General Information About the Contents of This File

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE CONTENTS OF THIS FILE

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S CON r= ARY SU ~ IISSIONS

August 23, 2021

Samantha Millman, President City Planning Commission 200 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012

Re: Comments on DTLA 2040 Community Plan Update

Dear President Millman and Honorable Commissioners,

Established in 1924, Central City Association is an advocacy organization committed to DTLA’s vibrancy and increasing opportunity in the region. We are a membership organization comprised of over 300 members who have played a leading role in transforming Downtown Los Angeles and our city by building over 17,000 units of new housing, and more than 6.6 million square feet of office and retail space and 3,600 hotel rooms that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of tax revenue dollars to the City.1 We have been deeply engaged on the DTLA 2040 Community Plan Update since it’s initiation in 2014. We are committed to ensuring that it advances DTLA’s robust and inclusive growth and serves as a model for other areas in the city that are proximate to transit.

We acknowledge that the Commission may continue this item again in response to a request from Councilmembers, but offer this letter to highlight new issues that have been raised since the June 17, 2021 hearing and to further clarify comments we submitted previously. The numerous detailed items and recommendations we raised in our June 7, 2021 letter still remain, but we are providing additional comments regarding the timing of the plan, the concept of inclusionary zoning and in response to the August 2021 Supplemental CPC Staff Recommendation Report. We have also submitted a letter to City Planning highlighting the relationship between the Housing Element and DTLA 2040 to stress the importance of the two plans working in tandem to meet our Regional Housing Needs Assessment requirements.

Timing of DTLA 2040

There has been a significant investment of City resources to craft DTLA 2040 and conduct the associated community outreach. DTLA 2040 is a complex plan, and it is the first in the city to implement the new citywide zoning code and to establish a comprehensive Community Benefits Program (CBP). The CBP is central to DTLA 2040 and all the environmental review, financial feasibility analysis and public input to date has been predicated upon it.

DTLA 2040 was initiated in 2014 and made serious progress in 2019 and 2020 with the release of the plan text, interactive zoning map, CBP feasibility study and Draft EIR. City staff and a broad range of DTLA stakeholders have dedicated substantial time and energy to preparing and reviewing these items.

It is no small task to complete a Community Plan and we know that updating our long-range planning codes, like Community Plans and General Plan Elements, is vital for our City to move away from

1 https://www.ccala.org/what-we-do/member-development-projects/

politicized project-by-project review. Mayor Garcetti recognized this by issuing Executive Directive No. 19 in March 2017, which directed all 35 Community Plans and all elements of the General Plan to be updated within six years, which came as a response to Measure S, the failed development moratorium ballot initiative stoked by a lack of transparency in the development approval process. The timely adoption of Community Plans supports responsible city growth and depoliticizes approval of development projects by setting an areawide vision and framework for the future – this is an important element that we recommend the Commission consider in its deliberations and action on DTLA 2040.

Concept of Inclusionary Zoning

Inclusionary zoning became an available tool to the City in 2017 and has been discussed as a way of potentially increasing affordable housing with new development since then. Relatedly, the City established the Affordable Housing Linkage Fee in December 2017 that is levied on new developments to encourage projects to include affordable housing by exempting them from the fee, and to otherwise generate a flexible source of funds to accomplish a wide range of affordability goals. In July this year the city allocated $100,000 to obtain a feasibility study and potential framework on a citywide inclusionary housing policy. That study will be underway shortly and is estimated to take approximately six months to complete.

We are aware that policy makers are now considering removing the Community Benefits Program (CBP) from DTLA 2040 and replacing it with an inclusionary zoning policy, although there are currently no details available on how the plan would be structured under that scenario. Imposing inclusionary zoning only in DTLA may create an uneven playing field and constrain growth where it is most appropriate, while also likely delaying the adoption of DTLA 2040 as it would almost certainly require a new financial feasibility analysis. We are concerned that this significant change may further delay DTLA 2040 indefinitely thereby undermining the City’s long-term planning commitments made after Measure S and impact the City’s ability to meet its tremendous Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) requirements, of which DTLA 2040 is a major component as 20 percent of the City’s future housing growth.

We are supportive of efforts to simplify planning rules and streamline mixed-income and affordable housing in DTLA, but it is paramount for DTLA 2040 to be adopted swiftly, fairly and provide certainty to all DTLA stakeholders to create a feasible path to robust growth to meet our housing needs.

August 2021 Supplemental CPC Staff Recommendation Report

We appreciate City Planning Staff’s continually thorough analysis of the many complex aspects of DTLA 2040 in the August 2021 Supplemental CPC Staff Recommendation Report. There are several items raised in the Supplemental Report that we have consistently commented on and would like to offer our responses and further clarify our comments on these issues.

Arts District, Fashion District, Industrial Zoning and Schools

In our prior letters, we have emphasized the importance that DTLA 2040’s approach to currently industrially-zoned areas should not be tied to conceptions of the past as job-intensive industrial uses

have largely left DTLA and are not poised to return. Instead, we believe the plan should be forward- looking by enabling a broad mix of uses, including all kinds of multifamily housing, and not imposing highly specific requirements (like commercial FAR requirements in the Arts and Fashion Districts) in areas currently zoned for industrial uses as we have seen DTLA’s economic vitality and dynamism over the past two decades be closely connected to its increased livability overall. While the plan’s approach to the Arts and Fashion Districts is an improvement from the current zoning that exists for those areas today, we believe the Supplemental Report misses important details that the CPC should consider:

• Live/work units may not support in-unit production or economic activity, and the limitation might only have the impact of constraining future housing to a small share of high-end lofts. Live/work units with an average minimum size of 1,000 square feet are currently the only allowable housing type for mixed-income and market-rate developments in the Arts District under DTLA 2040. This restriction is premised on the supposition that live/work units support business operations, but there are no data points shown to support this, only an assumption. Moreover, 1,000 square feet per unit is large and live/work units have unique spacing requirements, making each unit more expensive while also limiting the number of units that can fit within the building envelope (for example, double the number of 500 square foot units can fit within the same allowable FAR as 1,000 square foot units). The Supplemental Report cites the existence of live/work units in the Arts District today – the City should analyze whether these units support jobs and/or pay City business taxes, or whether they are predominantly used solely as residences. Decisionmakers should have the data and know whether this policy works before cementing it for 20 years.

• It’s a missed opportunity to allow micro-units only in 100% affordable developments. Allowing micro-units only in 100% affordable projects forgoes a main benefit of micro-units: they are naturally-occurring affordable housing since they have lower market-rate rents per unit and don’t require public subsidy. The vast majority of 100% affordable projects are infeasible without public subsidy. An Urban Land Institute study found that monthly rents for micro-units are typically 25% to 30% below conventional units.2 Not allowing micro-units by requiring large live/work units in all other projects is a missed opportunity for creating both naturally-occurring affordable housing and rent-restricted affordable housing in mixed-income projects.

• Requiring a baseline of office/light manufacturing FAR will greatly limit the feasibility of projects. The proposed plan would require projects in the Arts District to have a baseline of 1.5 FAR of office or light manufacturing space and a baseline of 1.0 FAR of those uses in the Fashion District. While the intent is to foster growth that reflects the historic production activities in those areas, this is a rigid requirement that is counter to project feasibility. The Arts District and Fashion District development prototypes studied by HR&A Advisors in the economic analysis

2 http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/ULI-Documents/MicroUnit_full_rev_2015.pdf

prepared for the City also did not include any office or light industrial square footage, meaning the City does not have any indication of the requirement’s impacts on financial feasibility.3

City staff has cited the proposed City Market and Flower Market projects as examples of the envisioned zoning for these areas, however these are highly unique projects that should not be taken as representative of most of the future growth. These projects are located on very large sites that can accommodate a variety of structures and uses on the same parcel, whereas combining residential with office and light industrial uses in single structures on smaller and more constrained sites is significantly more challenging due to their architectural differences and the ways that the spaces are used.

Additionally, the future of office and light industrial uses is uncertain and imposing such a limitation could jeopardize housing production over the coming decades. We have seen this sort of baseline commercial FAR requirement constrain opportunity in the Cornfield-Arroyo Seco Specific Plan (CASP) as no new housing developments have been built there since its adoption in 2012.4 Similarly with retail, given the uncertainty over the future of retail uses, City Planning has moved away from requiring retail in projects and instead requires a broader category of “active uses.” We believe we should learn from these recent experiences and those lessons should be reflected in DTLA 2040

Finally, as we have highlighted in our previous letters, industrial jobs have largely left DTLA despite industrial zoning remaining the same. Simply zoning for “jobs space” will not manifest actual jobs; to the contrary, supporting a robust mix of uses, particularly housing, has been shown to support DTLA’s economy as industrial jobs have dissipated.

• Development would be limited near existing and future transit-lines under the proposed plan. The Supplemental Report does not address issues height limitations and low FARs near transit stations, including along the LA River. As we have stated, in an area with major transportation investments and access – including where Metro’s West Santa Ana Branch and 6th Street rail stations are planned, a block away from the existing Metro Little Tokyo/Arts District rail station and just south of the region’s transit hub, Union Station – we recommend lifting building height requirements, increasing base FARs from 1.5 to 4.5, and increasing bonus FARs uniformly to 6.0. The plan as proposed would limit future Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), which we know is critical to addressing our housing and climate crises.

• DTLA schools are already in industrial areas – we should allow their surrounding neighborhoods to grow around them with housing and a mix of uses instead of keeping them separated from the rest of DTLA. We are pleased that the plan aims to foster more childcare and schools in DTLA and recognizes them as a top community priority, but the plan and the Supplemental Report do not acknowledge that the few existing schools in the DTLA core, like

3 See development programs for Arts District scenario on page 43 and Fashion District scenario on page 50: https://planning.lacity.org/odocument/ee0c6f0f-c792-42b5-9c1f-7ce8a9097975/2021-08- 12_Benefits_Program_Analysis_Summary.pdf 4 https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2013/13-0078-S1_mot_06-20-2018.pdf

Ninth Street Elementary, are in industrial areas that are largely cutoff from DTLA’s residential areas, inhibiting community-building around our schools and presenting environmental health issues. Rezoning industrial areas around existing schools can be a way to address existing land use compatibility conflicts and environmental challenges, and meet one of our community’s priority needs.

Chinatown

There were numerous comments from CCA and Chinatown stakeholders submitted to CPC regarding the proposed downzoning of Chinatown and negative impacts on project feasibility. The Supplemental Report provides some justification for the currently proposed zoning in Chinatown but misses several important details regarding project feasibility5 and the impacts to property owners’ rights:

• Building height limits will make projects infeasible. The project example provided in the Supplemental Report for the basis of the proposed zoning would be impossible to build under the proposed zoning because of building height limits. The Supplemental Report cites 211 West Alpine Street to justify FAR limits. However, the Report does not recognize that it’s a 7-story building but would be in an MN 1 form district under the proposed zoning and would therefore be limited to 5 stories, making it impossible to build under the proposed code. We found at least one other example where a recently approved project would be precluded by the proposed zoning that we highlighted in our prior letter: 942 North Broadway, a 23-story mixed-use building with mixed-income housing and open space that is located in what would be a DM 5 form district under the proposed zoning, which would cap buildings at a maximum of 15-stories. The Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program explored in the Supplemental Report is a good idea worth consideration for preserving cultural and historic sites while allowing for growth in Chinatown, however its use would be greatly inhibited if building height limits remain.

• The CBP reduces capacity while requiring more affordable housing compared with TOC which provides greater capacity for less affordable housing. This is a reversion of rights and CBP FARs should be realigned with TOC and height limits should be removed. The Supplemental Report shows that a project in Chinatown can be built to 9.3 FAR (without height limits) with 11% of units set aside as affordable housing using TOC today, but under the proposed zoning projects would be limited to a maximum of 8.5 FAR (with height limits in some areas) and provide 17% of units as affordable housing. This is a reversion of rights, making it more financially onerous to achieve less than what can be achieved currently. In the very least, proposed development capacities should be aligned with what can be built under TOC and height limits should be removed, particularly as this is a transit-oriented area.

• Requiring nearly a third of all units to be 2+ bedrooms works against financial feasibility, and is a disincentive to use the CBP. We’ve written previously that we also want to see more large units that can accommodate families built in DTLA, but we do not think requiring 2+ bedroom

5 See discussion of feasibility challenges with proposed zoning in Chinatown on pdf page 112 (page 5 of Appendix C): https://planning.lacity.org/odocument/ee0c6f0f-c792-42b5-9c1f-7ce8a9097975/2021-08- 12_Benefits_Program_Analysis_Summary.pdf

units is an appropriate approach as it is far too rigid and hurts project feasibility. Including such high shares of large units is financially challenging because they provide lower rents per square foot (although charge higher rents on a per unit basis) than smaller units. HR&A’s economic analysis found the proposed zoning for Chinatown to be infeasible, and the prototype used for Chinatown had a smaller share of 2-bedroom units than the proposed code requires. Having this as a required feature of the CBP disincentivizes its use.

Skid Row

The Supplemental Report discusses the history of Skid Row at length in providing justification for the proposed ban on mixed-income housing, but it is missing context:

• It does not acknowledge that banning mixed-income housing is a continuation of the status quo and would not provide relief to those living sheltered or unsheltered in Skid Row. The Supplemental Report states that the goal of the proposed ban on mixed-income housing is to protect residents from displacement by new development, but the Report also separately discusses the extensive tenant protections and replacement requirements already in place in DTLA due to a combination of the Residential Hotel Unit Conversion and Demolition Ordinance (RHO), the Rent Stabilization Ordinance (RSO) and controls under the Community Redevelopment Plan Areas (and related Wiggins Settlement). The report does not consider that the proposed approach is a perpetuation of the existing conditions – there are already no market rate or mixed-income developments, built or proposed, in this area and there have only been 100 percent affordable housing developments built alongside existing industrial uses. The report also treats Skid Row as an island citing the housing limitations only impact 14 blocks running contrary to creating a connected and inclusive DTLA. Meanwhile, leveraging mixed- income developments elsewhere in the City has proven to be a powerful combination with 100% affordable developments to use all tools to support more affordable housing. Instead of using all available resources to provide more housing options, the plan would freeze the status quo in place.

