L.A.'s Anti-Density Advocate Still Hopes to Make Planners 'Uncomfortable'

Jill Stewart, former journalist and current executive director of the Coalition to Preserve L.A., gave a wide-ranging interview to Curbed Los Angeles in which she opines that "Metro is backfiring," critiques the new Hollywood Community Plan, and promotes retrofitting empty city buildings to house homeless residents because the crisis is "our Katrina."

Stewart was one of the architects of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative—later Measure S—which was controversially anti-development but raised awareness about L.A.’s outdated planning process before being soundly defeated at the polls last year.

Given that her last initiative pushed city leaders to reexamine how L.A. plans, as Elena Eden wrote about an interview Stewart gave two years ago, “Agree or disagree, anyone invested in the future of planning in Los Angeles should consider [it] essential reading.”