles’ land-use planning has been done in 15 City Council fiefdoms, where sound principles of balanced growth frequently lose out to the prevailing political winds.

But a Los Angeles in crisis needs leadership, not followership. I will not make land-use decisions simply by holding my finger to the wind. Of course I will not ignore public sentiment. I will listen hard to the arguments and base decisions not on potential votes but on the substance of all legitimate concerns.

While I will always emphasize community involvement, I will also emphasize to community groups that their involvement must be leavened with a sense of balance and realistic expectations. At a time when jobs are fleeing the Valley, the old not-in-my-backyard arguments and no-growth yearnings simply are untenable. Like it or not, the Valley can never again revert to the Valley of the 1950s. Some change is inevitable, and we can accommodate change while maintaining high standards. I will frequently press community activists to expand their world view--to assess issues not only from the viewpoint of their own neighborhoods but through the lens of the broader, diverse community to which they also belong.

When I decided to support the child-care center and the supermarket, for example, I listened carefully to the arguments of more than 100 vehement opponents of each project, both individually and in public meetings I organized. In the end, however, I decided that I simply could not agree with these opponents.

Obviously, I would prefer to be popular among all of my constituents. But I supported these proposals because I felt that they provided important services to the broader community and believed I had thoroughly addressed their impacts.

With a new generation of Valley leadership and a new spirit at City Hall, I look forward to starting anew in reforming the city’s planning procedures--a fresh start that will allow us to inject into the process early and substantive community involvement, mixed with a dose of realistic expectations and tough decision-making.