• Banning mixed-income housing and further concentrating social services on Skid Row runs against the City’s Housing Element and related efforts to reverse patterns of segregation and contradicts comments submitted by social services providers that services would be better delivered if distributed regionally and citywide. With the 2021-2029 Housing Element and related work programs, the City is taking great strides to reverse historical patterns of racial and economic inequities by setting the stage for growth of mixed-income communities, particularly in opportunity-rich areas that have not accommodated new housing. DTLA 2040’s approach to Skid Row is incompatible with this citywide housing objective by constraining mixed-income housing and allowing for light-industrial uses. Additionally, despite comments submitted by social service providers that serve clients on Skid Row expressing that dispersion of services across the City and region would allow them to better address the needs of their clients, the proposed zoning explicitly seeks to reinforce the density of social services in this area. Ignoring the direct input from social service experts, the proposed zoning would here again reinforce the City’s approach of containing poverty by further concentrating social services to Skid Row.

Hotels

Hotel Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) are not discussed in the Supplemental Report, but CPC has received several comments from hotel employee union members asking that hotels not be allowed in DTLA 2040 by-right. The City has adopted policies to specifically encourage the creation of more hotel rooms in DTLA as hotels are vital to the City’s economy and budget. In 2013, the City set a goal of having 8,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of the Convention Center and this year completed the Tourism Master Plan,6 which includes recommendations to identify and advocate for new hotel development opportunities, and for the development of new hotels in areas well served by public transit like DTLA to reduce usage of cars by visitors. CCA supports the creation of high-quality jobs, although it is clear that comments requiring CUPs and discretionary approval for hotels in DTLA are an attempt to leverage zoning and land use powers for items that are not under the purview of a Community Plan. Requiring discretionary review for hotels in DTLA would directly contradict adopted City policy and create non-productive work for City Planning staff, building on the legacy of a politicized development approval process. Hotel CUP requirements should not be imposed anywhere within DTLA 2040 and the scope of Community Plans should focus on zoning and land use.

We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of DTLA 2040 and stand ready to work with you on its adoption and implementation.

Sincerely,

Jessica Lall President & CEO Central City Association

Cc: Mayor Eric Garcetti Councilmember Kevin de León Councilmember Gil Cedillo Councilmember Curren Price Deputy Mayor of Economic Development Kevin Keller

6 See Recommendations 4.2 and 5.1 in the Tourism Master Plan: https://ctd.lacity.org/sites/default/files/Resonance%20- %20City%20of%20Los%20Angeles%20Tourism%20Master%20Plan.pdf

December 1, 2020 Brittany Arceneaux, City Planner City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning 200 North Spring Street, Room 667 Los Angeles, CA 90012 Via email: [email protected]

Re: Comments on ENV-2017-433-EIR: DTLA 2040 Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) Dear Ms. Arceneaux, Established in 1924, Central City Association is an advocacy organization committed to DTLA’s vibrancy and increasing investment in the region. We are a membership organization comprised of approximately 300 members and our membership reflects the diversity of DTLA including housing builders, nonprofit organizations and large employers. We are committed to the DTLA 2040 Community Plan and making sure that it advances DTLA’s growth and serves as a model for other areas in the city that are proximate to transit. We offer this letter to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for DTLA 2040 and to raise key issues within the plan that we believe inhibit much-needed housing production amid a housing and homelessness crisis and will hinder economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and future economic growth. Importantly, the DEIR for this plan was prepared in a vastly different context than today -- prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic depression, before the City was assigned a housing production goal of over 455,000 for the next eight years and apart from state and federal infrastructure considerations. As such, we strongly encourage the adoption of Alternative 3 in the DEIR to allow for the greatest housing and development capacity and flexibility to spur DTLA’s recovery and best position the heart of our city for private and public investment (REC #1). We believe that DTLA 2040 cannot be considered in a vacuum separate from the conditions affecting DTLA and the city at large, and what is at stake for our future. Our detailed comments on the plan herein are informed by three major considerations:

1. The deep impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on DTLA and the City’s economy and future growth; 2. The persistent housing and homelessness crisis, and unprecedented City housing production responsibility of over 455,000 new units over the next eight years alone, per the 6th Cycle Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA); and 3. The need for local land use plans to demonstrate a clear and substantial commitment to transit-oriented growth to compete for state and federal transportation infrastructure funding.

1. The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic

While COVID-19 has impacted every community, DTLA, the city’s urban high-rise core, has faced unique challenges as perceptions of urban living contributing to pandemic spread have perpetuated. Office towers are nearly empty, and many retail and restaurant businesses are shuttered which will likely persist for years to come as the pandemic has resulted in permanent job losses and shifts to remote work. DTLA normally receives over 22 million visitors in a given year, serving as an anchor of our local economy, but a depressed tourism market without conventions or events is reflected in an astoundingly low hotel occupancy rate of about 40 percent and drops in revenue per available room of over 50 percent compared to last year.1 Apartment dwellers have increasingly looked to live

1 Second Quarter 2020 Downtown LA Market Report, Downtown Center Business Improvement District: https://ctycms.com/ca-dtla/docs/dtla-market-report-q2-2020.pdf

outside the city center, and residential rents have fallen by seven percent compared to last year and vacancy rates are near 15 percent.2 The pandemic has dramatically changed the landscape of DTLA. Projects that were previously financially viable have greatly diminished in value. We’re hopeful that DTLA’s economic prospects will strengthen as restrictions are lifted, successful vaccines are obtained and made widely available and perceptions of urban life improve. However, it may be some time before circumstances get better, and DTLA 2040 must be sensitive to this economically vulnerable context if we are to continue to see new growth and community benefits in DTLA. 2. The Housing and Homelessness Crisis and RHNA Obligations As the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) finalizes the 6th Cycle RHNA, it’s clear that the City of Los Angeles will be responsible for delivering an incredible amount of new housing by the order of more than 455,000 units between 2021 to 2029. The magnitude of this housing target cannot be overstated – in the City’s history, only 420,000 units were built at the peak of housing production over the course of 20 years between 1960 to 1980. At the same time, homelessness in the city continues to increase, growing by over 14 percent last year reaching more than 41,000 unhoused people living in the city, 16 percent of whom are in DTLA which is the largest concentrated street homeless population in the nation. While this housing goal stands out as seemingly astronomical, in reality it reflects a persistent housing and homelessness crisis that has long-been one of the major issues facing the city and region, but left largely unaddressed by solutions of the necessary scale. The DTLA 2040 plan notes that SCAG projects that DTLA will make up over 20 percent of the city’s growth over the next two decades, which is a significant share of the City’s RHNA target and means that at least 12,000 units per year on average need to be built in DTLA over the next eight years alone. As the region’s transit and job hub, DTLA must play an outsized role in meeting this ambitious goal, requiring DTLA 2040 to provide substantial capacity for new growth. Alternative 3 of the DEIR is the superior alternative as it would enable the greatest growth and housing production. 3. Competing for State and Federal Infrastructure Funding State and federal funding for transportation and other infrastructure projects are increasingly tied to land use plans that provide substantial new opportunities for growth and development near transit. Moreover, current efforts to establish an Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District (EIFD) in DTLA offer the promise of a dedicated local source of funding for an array of public benefit projects, including affordable housing, in DTLA that can also help attract supplemental state and federal funding, but can only be impactful if supported by land use planning that promotes new development to bolster property tax increment growth. As we continue to build out our regional transit system, revamp our bus network to be world class and dedicate resources to making DTLA and our city truly multimodal, the success of these major investments will be dependent on coordination with visionary planning for new development in tandem. It is also critical as we look ahead to draw new public and private investment to DTLA and our city – DTLA 2040 must be a clear signal to this end. We believe much of the plan as proposed is a great improvement to DTLA’s land use and planning framework and we are appreciative of City Planning’s outreach and engagement, and the important changes already made to the plan over the course of its development. We recognize that DTLA 2040 is an enormous undertaking for City Planning as it will be the first community plan to implement the new citywide zoning code. We appreciate the significant resources dedicated to the plan’s development and are pleased that DTLA continues to be the City’s laboratory for new ideas, but DTLA 2040 must go even farther to promote a bold, exciting and resilient future for our city center. We offer this letter to strongly encourage adoption of Alternative 3 in the DEIR and to provide detailed suggestions to enhance the plan, with the goal of a connected, equitable and inclusive DTLA that has a broad range of housing

2 Ibid.

options and affordability, park space, education and childcare facilities and diversity in mobility and employment opportunities. Building off of our January 21, 2020 letter, we’ve broadly categorized our recommendations as follows: 1) maximizing opportunities for housing at all income levels, including middle-income housing and 2) creating flexibility within the plan to be adaptable over the next two decades. Underpinning this all, we are focused on a plan that can support financially feasible development, which is critical to yielding the housing growth and maximum community benefits envisioned in the plan as well as depoliticizing development in DTLA.

Maximizing Opportunities for Housing, Including Middle-Income Housing CCA strives to make DTLA the place for new housing at all income levels. Despite being just one percent of the city’s land, DTLA accounts for over one-third of new apartment units built in the city over the past decade. Ensuring that substantial new housing can continue to be built in DTLA is essential to addressing our regional housing crisis and meeting our RHNA and environmental sustainability goals by focusing growth in the densest and most transit- and job-rich area of the city. On paper the plan would generally expand where housing is allowed from 33 percent of the plan area to 60 percent and major changes toward parking policy like eliminating minimum parking requirements are important steps to supporting project feasibility and fostering high-quality development appropriate for urban cores. Additionally, we appreciate the recent revision to the plan to no longer count above-ground parking toward project FAR, which would have had diminished capacity for housing. Still, there are specific provisions throughout the plan that would negatively impact the feasibility of housing development in practice. We believe the following provisions are problematic as proposed and offer suggested solutions that reasonably accommodate plan intent and economic feasibility.

Financial Feasibility of the Community Benefits System

The plan’s proposed Community Benefits System would allow developments to maximize FAR and build larger than otherwise allowed under the base zoning in return for providing certain public benefits, namely affordable housing, publicly-accessible open space and community facilities. This new system would apply throughout the plan area and replace the Transfer of Floor Area Rights (TFAR) program that currently applies only to South Park, the Financial District and parts of the Historic Core. We are generally supportive of the proposed concept of the Community Benefits System, and we share the goal of realizing more on-site public benefits, especially affordable housing. We are also pleased to see recent changes to the Community Benefits System that provide clearer upfront standards to enable Level 2 benefits like open space and community facilities through a by-right process rather than via discretionary review. However, we are concerned about specific provisions that impact the financial feasibility of utilizing the bonus FAR, particularly for high-rise projects at this immensely economically challenging time for DTLA.

The economic fallout from the pandemic presents major issues for building in DTLA, but it’s important to note that the Community Benefits System, primarily the affordable housing bonus provisions, poses challenges for the financial feasibility of development even in strong economic conditions. As shown in the table below, Level 1 of the DTLA 2040 Community Benefits System is essentially aligned with the City’s Affordable Housing Density Bonus and Tier 1 of the Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Program in terms of the percentage of affordable housing required by income level (with the exception of options for Deeply Low and Moderate Income housing under DTLA 2040). However, the FAR bonus for providing affordable housing is 35 percent, which is at the lowest end of the City’s affordable housing incentive programs in alignment with the Density Bonus.

Comparison of DTLA 2040 Level 1 Affordable Housing Incentive Program and Other City Affordable Housing Programs DTLA 2040 Affordable Housing Community TOC Tier 1 TOC Tier 2 TOC Tier 3 TOC Tier 4 Density Bonus Benefits Program Level 1 Deeply Low n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 5% Extremely Low 8% 9% 10% 11% n/a 8% Affordability Very Low 11% 12% 14% 15% 11% 11% Requirements Low 20% 21% 23% 25% 20% 20% Moderate n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 40% Density Increase 50% 60% 70% 80% 35% n/a Bonus FAR Increase 40% 45% 50% 55% 35% 35%

The Density Bonus and TOC programs have been effective at producing mixed-income developments with on-site rent-restricted affordable housing elsewhere in the city. However, most development in the city outside of DTLA is mid-rise wood frame construction, which is a less costly type of construction than the high-rise concrete and steel construction that is typical in DTLA. Type I projects, which are generally high-rise buildings made of concrete and steel, cost an average of $71 per square foot more than other construction types like Type V wood frame buildings.3 Coupled with adverse economic conditions, this means that high-rise construction in DTLA faces higher costs for lower value. We believe DTLA is the best place for high-rise construction, which is the most efficient way to build a high volume of housing near transit, and is largely built with unionized labor, providing well-paying jobs. We recommend that Level 1 of the DTLA 2040 Community Benefits Program provide a more substantial FAR increase to support the feasibility of high-rise construction. We also believe that the ability to contribute an in-lieu payment or partner with an affordable housing provider to provide affordable units off-site are good, important features of the Community Benefits System that must be maintained as they offer necessary flexibility (REC #2).

