Los Angeles Planning Reforms Respond to Measure S

Los Angeles Councilmember José Huizar, who chairs the Planning and Land Use Committee, is behind the city's new framework to update its 35 community plans every six years. In The Planning Report, he explains how the move was spurred by the fierce debate over the upcoming Measure S, and how the city's reform program—although it has not yet secured a source of funding—serves to "rebuke" the points behind the March 7 ballot measure.

While taking up a central premise of the measure—that the city's general and community plans must be updated—Huizar believes the proposal's temporary moratorium on plan exemptions would be detrimental to economic development and job creation.

"The good thing about Measure S is that it brought light to the city’s need to update its community plans ... The bad thing about Measure S is the two-year moratorium. Not only will it slow down development and growth in our Downtown area, but it will not allow us to manage that growth over two years. Passing Measure S will bring more chaos to the system it wants to fix."

Huizar also describes the "astronomical" growth of investment in Downtown, which is part of his district, and his plans to make the area friendlier to families, pedestrians, and the entertainment industry.

Downtown’s own community plan is being updated right now; the DTLA2040 Community Plan Update is coupled with the pilot of recode.LA, the effort to update and simplify the zoning code citywide.