How Difficult is Consensus?

The Los Angeles City Planning Commission delayed a vote on several proposed amendments to the city's cultural heritage ordinance because of a lack of consensus among the speakers.

1 minute read

June 15, 2009, 1:00 PM PDT

By Liyuan Huang


Several changes were made to LA's cultural heritage ordinance. These changes would grant the LA Heritage Commission quite a few new authorities. However, among all the 60 speakers who made their voices at the public testimony, only half were for the changes. So LA's City Planning Commission had to delay the vote.

"According to Ken Bernstein, manager of the Historic Resources Commission, the planning commission asked that the parties meet again before July 9, so that "further consensus could be reached." Bernstein, for his part, said that his commission has already made about a dozen changes to the original ordinance to make it more suitable to the business community. "We're not putting in place new requirements that make it difficult for new property owners," he said."

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