Additionally, we are concerned about recent changes to the plan whereby base FARs were reduced in Chinatown, Little Tokyo and areas of the Historic Core and Fashion District. The changes are substantial: from 6.0 to 2.0, a 66 percent decrease, in Chinatown and Little Tokyo, and from 7.0 and 6.0 to 3.0, a 60 percent and 50 percent decrease respectively, in the Historic Core and Fashion District. While we understand the intent of these changes is to ideally increase usage of the Community Benefits System, we are concerned that this is too dramatic of a change that tips the scales of project economics to be economically infeasible. These are walkable, transit-rich areas where we want to promote growth, but the reductions in base FAR create a de facto scenario where the FAR is too low to build a viable project under the base FAR allowances on the one hand while simultaneously placing a large financial onus on projects to obtain bonus FAR via the Community Benefits System. Because the Level 1 affordable housing FAR bonus is 35 percent of the base FAR, the Level 1 bonus is necessarily reduced as well (for example, a 35 percent bonus on 6.0 base FAR is an additional 2.1 FAR, but is only an additional 0.7 FAR on a 2.0 base FAR). The October 2019 financial feasibility analysis of the Community Benefits System prepared by HR&A Advisors for the City specifically highlights this issue, stating that Chinatown and a large swath of the Fashion District leading into the Historic Core, where most of these FAR changes would apply, “are unlikely to support larger high-rise developments until market performance matures further, and thus are not able to support public benefits to the same degree as Place Types with strong submarkets.” As it’s clear that these recent reductions in base FAR would jeopardize development feasibility, we firmly recommend maintaining base FARs as they were proposed prior to the Fall 2020 changes to the plan. (REC #3).

3 The Hard Costs of Construction: Recent Trends in Labor and Materials Costs for Apartment Buildings in California, UC Berkley Terner Center for Housing Innovation: http://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/uploads/Hard_Construction_Costs_March_2020.pdf

Building Height Limits and Minimums As shown in the map below, the plan would impose base and bonus (with use of the Community Benefits Program) maximum building height limits in Little Tokyo, the northern portion and eastern edge of the Arts District, Chinatown, and Historic Core, all of which are close to existing Metro rail stations. There are also major transit projects in these areas in the pipeline, like the Regional Connector, West Santa Ana Branch and Streetcar. Like the reduction in base FARs, we take issue with the proposed building height limits, particularly in areas near transit stations as we are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in building out our transit system and as these are exactly the areas we need our city to grow to become less car-dependent and more affordable and sustainable. It is essential to demonstrate our commitment to growth in areas near transit as we compete for infrastructure funding from the state and federal governments.

Base and Bonus Height Limits with Existing Metro Stations

We recognize the need to preserve DTLA’s historic neighborhoods, communities and buildings but are concerned about the proposed approach. Blanket height limits are not an appropriate tool for neighborhood preservation. Historic districts and buildings should be considered through the requisite historic preservation and landmarking processes, which is much more targeted and would not inhibit growth on sites that might not have historic or cultural

significance. Additionally, we believe that context-sensitive growth can occur with the use of urban design tools like setbacks and street frontage requirements.

Furthermore, in many cases, the proposed building height limits are not aligned with the economic realities of development and the constraints of relative construction materials. For instance, mixed-use buildings can generally be built with wood frame over a concrete parking and retail podium to a maximum of eight stories under the building code, and buildings made of concrete and steel can be taller but typically need to be a minimum of 20 stories to be financially feasible and justify the additional costs of the more expensive labor and building materials. Some of the proposed base and bonus height limits in areas of DTLA are 12 stories and 15 stories, respectively, and 15 and 18 stories, respectively. With a few exceptions for large sites that can accommodate a lot of building capacity, most mixed-use developments will not even be able to build to the base height limits of 12 and 15 stories, and these height limits will act like an eight-story limit in reality. This means that the growth envisioned by the plan may not actually occur and the resulting community benefits will also not be delivered.

To promote context-sensitive growth and density near transit, respect neighborhood character and appropriately preserve historical assets in a way that reflects the economic realities of development, we recommend that building height maximums be removed and instead utilize FAR, setbacks and frontage requirements to govern building height and massing, and that historic communities be considered instead through the established historic preservation processes (REC #4).

Conversely, the new zoning code proposes to include building height minimums, which may also be problematic and limit the potential for new development. While the intent of this is clearly to encourage, and even require, high-rise development, the reality is that high-rise development may not be feasible in certain locations or for certain uses including most affordable housing developments. For instance, K-12 schools, which are incentivized as a Tier 2 community benefit, typically require one-story or other generally low-rise construction, but they would be precluded in many areas. We recommend that minimum building height requirements be removed to avoid unintended outcomes like limiting the potential for vacant or underutilized land to be redeveloped into desirable uses like affordable housing, schools or mid-rise mixed-use developments (REC #5).

Transit Core General Plan Land Use Designation Similar to our concerns about base FAR reductions and building height limits near transit, we believe the Transit Core General Plan land use designation is not being appropriately applied in connection with where transit exists now and in the future, and that we must do more to leverage public investment in transit infrastructure. The Transit Core designation allows projects that use the Community Benefits System to calculate FAR using the centerline of the street, which has been a successful feature of the current Transfer of Development Rights (TFAR) system that allows projects in DTLA to be larger and yield more public benefits. We recommend that the Transit Core General Plan land use designation be expanded to include all areas close to existing, entitled and future transit to maximize development opportunities (REC #6).

Limits on Housing in Hybrid-Industrial Areas The plan effectively limits new housing in the Fashion District and Arts District to live/work units only. While recent updates to the plan would technically allow more types of housing in the Fashion District, there is a requirement that projects with housing be coupled with a minimum of 1 FAR of office or light industrial space, unless they are live/work. As there is very little demand for new office or light industrial uses in these areas, and with the uncertainties around these uses resulting from COVID, we believe the code as written will have the effect of limiting development in hybrid industrial areas to live/work.

We understand that the City may be constrained in this area by the Framework Element of the General Plan, which essentially limits the ability to rezone industrial areas and requires some amount of “jobs-producing” uses. However, we do not believe that a document adopted 20 years ago should inhibit our ability to plan for another 20 years into the future and cause us to settle for live/work housing when we want to create inclusive, dynamic neighborhoods. In general, live/work units require high floor to ceiling heights and must be built to commercial standards so are typically more expensive to design and build than a residential unit. The plan requires that live/work units in a project must be a minimum average size of 750 square feet in the Fashion District and 1,000 square feet in the Arts District, which is very economically and spatially inefficient for studios and one-bedroom units. Because they are lofts and lack the walls or partitions of conventional apartments, they are generally not good units for families; requiring these kinds of units is inherently exclusionary. Lastly, they are also impossible to monitor to ensure that they are supporting economic “job-producing” activity, rather than just serving as costly residential lofts. We recommend that City Planning adopt an amendment to the Framework Element in tandem with DTLA 2040, which will allow for far greater flexibility to plan hybrid industrial areas as mixed-use neighborhoods with a diversity of housing types (REC #7). In lieu of amending the Framework Element, we believe that there could still be more flexibility for different housing types in Hybrid-Industrial areas. In the absence of an amendment to the Framework Element, we recommend that for projects that include more conventional multi-family housing, set the commercial space requirement as 10% of building area, which will create fairer rules for all projects than the current requirement that is based on lot size, especially those that don’t use a site’s full FAR (REC #8). The proposed IX4 Use District that applies to the Arts District also requires that all new structures be built entirely as Type I, II or IV construction, which largely excludes the use of wood materials. As mentioned earlier, wood is more affordable and sustainable than concrete and steel building materials. Wood has also been successfully used to build compellingly designed buildings in the Arts District and throughout the city. Amid our current housing crisis, greatly reducing the ability to use wood construction is counterproductive and runs counter to our goal of making DTLA the place for housing at all income levels. DTLA 2040 is seemingly the first community plan that has attempted to dictate construction types and we believe such a determination is out of scope for zoning codes to mandate and should be left to building and safety codes – we recommend that this requirement be removed from the plan (REC #9).

Ban on Market Rate Housing As proposed, DTLA 2040 will not allow market rate housing in a specific area of DTLA from 5th to 7th Streets and San Pedro Street to Central Avenue. We echo and fully endorse the report titled The Voices of Central City East submitted by the Central City East Association (CCEA) regarding this neighborhood of DTLA. As CCEA highlights, the intent of banning market rate housing in this area may be to preserve existing affordable housing and single room occupancy hotels, but it is unnecessary given covenants, the Residential Hotel Conversion and Demolition Ordinance, the Wiggins Settlement and predominance of housing that is owned by non-profit organizations with a mission to provide shelter to vulnerable populations. This area contains the largest concentration of unsheltered homeless people in the nation. It is an area of extreme poverty and need. Banning market rate housing would further concentrate poverty in this area of DTLA and run counter to stated DTLA 2040 plan goals of inclusive and diverse neighborhoods. To date, there are no market rate developments, built or proposed, in this area. Imposing this provision would only freeze the current conditions and further a failed policy of containment. We believe this policy also directly conflicts with the federal mandate to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH). Affordable housing is an important part of DTLA 2040, and it should be integrated throughout the plan area. We strongly support housing opportunities for all incomes across DTLA as the primary tool to address the complicated and extensive challenges of homelessness and poverty in our city.

It’s important to recognize that the Community Plan, which is a land use and zoning plan, cannot alone address the challenges of this area. Truly meeting the needs of this area requires a much broader effort that involves mental health, workforce development and social services, which will take coordination from multiple departments and organizations, which we support and encourage. We support CCEA’s report and recommendations, and likewise recommend that the ban on market rate housing from 5th to 7th Streets and San Pedro Street to Central Avenue be removed from DTLA 2040, and instead urge City Planning to consider ways the area’s zoning can be tailored to produce mixed-income developments and socioeconomic integration and inclusion (REC #10).

Micro-Units

CCA has been strongly supportive of micro-unit housing, including publishing a white paper on micro-units and advocating for a proposal put forth by Councilmember Cedillo for the City to assess barriers and policy changes to support micro-units. The Community Plan Text includes micro-units as a priority for new housing types (LU 2.6), however there is an important missing policy tool that would help effectuate this goal. A simple but meaningful policy change would be allowing affordable units to be a different mix than market rate units in the same building, but still require the same amount of overall affordable floor area. The unit finishes, access points for entry/exit and amenities would be identical for the market rate and affordable units. For example, DTLA 2040 could allow two 350 square foot affordable units on par with one 700 square foot market rate unit in the same building. This would be a deviation from the City’s Affordable Housing Guidelines, which generally require that affordable units be the same average square footage and number of bedrooms as market rate units in the same building. We believe that DTLA is an appropriate place for a flexible policy to encourage affordable micro-unit housing because it is dense, transit-rich and walkable, which are all complementary to micro-units. We also believe this is meaningful tool to increase the amount of affordable housing that can be leveraged by non-subsidized development and may help to deliver the workforce, moderate income housing that is currently not being built but is needed. We recommend DTLA 2040 allow affordable units to be a different mix than market rate units in the same mixed- income buildings, but still require the same amount of affordable floor area as a percentage of overall residential floor area akin to the number of affordable units that would be required of the total number of units (REC #11). This would yield a greater number of affordable housing units while still requiring the same dedication of square footage.

Creating Flexibility Within the Plan to be Adaptable Over the Next Two Decades

DTLA 2040 will guide DTLA’s growth over the next 20 years but it is unreasonable to believe that we can adequately plan in anticipation of the changes that will take place over that time. It is fundamentally important that the plan set a strong overarching vision for DTLA but be structured to provide sufficient flexibility to adapt to changes if it is to be a success. When we refer to flexibility, we mean allowing a broad range of land use and development scales, designs and typologies in all areas of DTLA, and with clear, simple approval pathways for minor deviations that may be necessary to facilitate development. We believe that highly specific provisions included in the plan today, even if well-intentioned, may have unintended downstream consequences that will make the plan less useable in the future, and instead result in projects seeking discretionary review or quell development altogether. Here again, we are appreciative that City Planning has recently made important changes that remove unnecessary constraints and create more flexibility in alignment with plan goals with revisions such as no longer requiring schools and child care facilities to obtain Conditional Use Permits (CUPs) in most areas, and not limiting hotels by number of rooms or ground-floor commercial tenants by square footage outside of Chinatown and Little Tokyo. We believe there are additional areas of the plan that can be amended to ultimately make DTLA 2040 more flexible and sustainable, and we outline each area of the plan where we believe provisions are overly rigid and with our recommended revisions.

Approval Processes

We know that City Planning and CCA have a shared goal of ensuring that DTLA 2040 greatly reduces the need for projects to seek discretionary approvals and creates greater capacity for by-right and ministerial approval processes. The approval processes laid out in DTLA 2040 refer back to the Processes and Procedures Ordinance, which is Article 13 of the new citywide zoning code being created as part of the re:code LA project. However, we are concerned that the Processes and Procedures Ordinance has not yet been finalized and adopted, and likely will not be until the middle of 2021. This makes it very challenging to provide detailed comments on the approval processes under DTLA 2040 and creates uncertainty for implications that the Processes and Procedures Ordinance might have on DTLA 2040. We’re hopeful that the proposed zoning that is established under DTLA 2040 will produce financially feasible developments, but we know that there’s a good possibility that projects with unique circumstances will need to deviate from the baseline zoning to be feasible. While ultimately providing objective criteria and flexibility in each site’s zoning is the best way to avoid issues of uncertainty and discretion in the approval process, we recommend that City Planning provide very clear, administrative clearance processes that are CEQA-exempt for deviations and relief mechanisms like alternative compliance, variances and adjustments (REC #12).

