Planning in LA is On a Roll

It's been a good week for the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, after completing a decade long effort to develop an updated community plan for Hollywood, the City Council approved the Comprehensive Zoning Code Revision Ordinance, which "provides five years of funding for Planning Department staff to overhaul the zoning code using money from the Construction Services Trust Fund (a city fund that generates revenues through the General Fund Maintenance Fee)," reports James Brasuell. 

As Brasuell notes, the zoning code revision was far less divisive than the Hollywood community plan, with industry groups and homeowners both supporting a comprehensive update to the city's nearly 70-year-old code.  

"The zoning code revision is part of a larger Planning Department effort to streamline the development approval process. (If you really want to know, the Multiple Approvals Ordinance, Core Findings Ordinance, the Community Plan Implementation Ordinance, and the Development Services Case Management Office are also included in what the city is calling the Development Reform Strategic Plan.) As Deputy Planning Director Alan Bell explained in April, those earlier ordinances were incremental, targeted steps taken to improve the most problematic parts of the Zoning Code, 'a down payment on a comprehensive effort to reform the code,' so now the heavy lifting begins."