We also appreciate that the proposed plan creates higher Site Plan Review thresholds for projects that use the Community Benefits System to be 500 units or 500,000 square feet of nonresidential space, up from 50 units and 50,000 square feet of nonresidential space. We have long been advocates for a more sensible approach to Site Plan Review that does not punish dense, urban development, particularly in our urban core. Although we believe the higher Site Plan Review benchmark is certainly an improvement over the very low threshold currently, we believe that affording this only to projects that use the Community Benefits System creates a punitive scenario for projects using only the base zoning and does not account for DTLA’s role as the city’s center for growth. We recommend that projects, whether using the base zoning or the Community Benefits System, not be subject to Site Plan Review or other discretionary review processes if they comply with a site’s allowable zoning and are not seeking any additional changes (REC #13). We believe this is logical and is the very purpose of areawide planning efforts like DTLA 2040. Many cities use this model, and San Diego, the nearest big city to do so, is a good example.

Frontage Design Requirements

Through the use of Frontage Districts, the plan would create highly specific design requirements for buildings in the Arts District and Historic Core. Recent updates to the plan relaxed some of these requirements by now allowing buildings in these areas to have balconies, no longer prohibiting features like flat roofs and applying the frontage requirements to only the first few stories of buildings. These changes are improvements, but we believe the Frontage Districts in the Arts District and Historic Core are still very prescriptive and will constrain creative approaches to design and architecture. We continue to work with our members to contemplate how these Frontage Districts can be more flexible. We suggest providing a range for ground-floor heights rather than a set minimum of 22’ in the Arts District, changing language for symmetrical lite pattern to be more open such that “glazed openings should be divided into smaller components” or something similar, making base-middle-top a “reference” rather than a requirement so that there is room for architects to interpret incorporation and similarly expanding options for expressing the horizontal and vertical banding “by reference” or “interpretation.” We recommend that City Planning continue to explore ways of modifying the Arts District and Historic Core Frontage Districts to strike a balance between fostering contextual design with the potential for creative approaches and innovation. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate to further consider how this can be accomplished (REC #14).

Industrial Zoning The plan expands opportunities for mixed-use development, but there is still a large area of DTLA proposed to be maintained as industrial even though we know that retaining industrial land does not mean retaining industrial jobs or job-intensive uses. We witnessed the number of job-intensive uses like manufacturing convert to less productive

uses like wholesale in DTLA despite the fact that land uses have not been changed in much of DTLA’s industrial areas. Between 2002 to 2017, manufacturing jobs decreased by 64 percent while jobs in wholesale trade increased by only six percent within the DTLA 2040 area.4 DTLA’s economic success over the past two decades has instead been defined by increased livability, with the introduction of substantially more housing, public investments in transit and open space and accompanying amenities like places to shop and eat. This change has attracted new DTLA residents, encouraged more job-intensive and higher-paying businesses to locate here and more visitors to come here, which have replaced industrial-oriented jobs that largely disappeared over the past two decades. As those jobs shrunk between 2002 to 2017, jobs have increased by 14 percent in information industries, 24 percent in professional, scientific and technology services, 44 percent in arts and entertainment, 72 percent in accommodation and food services and 119 percent in health care industries.5 We should continue to build on this success and inject new uses into areas where jobs have declined, not perpetuate the decline of those areas by freezing the allowable land uses. Moreover, the few existing schools in DTLA are in industrial areas, meaning we should aim to introduce new active uses to support community building around these schools and support their long-term success. Industrial areas are not likely to change overnight. Industrial vacancy rates are historically low and industrial rents are historically high, due to supply constraints across the LA area for small-format industrial uses for warehousing and distribution. Even if the zoning were permissive of conversion to other uses, the current market for industrial uses is likely strong enough that these properties would not convert to other uses in the near term. We recommend that DTLA 2040 not include areas zoned exclusively for industrial uses, and that these areas should instead provide more flexible zoning to allow them to gradually convert to other uses, including housing, over the long term (REC #15). Adaptive Reuse The Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) was a major catalyst for the revitalization of DTLA following its adoption in 1999. It unlocked the potential of DTLA’s beautiful but obsolete historic office and bank buildings to have new lives as quality housing stock, and led to the first major influx of residents in DTLA. However, only buildings constructed prior to 1974 can utilize the ARO by-right, and any built more recently than that must go through an onerous discretionary review process. We believe that expanding and enhancing the ARO can be an important tool to furthering the economic vitality of DTLA and is needed more than ever as the future of many of our commercial uses face great uncertainty due to the pandemic. We appreciate that City Planning has already made positive updates to the ARO in the draft plan like expanding eligible uses and by exempting certain features like basements and rooftop additions from FAR calculations. To increase usage of the ARO, we recommend applying it to buildings constructed after 1974 on a rolling basis going forward (REC #16).

Limits on Hotel Rooms and Ground-Floor Commercial Tenant Sizes

Recent changes to the plan largely removed limitations on hotels by number of rooms and ground-floor commercial tenants by square footage in all areas of the plan except for Chinatown and Little Tokyo, expressed by the CX1 Use District, which limits hotels to a maximum of 49 rooms and ground-floor commercial tenants to a maximum of 5,000 square feet.

4 According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, OnTheMap Application and LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (Beginning of Quarter Employment, 2nd Quarter of 2002-2017) for the Downtown Community Plan Area. 5 Ibid.

Tourism is an anchor of our local economy and is critical to supporting businesses in Chinatown and Little Tokyo. We recommend that the 49-room limit on hotels be removed in Chinatown and Little Tokyo as there is no clear rationale for this limit, and it is antithetical to strengthening DTLA’s role as a major visitor destination (REC #17). Additionally, unique among other big cities, DTLA 2040 would not allow hotel rooms to have kitchenettes. Rooms with kitchenettes are an increasingly popular lodging option, and are a useful, safe alternative amid the pandemic as dining out is limited. For DTLA to truly be a world class destination, it needs more flexible and adaptive lodging solutions that reflects the way guests travel today and how current events will shape guests’ future preferences. We recommend that DTLA 2040 allow hotel rooms to include kitchenettes (REC #18). This is also an opportunity for the City to clear up issues of interpretation around extended stay hotels and show its commitment to innovation in lodging options.

Moreover, the intent of the limitation on ground-floor commercial business size seems to be to preserve these areas for small businesses, and/or achieve a small-scale business look and feel. We believe supporting small business growth and preservation is a worthwhile objective, but limiting businesses by square footage is a blunt policy tool that could negatively impact neighborhoods and exclude potentially desirable businesses. For instance, even the smallest grocery stores typically require 7,500 to 10,000 square feet of space, but these limitations would preclude them, despite a strong need for grocery stores in DTLA.

There’s also no guarantee that small space limits would result in small businesses occupying these spaces instead of a franchise or chain business – this capacity is likely outside the scope of any Community Plan and would be better addressed through economic development policies. Instead, the Community Plan and zoning code could promote urban design that imbues a small business aesthetic, with awnings, required transparent frontages, plantings and articulation of storefronts. We recommend that the tenant size limits be removed in Chinatown and Little Tokyo, and that other urban design tools be employed to provide for a small commercial look and feel in targeted areas while working with other City agencies to develop economic development tools to support small business in DTLA (REC #19).

Public Open Space The Community Benefits System suggests that public parks and open space must be provided at the ground floor. We believe this may be overly restrictive and prevent creative architecture and landscape design for these spaces. For example, a constrained site with proposed on-site public open space may not be able to provide all the open space at the ground floor but could instead provide terraced, stepped or undulating open space. This flexibility would allow the provision while also providing a unique design. A good local example is the public open space attached to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. We recommend that the language regarding public on-site open space be expanded to state that it must be “clearly accessible” to the public, rather than required to be on the ground floor (REC #20).

Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) DTLA 2040 proposes to create a new TDR system applicable only to the Arts District. We would like to better understand why the TDR system only applies to the Arts District, and whether receiver sites may be outside the designated area or if both donor and receiver sites must be in the area. It is also unclear why SurveyLA or any historic survey may be used under the TDR system when they do not necessarily result in official historic designations. We recommend that the TDR system be more broadly applicable across DTLA and that the criteria for historic resources be more closely tied to official historic designation (REC #21).

Downtown Development Corporation & Infrastructure Coordination Although the creation of a Downtown Development Corporation, an entity that would coordinate infrastructure and development projects and resources in DTLA, is outside of the scope of City Planning, it is worth considering as a policy objective in the Community Plan. The Community Benefits System is dynamic and exciting but is ultimately

limited to public benefits that can be provided by individual development projects on a one-off basis. For example, this means that while we have a broad objective of building more high-quality public open space in DTLA, the Community Benefits System may encourage individual sites to provide relatively small public open spaces, but is generally not designed to contribute to larger-scale open space projects like the redesign of Pershing Square or the Park 101 freeway cap park. These larger-scale projects would be better suited for a Downtown Development Corporation that could leverage public and private funds, and tools like EIFDs currently under study for DTLA and other tax increment financing (TIF) mechanisms. Notably, EIFDs can also fund affordable housing. We believe that both on-site public benefits with individual projects and large-scale public benefit projects are important and welcome in DTLA. The Community Plan should lay the foundation for both. We recommend that City Planning include a policy goal to coordinate DTLA 2040 land use planning with EIFD planning being led by LA Metro and the Economic and Workforce Development Department (EWDD) and that DTLA 2040 include the creation of a Downtown Development Corporation to plan, manage and implement large-scale public benefit projects and support funding for affordable housing within its policy objectives (REC #22). We know that the future of DTLA will set the course for the future of our city, and the DTLA 2040 plan will serve as the guiding framework for DTLA’s growth over the next two decades. This plan is also being considered at a time when DTLA faces incredible uncertainty and adversity due to an unthinkable combination of circumstances including a global pandemic that has resulted in economic depression and questions about the fundamental values of dense urban living, development-related corruption charges against our neighborhood’s former City Councilmember, and a persistent housing and homelessness crisis. The moment for leadership and a bold, visionary plan for DTLA could not be more important or necessary. We are pleased to work with you on this tremendously important plan, at an unprecedented time in the city’s history. We are grateful for City Planning’s continued partnership and look forward to seeing this plan be further refined as it moves through the approval process. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Jessica Lall President & CEO, Central City Association of Los Angeles

Attachment: Summary of Recommendations

CC: Councilmember Gil Cedillo, Council District 1 Councilmember Kevin de Leon, Council District 14 Councilmember Curren Price, Council District 9 Deputy Mayor William Chun, Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti

Summary of Recommendations 1. We strongly encourage the adoption of Alternative 3 in the DEIR to allow for the greatest development capacity and flexibility to spur DTLA’s recovery and best position the heart of our city for private and public investment. 2. Provide a more substantial FAR increase for Level 1 of the DTLA 2040 Community Benefits Program to support the feasibility of high-rise construction, and maintain the ability for in-lieu payments or partnering with affordable housing providers to provide affordable units off-site, which offer necessary flexibility. 3. Maintain base FARs as they were proposed prior to the Fall 2020 changes to the plan as it’s clear that recent reductions in base FAR would jeopardize development feasibility. 4. To promote context-sensitive growth and density near transit, respect neighborhood character and appropriately preserve historical assets in a way that reflects the economic realities of development, building height maximums should be removed and instead FAR, setbacks and frontage requirements should govern building height and massing, and historic communities instead considered through established historic preservation processes. 5. Remove minimum building height requirements to avoid unintended outcomes like limiting the potential for vacant or underutilized land to be redeveloped into desirable uses like affordable housing, schools or mid-rise mixed-use developments. 6. Expand the Transit Core General Plan land use designation to include all areas close to existing, entitled and future transit to maximize development opportunities. 7. Adopt an amendment to the Framework Element in tandem with DTLA 2040, which will allow for far greater flexibility to plan hybrid industrial areas as mixed-use neighborhoods with a diversity of housing types. 8. In the absence of an amendment to the Framework Element, for projects that include more conventional multi-family housing, set the commercial space requirement as 10% of building area, which will create fairer rules for all projects than the current requirement that is based on lot size, especially those that don’t use a site’s full FAR. 9. Remove requirements dictating construction types -- DTLA 2040 is seemingly the first community plan that has attempted to dictate construction types and we believe such a determination is out of scope for zoning codes to mandate and should be left to building and safety codes. 10. Echoing CCEA’s recommendations, remove the ban on market rate housing from 5th to 7th Streets and San Pedro Street to Central Avenue, and instead consider ways the area’s zoning can be tailored to produce mixed-income developments and socioeconomic integration and inclusion. 11. Allow affordable units to be a different mix than market rate units in the same mixed-income buildings, but still require the same amount of affordable floor area as a percentage of overall residential floor area. 12. Provide very clear, administrative clearance processes that are CEQA-exempt for deviations and relief mechanisms like alternative compliance, variances and adjustments. 13. Whether using the base zoning or the Community Benefits System, projects should not be subject to Site Plan Review or other discretionary review processes if they comply with a site’s allowable zoning and are not seeking any additional changes. 14. Continue to explore ways of modifying the Arts District and Historic Core Frontage Districts to strike a balance between fostering contextual design with the potential for creative approaches and innovation – our members welcome the opportunity to collaborate to further consider how this can be accomplished. 15. Do not zone areas exclusively for industrial uses – these areas should instead provide more flexible zoning to allow them to gradually convert to other uses, including housing, over the long term. 16. To increase usage of the ARO, apply it to buildings constructed after 1974 on a rolling basis going forward. 17. Remove the 49-room limit on hotels in Chinatown and Little Tokyo as there is no clear rationale for this limit, and it is antithetical to strengthening DTLA’s role as a major visitor destination. 18. Allow hotel rooms to include kitchenettes.

19. Remove tenant size limits in Chinatown and Little Tokyo, and use other urban design tools to provide for a small commercial look and feel in targeted areas while working with other City agencies to develop economic development tools to support small business in DTLA. 20. Expand the language regarding public on-site open space to state that it must be “clearly accessible” to the public, rather than required to be on the ground floor. 21. Apply the TDR system more broadly across DTLA and more closely tie the criteria for historic resources to official historic designation. 22. Include a policy goal to coordinate DTLA 2040 land use planning with EIFD planning being led by LA Metro and EWDD and include the creation of a Downtown Development Corporation to plan, manage and implement large-scale public benefit projects and support funding for affordable housing within the plan’s policy objectives.

August 20, 2021

Los Angeles City Planning Commission 200 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012

Delivered via electronic mail

Dear Honorable Commissioners,

We are aware of the request from Council Districts 1, 9 and 14 to continue the deliberation on the Downtown LA Community Plan to a future date. Given the variety of communications indicating a significant likelihood that the Commission will grant this request for a continuance, we are not submitting new comments on the Plan, nor are we working with residents to plan and deliver public comment at the August 26, 2021 Commission hearing, as we would have normally done for such an important hearing. While we understand that a procedural requirement dictates that the Commission formally vote on the continuance on August 26, we sincerely hope that no deliberation of substance or vote on any recommendation will occur on August 26, as that would deprive the community of a meaningful opportunity to participate.

As the Commission grants this request for a continuance and considers other recommendations that impact the timeline, we urge the entire city family—the Commission, the Department, and the Council Offices—to take great care to avoid significant delays. Low-income residents and small business owners in Little Tokyo, Skid Row, Chinatown, and neighborhoods across Downtown have made tremendous sacrifices and contributed significant resources to bring their perspectives and expertise into a planning process that has historically excluded them. Many are understandably wary of the planning process and significant delays only contribute to the perception of an exclusionary process. While we must take the time to get this Community Plan right, we also need city leaders to act with a sense of purpose to put in place and start implementing a framework for equity and inclusive development.

To that end, we will be submitting comprehensive comments and recommendations concerning the Draft Plan at the future Commission hearing. However, to the extent that the city is now considering changes to the Plan’s affordable housing framework, it is imperative that the Plan maintains, strengthens, and prioritizes the following: ● Significant amounts of deeply affordable housing are necessary to confront Downtown’s affordable housing crisis. Policies that result in meager affordability rates or prioritize Moderate or Above-Moderate income units are not responsive to the greatest needs. ● On-site affordable housing in mixed-income development is crucial to avoid segregated housing patterns and to maximize inclusive growth. Programs that enable in-lieu fees and unaccountable off-site affordable housing options will only contribute to the crisis. ● Tenant protections and affordable housing preservation/replacement must be part and parcel of any housing production program. Affordable housing requirements don’t, as a matter of course, automatically align with renter protections. Great care was taken to incorporate no-net-loss

1 standards into incentive programs. If those programs are replaced or superseded, then great care must also be taken to ensure these protections and rights are incorporated into new programs. ● The current draft incorporates a variety of community benefits that should be protected in any future drafts, including policies that protect small legacy businesses, improved access to parks and public amenities for low-income communities, and programs that support street vendors.

We look forward to sharing our full set of comments and recommendations with the Commission at the new September hearing date. In the meantime, please consider the recommendations in our June 12 letter to the Commission, and prioritize the timely adoption of a new Downtown Community Plan that maximizes new affordable housing opportunities, prevents displacement, supports community-serving small businesses and advances racial justice in planning and development.

Sincerely,

The Central City United Coalition (Little Tokyo Service Center, LA CAN, Southeast Asian Community Alliance, and Public Counsel)

August 23, 2021

VIA EMAIL [email protected] City of Los Angeles Planning Commission 201 N. Figueroa Street, 4th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear City Planning Commissioners:

This letter has been drafted by the Arts District Land Use Committee, represented by the Los Angeles River Arts & Business Association (LARABA) and Arts District Community Council (ADCCLA), as a final effort to help the City Planning Commission understand the 20-year journey our community has engaged in and the very real work done to reach our conclusions. The cultural “brand” of the Los Angeles Arts District has been decades in the making and this letter helps to explain how we arrived at our long-term vision and why we chose the parameters of development that are in our neighborhood plan today.

The Arts District has changed dramatically since the passing of the Artist in Residence (AIR) ordinance in 1981. Today, the Arts District is a significant cultural asset and tourist attraction of the City, home to multi-national corporations and award-winning restaurants.

Many call the Arts District home, but with the rabid interest of a speculative real estate market, Arts District stakeholders remain concerned about the survivability of the neighborhood. As the prosperity of the area continues, changes must provide opportunities to live and work affordably for the evolving community of artists, start-ups, and non-profits. It is important that historic era buildings and contributing buildings are protected, and that guidance is in place for new construction and uses.

The community has been working on the promise of an updated Community Plan for two decades. A healthy balance of economic opportunity, greenspace for recreation (including improvements along the Los Angeles River), and a fully inclusive residential community has been the goal throughout. Protecting the spirit of the neighborhood through updated planning is imperative, as it is estimated that more than 5,000 residential units and 3,000,000 square feet of office and retail development are already in the pipeline, all in an area of the city that is less than 60 square blocks.

A traditional developer seeking opportunity in the Arts District is driven by numbers on a spreadsheet without understanding the context of the journey. Fundamental to the prosperity of the area has been the economic drivers. This was true in the 1800’s when the area was filled with citrus trees, in the 1900’s when railway-based architecture fostered Los Angeles’ industrial revolution, and now in the 2000’s where creative and technology companies like Spotify, Hyperloop, Warner Brothers, and Honey continue the tradition by paying living wages and keeping creative industry workers in the neighborhood.

The Arts District influenced the requirement for the recommended construction types. The foundation of a healthy and sustainable Arts District neighborhood is continued flexibility for the next generation of building owners. It is vital to preserve 1.5:1 FAR of commercial usage as the initial consideration of any future project in the Arts District so that any type of production can be hosted. We must resist the urge to allow developers, driven by banks and federal agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, to limit commercial spaces in mixed use developments to anything less than 1.5:1 FAR of new development.

This requirement is both good for the environment and for the preservation of existing and future architecture. The proposed compromise myopically permits structures that rely on load- bearing walls, creating inflexible structures with very short lifespans and no ability to change and adapt to an evolving urban environment. In the Arts District of today we celebrate the magnificent structures that were built a century ago by breathing new life into them as society changes. We must not shortchange future generations.

In arriving at our neighborhood policy, we started with the Arts District as it looks today and considered how best to retain the history and flexibility that caused the Arts District to thrive in recent years. This is why we support column structured buildings consistent with Type I, II, and III buildings. These construction types allow for engagement at the street level and bring foot traffic to the community without limiting use, as housing units are required to be above street level. We see excitement about buildings in plan check from world class architects who are already designing new structures consistent with our plan as a strong proof of concept that the cultural brand of the Arts District can be sustained long into the future.

More than anything, the area must remain “affordable.” There is a misconception related to affordability. Yes, future development must conform to the City’s minimum requirement of “low income” units, but the greater percentage of units must also be affordable for the community as a whole. City-mandated low income requirements aside, on the surface lowest possible cost too often translates to micro units that are not livable for an extended period. Affordable units driven by a smaller size force community members to move due to life events, continually needing to move into larger units and pay higher “market” rental rates as they require more space. We believe affordability can be achieved in part by adopting minimum average floor area of 1,000 square feet per residential dwelling unit. A higher minimum unit size will reduce tenant turnover, allowing tenants to remain in units longer at affordable rent. In fact, the Arts District provides numerous examples of artists who have been living in the Arts District for decades because they began with an appropriate amount of space and were not forced to move when their families grew.

LA RIVER ARTISTS & BUSINESS ASSOCIATION [email protected] & ARTS DISTRICT COMMUNITY COUNCIL [email protected]

Page 2 of 5 To provide some historical evidence of our efforts we attach the following documents:

2007 Memorandum from Director of planning Gail Goldberg Regarding the procedures for residential projects on industrial zoned properties no longer for industrial use. “The foundation of the City’s General Plans is that a healthy and sustainable city must house and employ its citizens.”

2007 Letter from Central City Association President and CEO Carol Schatz Encouraging the City to allow for more Live/Work units in the industrial area of the Arts District and to eliminate “spot zoning” through the creation of a by right Mixed Use Overlay Zone.

2009 Recommendation from the Department of City Planning By then Director of Planning Gail Goldberg and Deputy Directors Vincent Bertoni and Chief Zoning Administrator Michael LoGrande.

Stating the “…future community plan updates implementing the industrial land policy may establish a minimum required industrial floor area ration for specific geographic area,” which relates to the desire to maintain a strong economic base for job creation.

The document further recommends to “Plan the capacity and develop incentive for the production of an adequate supply of rental and ownership housing for households of all income levels and needs.”

LARABA sponsored 4 UnCommon Ground workshops Over an 8-year period designed to produce a vision for the development of the neighborhood where both long-standing stakeholders and developers attended.

2014 Letter from Mark Borman to Los Angeles Department of City Planning Recommending the preservation of the neighborhood through the preservation of the existing buildings and development guidelines for new construction projects.

2018 and 2019 LARABA & ADCCLA submission Submission of another position document along with questions.

2020 Letter to City Planning Department from LARABA and ADCCLA Expressing concerns with the direction of the “updated community plan.”

LA RIVER ARTISTS & BUSINESS ASSOCIATION [email protected] & ARTS DISTRICT COMMUNITY COUNCIL [email protected]

Page 3 of 5 Below are the encapsulated core principles that reflect 20 years of research, consideration, and advocacy. We understand that these may not fall into the “party line” pushed by lobbyists in downtown, but City decisionmakers must recognize that the Arts District is not like other areas. Our zoning, people, and businesses—everything about us—has little correlation to the rest of Downtown LA other than proximity.

• 1.5:1 FAR Commercial ground space of any improved parcel must be dedicated to economic development and job creation through the availably of commercial space that is not included in a residential or “live work” definition.

• Future projects must be constructed through a column-based, not load-bearing wall, support structure. This will provide for flexible floorplans that will accommodate future uses and thus preserve buildings.

• An average minimum of 1,000 square feet for all new residential unit. Higher average unit size is essential to maintain the health of the community as larger units allow residents the ability to remain though natural life cycles, including expanding a family, and choosing to work from home. Reducing turnover enhances long-term affordability for residents, increases neighborhood stability, and reduces impacts from transitory housing on the community.

• Preservation of contributing buildings to the area by allowing transfer of development rights (TDR) to other projects seeking a higher FAR.

• Capping the FAR of the area to 4.5:1 for future projects, unless additional FAR is acquired through TDR.

• Mandating larger and more prolific green public space to reduce the growing heat island effect of urban development.

• A true tree policy to stop the removal of trees and make tree planting and long-term care a priority.

• Ensuring development along the Los Angeles River remains set back and stepped back to ensure real public access to the river and to maintain realistic public view sheds.

• Preservation of historic/obsolete industrial buildings of a certain era and conversion into places to live and work.

The success of this long-term community vision has attracted many who seek to capitalize economically on the appeal of the Arts District. A hybrid version of our plan watered down the vision and would have been detrimental. We said no and pushed back.

LA RIVER ARTISTS & BUSINESS ASSOCIATION [email protected] & ARTS DISTRICT COMMUNITY COUNCIL [email protected]

Page 4 of 5 It is extremely challenging to encapsulate the nuanced efforts of our community members to assist our local elected leaders in understanding the value of our approach. Community planning decisions must not be based on a couple of politicians who oversold their development prowess. These decisions must be supported by the community that arrived at its present state through decades of creative stakeholder engagement and remains fully engaged in the long-term outcome.

As always, we are happy to help clarify our position and to meet with commissioners to have an engaged discussion about our community.

Sincerely,

Randall Miller Todd Terrazas President, LARABA President, ADCCLA

Cc: Councilmember Kevin de León (CD14) Brittany Arceneaux (DCP) John P. Given, Esq.

LA RIVER ARTISTS & BUSINESS ASSOCIATION [email protected] & ARTS DISTRICT COMMUNITY COUNCIL [email protected]

Page 5 of 5 LAW OFFICE OF JOHN P. GIVEN 2309 Santa Monica Blvd., #438 Santa Monica, CA 90404 [email protected] (310) 471-8485

December 4, 2020

VIA EMAIL ONLY

Brittany Arceneaux, City Planner City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning 200 North Spring Street, Room 667 Los Angeles, CA 90012 [email protected]

RE: Downtown Community Plan Update / New Zoning Code for Downtown Community Plan Comments on Draft Environmental Impact Report Case Nos. ENV-2017-433-EIR, CPC-2017-432-CPU, CPC-2014-1582-CA

Dear Ms. Arceneaux:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (“DEIR” or “Draft EIR”) for the Downtown Community Plan Update (“DTLA Community Plan,” “Community Plan,” or “Downtown Plan”) and the New Zoning Code for the Downtown Community Plan. This comment letter is submitted on behalf of Arts District Community Council Los Angeles (“ADCCLA”).1 ADCCLA appreciates that the Department of City Planning extended the DEIR comment period to December 4, 2020, to allow a more complete review of the lengthy Draft EIR and related project documents.2

As a preliminary matter, please ensure that my office receives all project-related notices including electronic notices, which may be emailed to [email protected].

General Comments

The DEIR explains that it is an informational document to inform decision-makers and members of the public as to significant environmental effects, to identify feasible ways to minimize or avoid these effects, and to describe a reasonable set of project alternatives. (DEIR, p. 1-2.)

1 ADCCLA notes that the project area for the Community Plan is the proposed Community Plan area, which is the combined areas of the existing Central City Community Plan and Central City North Community Plan, while the project area for the New Zoning Code is Citywide. (DEIR cover and pp. 3-3 to 3-4, 3-6 [Figure 3-2].) 2 The related documents reviewed in preparation for this comment letter include but are not limited to the November 2020 Draft Downtown Community Plan, the Fall 2020 Downtown Draft Zoning Maps, the Draft General Plan Land Use Designation Map, the November 12, 2020 Public Hearing Draft of the New Zoning Code (“11/12/20 New Zoning Code” or “New Zoning Code”), the Fact Sheets published during Summer 2020 for both the Downtown Plan and New Zoning Code, and the Fall 2020 Draft Community Plan Implementation Ordinance (“Draft CPIO”), among other documents. Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 2

ADCCLA members understand that the degree of specificity and detail provided in the environmental review of a community plan or zoning ordinance may be less than for a specific project where impacts can be more easily identified and mitigated, and that the secondary effects are properly the focus of the review of a general policy or plan. (Id., see 14 Cal. Code Regs. [“CEQA Guidelines”], § 15146.) The inability to provide exacting environmental review, however, does not excuse the City from making its best efforts. The California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) requires “adequacy, completeness, and a good faith effort at full disclosure.” (CEQA Guidelines, § 15151.)

The DEIR notes that “[n]o new development would be entitled or built as a direct result of adopting the Downtown Plan. Future development projects would require additional discretionary and/or ministerial approvals.” (DEIR, p. 3-3.) This is a somewhat misleading statement, implying that additional environmental review would follow any and all project- specific applications if the Downtown Plan is adopted. But ministerial (aka “by right”) projects are entirely exempt from environmental review under CEQA. (Public Resources Code, § 21080(a).) If a project complies with the existing zoning code framework and does not include any discretionary entitlement requests, applicants generally have the right as a matter of law to obtain the requisite permits to construct their project without undertaking environmental review. There can be little question that some projects will be built in the Downtown Plan area following its adoption. The current environmental review process for the Downtown Plan and New Zoning Code will likely be the only environmental review for future ministerial projects in the plan area so long as they are not in conflict with the General Plan or applicable zoning codes.

The DEIR also notes that social and economic impacts are not necessarily considered environmental impacts. (DEIR, p. 1-3.) But it is not uncommon for a physical change to be triggered as a secondary impact due to economic or social effects, for example, development of a shopping center may cause deterioration of areas with competing businesses located elsewhere. (See generally, Citizens Assn. for Sensible Development of Bishop Area v. County of Inyo (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 151.) The paramount consideration in the review process is identification of reasonably foreseeable probable future projects that are likely to occur due to adoption of the community plan. (Id., 172 Cal.App.3d at 168.)

Based on longstanding residential development pressure and recent changes to development patterns in the Central City North Community Plan area, especially in and around the Arts District community, there can be little doubt that additional residential projects will be built in this area. The economic effect of this activity is likely to increase the land value, and the social effect will likely be a continued increase in the desirability of the area for residential development and related uses. It is reasonably foreseeable that these continued economic and social pressures will result in the potentially significant environmental impact of displacing industrial uses to other parts of the City and region. Displaced uses are undoubtedly cognizable as environmental impacts, and are likely to occur due to adoption of the project. (See Muzzy Ranch Co. v. Solano County Airport Land Use Com. (2007) 41 Cal.4th 372, 383: “[N]othing inherent in the notion of displaced development places such development, when it can reasonably be anticipated, categorically outside the concern of CEQA.”) Despite the recent Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 3 development trends, which the DEIR anticipates will continue (see DEIR, p. 3-14; see also discussion, DEIR, p. 4.10-21), the City has not studied the potentially significant impact of displaced industrial uses.

The Final EIR should analyze the potentially significant secondary effects resulting from industrial displacement to other parts of the City and region or, like the DEIR, it will be incomplete and therefore inadequate.

Aesthetic and Cultural Resource Impacts

Arts District community members are particularly troubled by potentially significant aesthetic and cultural resource impacts to currently undesignated historical resources in the Downtown Plan area, especially in and around the Arts District neighborhood.

The DEIR describes building heights in the Downtown Plan area as they move from west to east from skyscrapers in the Financial District to one to three story buildings in industrial areas further east along the LA River. (DEIR, p. 4.1-60.) The Arts District is currently predominantly zoned M3 with an FAR of 1.5:1. (DEIR, p. 3-14.) But shade and shadows from new development would be especially impactful in the Arts District area in the Downtown Plan, because “average building heights and associated shadows would increase in the [Hybrid Industrial] area due to the higher permitted FAR” in the Downtown Plan. (DEIR, p. 4.1-69.) Moreover, the DEIR fails to consider shade and shadow impacts on the Los Angeles River, which is adjacent to the Hybrid Industrial part of the Downtown Plan, and an important resource in the community plan area, subject to many years of deliberation and substantial planning efforts. (See, e.g., DEIR, p. 4.10-50, describing the RIO District and Los Angeles River Restoration Master Plan.) The project environmental review should consider shadow impacts on the river.

The DEIR fails to adequately analyze the impact of the Community Plan Update and New Zoning Code on historical resources. The DEIR identifies one of the relevant general plan aesthetics policies from the Conservation Element, which is especially applicable to the Arts District area: “Continue to encourage and/or require property owners to develop their properties in a manner that will, to the greatest extent practical, retain . . . unique scenic features” such as historic features. (DEIR, p. 4.1-48.) A considerable portion of the existing Arts District is included as part of the “Downtown Los Angeles Industrial Historic District, which is an “Eligible-but-not-Designated Resource[] (DEIR, p. 4.4-21, Figure 4.4). In addition, the Arts District contains several designated Historic Cultural Monuments. (DEIR, p. 4.4-15, Table 4.4- 4.)

Despite the Arts District’s high historical resource value collectively and the value of individual resources in and around the Arts District, as well as the DEIR’s conclusion that changes to the height, scale, and density in the Hybrid Industrial designated area “would represent a change in [its] visual character,” the DEIR fails to include any comparison photographs of existing conditions and views with potential future development among the views depicted in the DEIR. Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 4

(See DEIR, pp. 4.1-67 to 4.1-67.) This deprives decision makers and members of the public the opportunity to better consider how shadows and massing would impact the resource area. (DEIR, p. 4.1-70.) In addition, despite the great importance of the Los Angeles River to this part of the City, there are no photos depicting comparisons of existing conditions adjacent to or across the Los Angeles River with potential future development. If the Hybrid Industrial area is among those areas that have the most visual character impacts, it is especially important that the EIR properly document the existing conditions and provide at least some comparison with potential future development as has been done for other neighborhoods in the plan area. (DEIR, pp. 4.1-67 to 4.1-67.) These are significant omissions and should be corrected in the Final EIR.

The DEIR goes so far as to speculatively consider the visual character changes as potentially positive: “However, future development would likely benefit and improve the visual character and quality in some of these areas . . .” (Ibid.) There appears to be no evidence in the environmental or other documents to support this speculation.

One of the purposes of the Downtown CPIO District is to “preserve and protect neighborhood identity, including protecting cultural and historic resources and distinctive character defining elements of existing urban form.” (Draft CPIO, p. 3.) Community members are especially frustrated that the City’s significant work toward creating a best practices paradigm in Appendices B-E of the Draft CPIO are not mandatory, even for discretionary entitlements. (Draft CPIO, p. 11, Section I-10.) Given that the purpose of the Downtown CPIO includes preservation of neighborhood character and the CPIO and DEIR identify the Arts District as deserving of special attention, the City should strongly consider whether all or part of these best practices should be implemented as mandatory requirements.

Even more troubling, the DEIR mistakenly concludes that “[f]uture development in Hybrid Industrial designated areas would be subject to zoning requirements regarding articulation, entrances, entry-features and transparencies as well as allowable materials that would reinforce the historic industrial character of this area.” But the Draft CPIO makes clear these requirements are not mandatory. (See Draft CPIO, p. 11, Section I-10: “Nothing in this section, the Downtown CPIO District, or any other applicable citywide design guidelines, shall allow decision makers to approve, deny, or condition a discretionary approval based on these best practices.”) Due to this misunderstanding, a potentially significant cultural resource impact appears to have been entirely overlooked, making the DEIR’s cultural resource analysis incomplete and inadequate.

The DEIR concludes that the cumulative impact analysis for historical resources results in a significant and unavoidable impact (DEIR, p. 4.4-48), and “[n]o feasible mitigation measures have been identified to mitigate” this impact. (DEIR, p. ES-17, Table ES-3.) Arts District-related impacts might be mitigated to some degree by actually requiring the non-mandatory best practices identified in Appendix C for the Arts District area to be imposed as a mitigation measure. In addition, visual character degradation could possibly be lessened by imposing some control on the number of buildings permitted to take advantage of development bonuses within a certain distance of one another or within a particular area. Such controls are already imposed on certain types of uses in the New Zoning Code. (See, e.g., 11/12/20 New Zoning Code, p. 5-107, Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 5

Sec. 5B.8.4(B), “Allowed Uses & Use Limitations” [treatment of Homeless Shelters within IX4 zones, which can be no closer than 300’ from another Homeless Shelter use].)

To adopt a Statement of Overriding Considerations, the City must find there is no feasible mitigation measure that would avoid or substantially mitigate the significant impact. (See Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) 6 Cal.5th 502, 524, discussing Pub. Resources Code, § 21081(b).) This finding must be supported by substantial evidence. (14 Cal. Code Regs., § 15093(b).) The City should also note that “[t]he inclusion of a mitigation measure that reduces an environmental impact is permitted even if the measure will not reduce the impact to a level below the threshold of significance.” (Sierra Club, 6 Cal.5th at 525.)

As the project continues through the environmental review process toward a Final EIR, the City should continue to consider additional mitigation measures that might significantly mitigate unavoidable impacts, and should consider imposing mitigations even if they do not reduce impacts below the threshold of significance.

Land Use Impacts

The DEIR acknowledges the importance of the General Plan Framework Element: “The City's General Plan Framework Element (GPF) establishes the overarching guide for how Los Angeles will grow in the future. Adopted in 1996 and again in 2001, the Framework Element is a strategy for long-range growth and development, setting a citywide context for the update of Community Plans and citywide elements.” (DEIR, p. 4.10-11.)

The DEIR’s analysis of land use impacts includes a very generalized discussion of the General Plan Framework Element. It discusses strategic growth, conservation of existing residential neighborhoods, balancing the distribution of land uses, enhancing neighborhood character through improved development standards, creating more parks, pedestrian districts, and public plazas, improving mobility, and identifying a hierarchy of commercial districts and centers. (DEIR, pp. 4.10-11 to 4.10-12.) But the land use analysis related to the Framework Element unfortunately avoids delving into most specific policy details with respect to industrial land use designations and zoning, leading to an incomplete and therefore inadequate analysis.

The DEIR concludes that there is a less than significant impact in the land use analysis review category. The DEIR’s analysis is incomplete, however, as it neglects full consideration of the City’s industrial land use policy as expressed in the Framework Element. This causes the DEIR to fail as an informational document. In addition, the DEIR’s Secondary Objective 2 seeks only to “[m]aintain a meaningful amount of the Plan Area that is dedicated to production and high- intensity traditional industry.” (DEIR, p. ES-3.) Not only is “meaningful amount” incredibly vague, Secondary Objective 2 is in direct conflict with industrial land use policy as expressed in the existing Framework Element. Thus, the DEIR’s conclusion that the Downtown Plan would cause a less than significant impact is incorrect. (DEIR, p. ES-33, Table ES-3; see also DEIR, p. 4.10-28.)

Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 6

The DEIR states:

“Consistent with the General Plan Framework Element, land for industrial uses would be retained under the Downtown Plan. The proposed Production designation would protect and sustain industrial activity and serve as a center of employment for heavy industrial, manufacturing and storage, heavy commercial and light industrial activity, including production, wholesale and distribution uses.” (DEIR, p. 4.10-21.)

But the proposed Downtown Plan is actually inconsistent with the General Plan Framework Element, which calls for preservation of industrial designations and uses, and allows for conversion only where planning studies have been done to justify conversion to other uses. (Los Angeles General Plan Framework Element, Chapter 3.)3

The City undertook such a study of industrial land during the early to mid-2000s, culminating in a series of policy recommendations intended to preserve industrial land as still reflected in the General Plan Framework. In a December 2005 memo to the City’s General Managers and other City leaders engaged in land use policy work, Former Deputy Mayor Bud Ovrom called attention to what he deemed a growing crisis caused by the “increasing pressure to convert the City’s industrial zones to alternative land uses.” (Memorandum from Deputy Mayor Bud Ovrom to General Managers, Dec. 12, 2005, p. 1.)4 In the memo, Ovrom noted:

Los Angeles’ industrial jobs occur on a very small fraction of the 464 square miles that make up the City. Only 8% of our city is zoned for industrial use, primarily in 5 concentrations: Greater Downtown, the Westside, Hollywood, the railroad corridor across the Valley, and the Harbor. These industrial areas are a precious resource that, if lost or severely compromised, will be impossible to recreate. (Id., pp. 1-2.)

Following up on this policy concern, the City investigated further and published a comprehensive study and policy recommendations in 2007. (See generally, Los Angeles Department of City Planning and Community Redevelopment Agency, Los Angeles’ Industrial 5 Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy (Dec. 2007).) The City’s 2007 industrial land use policy study concluded:

3 Available at: http://cityplanning.lacity.org/cwd/framwk/chapters/03/03209.htm. 4 Available at City Planning’s website (last checked, December 4, 2020): https://planning.lacity.org/code_studies/landuseproj/Industrial_Files/AttachmentC.pdf. 5 The land use study remains available at the City Planning’s website (last checked, December 4, 2020): https://planning.lacity.org/Code_Studies/LanduseProj/Industrial_Files/Attachment%20B.pdf. Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 7

big-box retail, schools, open space and recreational facilities continue to encroach on industrial land. Currently, 26 percent of Los Angeles’ industrial land is already used for non-industrial purposes, leaving just six (6) percent of the City’s total land area available for active industrial uses. In Downtown Los Angeles, West Los Angeles and increasingly in Hollywood, residential developers have purchased industrial properties to convert them to high-end housing, creating speculative markets that result in increasing land prices and uncertainty about future land use decisions, making it difficult for our most important industries to do business in Los Angeles and for new industries to have the confidence to invest. (Ibid., p. 4.)

As of 2007, Los Angeles had less than 1,400 acres of land zone for heavy manufacturing. (Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy, p. 10.) More than a quarter of all industrially zoned land in the City was then being used for non-industrial purposes, a number that has almost certainly increased since then due to the constant pressure in the Arts District and other industrially zoned neighborhoods, and due to the many projects approved that have converted industrially zoned land to other uses. (Id., p. 4.) The City appears not to have precisely quantified this significant loss in the intervening years since the last major study.

Nonetheless, the standing policy of the City remains as it existed in early 2008, “to retain industrial land for job producing uses, as established in the adopted General Plan Framework and Community Plans.” (Memorandum from S. Gail Goldberg, Staff Direction Regarding Industrial Land Use and Potential Conversion to Residential or Other Uses, January 3, 2008, p. 1 [emphasis in original].)6

The DEIR correctly notes that “[a]n EIR is an informational document that will inform decisionmakers as well as members of the public of the significant environmental effects of a project.” (DEIR, p. 1-2.) It is noteworthy that the DEIR fails to describe the limitations within the General Plan Framework on the process by which the City may change its current policy calling for preservation of the industrial land base. The DEIR also fails to provide sufficient detail to compare what is permitted within existing use and zoning designations (the project “baseline”) with what will be permitted if the proposed Downtown Plan and applicable New Zoning Code is adopted. The DEIR therefore fails as an informational document.

It is useful to compare the existing industrial acreage in the Downtown Plan area with that proposed Downtown Plan. The DEIR provides two tables showing the acreage of industrial land designations in the current and proposed community plans to aid in the comparison. While helpful, the comparison is rather opaque, since the new plan uses relabeled land use designation categories that do not necessarily correspond to the uses implied by their labels.

6 This memo is also available on City Planning’s website (last checked Dec. 4, 2020): https://planning.lacity.org/code_studies/landuseproj/Industrial_Files/StaffDirections.pdf. Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 8

Detail from Table 4.10-1, Summary of Existing Land Use in the Downtown Plan Area

Detail from Table 4.10-2, Summary of Proposed Land Use in the Downtown Plan Area

Because of the differing designations and underlying available uses, it is difficult for a decision maker or member of the public to understand the effects of adoption of the Downtown Plan, especially with respect to the Framework Element’s overriding goal of preserving industrially zoned land and any resulting land use impacts. The most readily apparent difference is the significant reduction in land zoned to allow heavy manufacturing uses. The existing Heavy Manufacturing designation currently applies to 829 acres. But the Production designation, the only land use designation theoretically allowing heavy industrial uses in the proposed Downtown Plan, is only 557 acres, a reduction of 272 acres. But the Production designation allows a fairly broad range of uses, including heavy industrial but also allowing “evolving and innovative industries, such as light assembly and manufacturing, clean technology, incubators, and research and development facilities.” (DEIR, p. 4.10-23.) The potential loss to the City’s heavy manufacturing base could be substantially greater than 272 acres, and no land use studies required by the Framework Element support the decision to allow such conversions to occur.

It may be fair to consider the “Market” designation as at least quasi-industrial, because it includes warehouse uses (see 4.10-23), but that designation also “include[s] retail, limited housing, and good movement activities.” Some of these activities may also support nearby industrial use, but otherwise these are all non-manufacturing uses. Likewise, the revised Hybrid Industrial designation will allow live/work, light industrial, commercial, and office. (DEIR, p. 4.10-23.) While live/work spaces are theoretically job-producing, there is understandable skepticism that many such projects are not being utilized as live/work spaces, but rather are simply a different form of primarily residential development. (See, e.g., Shane Phillips email to Bryan Eck, DTLA 2040 EIR scoping period comments, March 4, 2017, p. 2, included in DEIR Appendix A.)7

7 ADCCLA is pleased and appreciative, however, that its recommendations to increase the minimum average unit size to 1,000 square feet, among other modifications, was adopted in the IX4 use designation, which will provide for adequate space for true live/work utilization of live/work spaces for Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 9

The DEIR shows there is a significant loss of industrially designated and zoned land between the existing community plan and the proposed Downtown Plan. This is in conflict with the General Plan Framework Element, and is itself a significant land use impact that has not been identified or mitigated. In addition, Los Angeles continues to have low industrial vacancy rates, with a 1.3% vacancy rate and 21 consecutive quarters below 2%.8 The low vacancy rate and reduction in industrial base makes it highly likely that a secondary impact of the proposed Downtown Plan will be displaced industrial uses in the City or region. If the City followed the General Plan Framework’s edict to study conversion of industrially zoned land to other uses, it likely would have identified the potentially significant environmental impact as well as the reasonably foreseeable secondary impacts due to displacement. The DEIR is therefore inadequate for failing to identify the potentially significant impact and attempting to mitigate its impacts to a level less than significant.

Even though the text of the Downtown Plan DEIR claims it is consistent with the General Plan Framework Element, the tabular data included in the DEIR acknowledges that, at best, the Downtown Plan is only partially consistent and partially inconsistent. (DEIR, pp. 4.10-30 to 4.10-31.) The DEIR admits:

Allowing new residential uses would potentially be in conflict with Framework Element Policy 3.14.4 which encourages the City to “limit the introduction of new commercial and other non-industrial uses in existing commercial manufacturing zone to uses which support the primary industrial function of the location in which they are located.” Additionally, it may be in conflict with the language in the Framework Element that calls to “preserve industrial lands for the retention and expansion of existing and attraction of new industrial uses that provide job opportunities for the City’s residents.” (Ibid., p. 4.10-31.)

But the DEIR fails to call attention to the requisite studies needed before industrial land may be converted to other uses.

The DEIR’s conclusion that cumulative land use impacts are less than significant is due to the DEIR’s incomplete analysis of the General Plan Framework’s industrial land use policies, especially the policy to preserve industrial uses and to allow industrial conversion to other uses only after appropriate studies are undertaken. (General Plan Framework, Chap. 3, infra, note 3.)

ADCCLA believes a reasonable mitigation to ensure job producing uses are best preserved, consistent with the General Plan Framework element, is to ensure projects requesting development bonuses maintain at least 1.5 FAR for productive uses, exclusive of square footage maintained as private work space within live/work dwelling units. productive use. The IX3 designation is unfortunately less restrictive and still allows a minimum average unit size of only 750 square feet. 8 See Kelsi Maree Borland, Los Angeles Leads Nation in Industrial Vacancy, GlobeSt.com, Jan. 21, 2020, available at: https://www.globest.com/2020/01/21/los-angeles-leads-nation-in-industrial-vacancy/ (last checked Dec. 4, 2020). Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 10

The Draft Community Plan Implementation Ordinance and New Zoning Code

The DEIR provides only a generalized analysis of the New Zoning Code and Draft CPIO, but there are several important issues that deserve further consideration in the Final EIR.

Most important, Article 13 of the New Zoning Code, dealing with administrative procedures, is not included as part of the New Zoning Code exhibit in Appendix G of the Draft EIR, even though it will be applicable to the Downtown Plan area. (DEIR, Appendix G, p. 3.) The DEIR notes that Planning is currently undertaking an update to the current zoning code’s administration provisions, with the intention to carry those updated provisions forward. (DEIR, p. 3-53.) The fact that the language is missing makes any meaningful environmental analysis of this section impossible. The City’s general assurance of its intention to carry forward items that are not yet drafted, let alone approved, does not substitute for analysis of the actual language from the administrative section. The DEIR and project documents fail to provide even an estimated timeline for completion of this portion of the zoning code. Environmental review of the New Zoning Code is thus necessarily incomplete and inadequate. More important, by failing to proceed with the DEIR while it is missing important project-related language, public commenters are robbed of the opportunity to have the City consider and respond in writing to any concerns they might have raised in response to reviewing the draft language for the Administration portion of the Zoning Code, as required by CEQA.9

The draft Community Plan Implementation Ordinance makes repeated reference to Article 13. (See, e.g., Draft CPIO, pp. 7-9, Sections I-6(B), I-6(C)(1)-(5), I-7(A), II-3(A)(4), and especially Section II-8, which relates to the setting of a very high Project Review Threshold for Community Benefit Projects.)10 Commenters can only guess at the possible potentially significant impacts that might arise from modifications to the procedures compared to the procedures in the existing zoning code. Our California Supreme Court has held that the environmental review process is intended “to demonstrate to an apprehensive citizenry that the [City] has, in fact, analyzed and considered the ecological implications of its action.” An EIR “is a document of accountability . . . protect[ing] not only the environment but also informed self-government.” (Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of the University of California (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376, 392.)

The City’s failure to present at least a basic draft of administrative procedures violates the City’s obligation to disclose project details so that the EIR’s informational function can be fulfilled. (See Sierra Club v. County of Fresno (2018) 6 Cal.5th 502, 517.) Public participation and

9 “The lead agency shall consider comments it receives on a draft environmental impact report . . . if those comments are received within the public review period.” (Public Resources Code, §§ 21091(d)(1) (emphasis added).) “With respect to the consideration of comments received on a draft environmental impact report, the lead agency shall evaluate comments on environmental issues . . . and shall prepare a written response . . .” (Public Resources Code, §§ 21091(d)(2)(A) (emphasis added).) 10 Compare to the existing municipal code, which calls for Site Plan Review for development projects resulting in an increase of 50 or more dwelling units or guest rooms, or 50,000 square feet of nonresidential development, which is 1/10 the proposed review threshold for Community Benefits Program projects. (Los Angeles Municipal Code, § 16.05) Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 11 awareness are not served when critical project-related documents are incomplete or not included with the environmental review document.

Potentially significant impacts following expiration of restricted uses

The DEIR appears not to analyze certain features of the New Zoning Code’s General Incentive Programs. For example, Section 9.3.4 subdivision B includes references to bonuses provided for inclusion of Child Care Services, Full Service Grocery Stores, Health Centers, Employment Centers, Schools and Libraries, Social Services, and Public Facilities. (11/12/20 New Zoning Code, p. 9-29 et seq.) But in each case, the particular project benefit that allows the grant of bonus floor area is only required to remain for a period of 10 years following issuance of the project’s Certificate of Occupancy. (Id.) Neither the proposed zoning code nor the DEIR explain or analyze how the subsequent use will be assured to be not more impactful than the approved use such that it will not later cause a potentially significant environmental impact.

Protecting the unique Los Angeles River resource

ADCCLA members are greatly concerned that the proposed Downtown Plan does not reflect the true importance of the Los Angeles River to the community plan area and City, and especially to the Arts District neighborhood. The DEIR notes that the “Los Angeles River is an important ecological feature” to the community plan area and to the Arts District. But while the DEIR establishes that there are no Significant Ecological Areas in the Downtown Plan area, it also indicates that the “Los Angeles River, as well as small portions of parks and open space, trees and minor urban landscaping, are the only sources of biological habitat in and around the Downtown Plan Area.” (DEIR, p. 4.3-1 (emphasis added).) Further, even though the LA River is channelized as it runs through this part of the City, it is still identified as a wetland in the DEIR. (DEIR, p. 4.3-7, Figure 4.3-1; see also DEIR, p. 4.3-20.) This biological habitat is especially vital to the Downtown Plan, given its general scarcity in the planning area, and therefore especially worth preserving.

The DEIR concludes that “[r]easonably anticipated development from the Downtown Plan would not directly or indirectly affect the Los Angeles River.” (DEIR, p. 4.3-20.) ADCCLA disagrees with this conclusion, in that projects located adjacent to the river benefiting from development bonuses under the Downtown Plan and Zoning Code may be tall enough to cast shadows on, and obscure views from and across the river. While the LA River in this part of the City may not be formally considered a scenic view or scenic resource, ADCCLA contends it is a unique and valuable resource most worthy of preservation and planning efforts. The City’s planning process is very shortsighted in not considering that the LA River may one day be considered a scenic view or resource. The City should ensure that the Downtown Plan includes sufficient long-range vision not to foreclose such future possibilities, and should plan for this unique resource accordingly, by including all river-adjacent parcels, including all public facilities, in the formal planning process, and properly limiting massing, especially height, along the river.

Brittany Arceneaux, Dept. of City Planning Downtown Comm. Plan Update December 4, 2020 Page 12

Additional Concerns

Finally, ADCCLA members feel that no discretionary project currently under review in the community plan area should be approved without considering its relationship to the proposed plan. While vested projects are certainly entitled to proceed under the existing community plan and zoning code, City decision makers retain the discretion to ensure that those projects comply fully with the existing municipal code without providing additional discretionary approvals and bonuses that would unfairly undercut the many years of work on the proposed Downtown Plan and New Zoning Code. This is especially true of projects that are grossly out of scale with both the existing and proposed community plans. (See DEIR, p. 4.1-60, describing the “decrease in average height moving from west to east across the Downtown Plan Area,” with the tallest skyscrapers in the Financial District, moderate building heights of three to thirteen stories in the Center City area, three to five story buildings in the Industrial, Manufacturing and Wholesale District, and one to three stories in industrial areas furthest east along the LA River.)

Conclusion

Based on the above, the DEIR for the proposed Downtown Plan and New Zoning Code is currently inadequate, because it is incomplete in numerous respects, includes unsupported speculation, but most important, fails to identify and analyze all potentially significant environmental effects, particularly with respect to impacts in categories of aesthetics, cultural (historical) resources, and land use. ADCCLA looks forward to continuing to work with the Department of City Planning to ensure that the Final EIR is a complete and adequate environmental review document that will ensure the successful adoption of the project, which will serve the Arts District and other communities in the Downtown Los Angeles area for the next twenty years.

Sincerely,

John Given

November 14, 2014 via e-mail

Mr. Brian Eck Ms. Patricia Diefenderfer Mr. Nick Maricich Los Angeles Department of City Planning Policy Planning Division 200 N. Spring Street, Suite 667 Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dear Mr. Brian Eck; Ms. Patricia Diefenderfer; Mr. Nick Maricich:!

I would like to express my gratitude to you for performing the tireless job of drafting an unprecedented ordinance that promises to achieve two dichotomously opposed goals: balancing the preservation of the unique character that defines the Arts District with the external forces attempting to shape the future direction of the neighborhood.

As we shape the future, it is important to recognize the hallmark policy set forth by City Planning that made this revitalization possible, the 1981 Artist and Residence Ordinance (Ordinance 155843). There were numerous older commercial and industrial structures, many of which were vacant and available at low rents, that appealed to artists and artisans who needed both inexpensive and large accommodations in which to live and work. The enacted Ordinance granted them the legal means of which to inhabit these commercial and industrial buildings in the C and M Zones.

As a stakeholder that has participated in the development of the Arts District for the past decade, I feel extremely fortunate and relish in its continued maturation. I have witnessed vacant and underutilized industrial buildings dating back to the Industrial Revolution, once the pillar of family-run businesses, re-invented and woven into the new fabric of a modern day economy. This transformation has been aided by artists, makers, doers and job creators and has shaped the cultural heritage of Los Angeles as a whole. The Arts District today is an irreplaceable component of the City and is vital from economic, creative, and culturally significant facets. The District is essential to the continued prosperity of the City of Los Angeles.

137 north larchmont boulevard, suite 649!los angeles, california 90004! 213.626.3600 telephone • 213.626.3700 facsimile

As such, I have several concerns with the proposed Interim Arts District Live/Work Zone Ordinance and would like this letter on the record to serve as opposition of the proposed for the following reasons:

1. This proposal leads to physical blight to the District and does not preserve the character of the existing neighborhood and historic era buildings. Further, development standards and incentives including the floor area ratio (FAR) and concept of a minimum average of unit size serves to promote an archetypal residential community. As such, this acts as a catalyst to the demolition of a collection of historically relevant buildings and reduces the number of affordable housing units that currently exist and which is essential to the life of artists. This is a direct threat to the existing character of the neighborhood.

2. The proposed expansion of boundaries beyond those established in the 2008 City Council adoption of the General Plan Amendment CASE NO. CPC-2008-3417-GPA will displace healthy and viable industries and jeopardize hundreds of jobs and change the DNA of the neighborhood.

3. The timing of two currently proposed new live/work developments at 360 South Alameda Street and 660 South Alameda Street to the Interim Arts District Live/Work Zone Ordinance is problematic. Currently, new live/work units are not permissible in the Art’s District and their entitlement should be untethered to the timing of the Interim Ordinance.

1) Preservation Of Neighborhood Character And Historic Buildings Through The Modification Of Proposed Development Standards And Incentives

When accounting for the proposed development standards and incentives through the calculus of an Excel spreadsheet, the yield of an optimal financial result is identical to an ubiquitous Type III and IV, 3.0 FAR apartment complex.

This product type derives from the exact language of development standards and incentives and serves to obscure the wolf in sheep’s clothes. Objectively, these are apartments that will come at the expense of the District’s historic era vintage industrial buildings. Real-time evidence supports this as land prices have increased by nearly 200% over the past year and are now at a price point where purchasing these buildings solely for the underlying land value is part of the economic model. In other words, prospective developers are purchasing these buildings with the intent to demolish them since there are not enough proposed standards to stop them.

Preserving the historic era buildings from certain demolition is actionable. Please consider adopting the following modifications to the proposed development standards and incentives:

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1a) Maintaining the development standards of the 1982 Ordinance (Ordinance number 1562791) where units sizes are a minimum of 750 square feet, or increase the proposed minimum average to 1,000 square feet per unit and with a minimum unit size of 600 square feet.

1b) Maintaining the current FAR at 1.5 for construction of new live/work units, or increase the FAR to 3.0 if the new construction has an additional mixed-use component of hotel and/or creative office.

1c) Have all new live/work developments reserve 20% of the units to low income households that: a) inspire leadership; b) have programs to empower the residents to foster a well-balanced community through outreach; c) demonstrate building sustainability.

1d) Prohibit the destruction of any vintage industrial buildings constructed out of concrete, brick or steel before the year 1974.

2) Maintaining The City Council Approved Boundaries Of The Arts District

The language in the 1981 Artist and Residence Ordinance (Ordinance 155843) was clear that reusing the underutilized industrial inventory was not to be at the detriment of other industrial uses for the building.

“That the proposed joint living and work quarters will not displace viable industrial uses and will not substantially lessen the likelihood that such property will be used for industrial uses.”

This directive was subsequently echoed verbatim in 1994 Citywide Live/Work Ordinance (Ordinance No 169670) that amended Los Angeles Municipal Code to revise the regulations pertaining to the establishment of joint living/working quarters for artists, but reiterated the importance of the viability of industrial buildings.

"That the proposed joint living and work quarters will not displace viable industrial uses and will not substantially lessen the likelihood that the property will be available in the future for industrial uses."

In 2000, the boundaries of the Arts District were established as the Council adopted a Resolution, CF 00-1449, that directed the Planning Department to initiate proceedings to establish a Commercial and Artcraft District within the Downtown Arts District Community for the areas generally bounded by First Street to the North, the Los Angeles River to the East, Sixth Street to the South, and Alameda Street to the West, to support private initiatives that preserve and reuse existing commercial and industrial properties and attract additional vitality to an emerging Arts District.

In 2008, the Director of City Planning and the Chief Executive Office of the Redevelopment Agency performed a two-year exhaustive study on the City’s

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industrial land (including a Negative Declaration [ENV-2008-3611-ND]). The Los Angeles City Council adopted a General Plan Amendment to update the geographical boundaries of the Downtown Arts District, which is part of the Central City North Community Plan, to include the areas south to and including Violet Street and the areas between Mill Street / Wilson and the Los Angeles River, Case No CPC-2008-3417-GPA [Exhibit A]. Again, it states:

Please consider keeping the existing boundaries that were studied and adopted by City Council in 2008 for the following reasons:

2a) There is enough room within the existing boundaries to absorb the proposed allotment of 1,500 new live/work units and adding density outside of this area intermittent, at best.

2b) There is no evidence from community meetings, including Uncommon Ground (Exhibit B), that reflect a demand to expand the boundaries beyond those already established.

2c) The actual organic growth, currently underway, is along the Los Angeles River and into Boyle Heights, both in close proximity to a proposed new railway, the 6th Street Bridge and planned parks, which is consistent with the 2010 ULI study of the Arts District (Exhibit C).

2d) The proposed expanded boundary is home to several healthy industrial sectors including cold storage, bus depots, schools and the produce industry. Delineating this new boundary is a death sentence to a main warehouse and distribution hub that is vital to downtown and the City of Los Angeles. It will further disrupt many of the small family-run produce businesses that exist in close proximity and jeopardize hundreds of jobs.

2e) One of the primary goals of the Interim Arts District Live/Work Zone Ordinance is to create jobs as an alternative current use. Expanding the boundaries to allow residential apartments that are not compatible with the surrounding area, and where no apparent negative declarations or EIR determinations have been made will create an economic and physical blight to the District and it will not achieve the goal of job creation.

3) Untethering 360 South Alameda Street And 660 South Alameda Street To The Interim Arts District Live/Work Zone Ordinance

The local area community groups, LARABA and HCNC, need to see an approved Ordinance before they can determine their level of support for these projects. As

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the zoning currently stands, new live/work units are not permissible in the M3 zone. Therefore, please consider removing the entitlements for 360 South Alameda and 660 South Alameda from the Interim Arts District Live/Work Zone proposal for the following reasons:

3a) While 360 South Alameda Street is located in the current Arts District boundary it should be untethered to the proposed Interim Arts District Live/Work Ordinance until the community has a chance to approve it.

3b) 660 South Alameda Street should be untethered to the proposed Interim Arts District Live/Work Ordinance as: 1) it is outside the boundary of the Arts District; 2) the project will demolish a series of buildings with historical era significance that were built in 1907, 1916, 1937 and 1941; 3) the community has not had a chance to approve it.

Thank you for your time and consideration on this proposal. As a stakeholder in the Downtown Arts District, I truly believe that smart and creative policies are the precursor to effective development, which is what excites me on a daily basis. I thank you for your hard work and look forward to our continued collaboration on making the Arts District and Los Angeles City the best it can be.

Sincerely,

Mark Borman The Borman Group

cc: Jose Huizar, Gloria Molina, Kevin Ocubillo, Mayor Eric Garcetti, Gil Cedillo, Mitch Englander, Kevin Keller, Ashley Atkinson

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Exhibit B

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Exhibit C

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INDUSTRIAL LAND USE PROJECT- OVERVIEW

THE BIG QUESTION ABOUT INDUSTRIAL LAND The demand for industrially zoned land in Los Angeles and throughout the nation is shrinking. Today, of the City’s 464 square miles, eight percent of this land (only 37 square miles) is zoned for some form of industrial land use. This number becomes considerably smaller given the reality that much of the City’s industrially zoned land is being used for non-industrial activities. In an effort to simultaneously promote industrial activity within the City, and allow commercial and residential redevelopment in under-utilized industrial areas, we are left to consider three important questions:

1. What should we keep? Which industrially zoned areas should be maintained as such, and how can we promote viable industrial activity in these areas?

2. What should we modify? Which industrially zoned areas might successfully be used simultaneously for industrial land uses and compatible commercial and residential land uses and could benefit from being re-categorized?

3. What should we change? Which industrially zoned areas are being marginally utilized as industrial land, have been significantly encroached upon by non-industrial activities and should be re-categorized for non-industrial activity?

THE ROLE OF THE LAND USE SURVEY In February 2006, City staff began the process of surveying existing land uses within key industrial areas in the City. To date, industrial areas in Hollywood, West LA and the greater Downtown area have been surveyed. (For survey purposes, these areas have been named Hollywood, Westside, Downtown, Alameda, Boyle Heights and Chinatown). The industrial land use survey was undertaken to provide accurate information as to how the City’s thousands of industrially zoned parcels are actually being used. With concrete information about existing uses, existing conditions and an understanding as to the character and vitality of these areas, it is now possible to begin to answer the questions listed above.

HOW IS THE SURVEY DATA USED? The survey data provided by the City Planning Department is being used by various City Agencies (City Planning, Community Redevelopment Agency, Community Development, etc.) to answer the above questions and enable policy that will be appropriate for enhancing the existing industrial districts and allow for appropriate development within and around these areas. Through ongoing collaboration, these agencies are formulating professional land use policy recommendations.

ONLINE RESOURCES The documents posted under the Industrial Land Use Project will include public meeting/workshop notices, land use survey reports and background documents such as the Industrial Development Policy Initiative reports Phase 1 and 2, published by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Economic Development. Maps illustrating preliminary Staff recommendations for each survey area will be posted as data becomes available.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? • Public Workshops to share staff recommendations: Summer 2006 o Hollywood Study Area will be reviewed on May 31, 2006 (see Workshop notice) • Public Hearings for each surveyed area to recommend policy direction: Fall/Winter 2006

Questions? Contact Conni Pallini-Tipton at [email protected] or 213.978.1196

Industrial Land Use Survey (created May 2006) 1 of 1 ATTACHMENT B

LOS ANGELES’ INDUSTRIAL LAND: S U S T A I N I N G A D Y N A M I C C I T Y E C O N O M Y

PREPARED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF CITY PLANNING AND THE COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY OF THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES

DECEMBER 2007

Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Contents INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ...... 3 I. INDUSTRIAL LAND AND ZONING IN LOS ANGELES ...... 7 Industrial Zones and the Industrial Sector ...... 7 Industrial Land Supply in Los Angeles ...... 10 Evolving Industrial Districts ...... 11 Strategic Importance of Downtown Los Angeles ...... 12 Land for Emerging Industry Sectors ...... 13 II. THE IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRIAL LAND TO THE LOS ANGELES ECONOMY ...... 15 Los Angeles’ Industrial Workforce ...... 15 “Ripple Effects” to the Los Angeles Economy ...... 18 III. REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS SHAPING INDUSTRIAL LAND USES IN LOS ANGELES ...... 20 Current Industrial Demand and Vacancy Rates ...... 20 Demand for Housing in Industrial Districts ...... 22 Opportunities for Housing Development Throughout Los Angeles ...... 23 Economic Impact of Conversion to Housing on the City’s General Fund ...... 24 Impacts of Industrial-to-Residential Conversion on the City’s Long Term Development ...... 25 CONCLUSION ...... 28 Appendix 1 ...... 29

METHODOLOGY / ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK ...... 29 Appendix 2 ...... 33 General Plan Excerpts ...... 33 Appendix 3 ...... 40 Other Existing Policies that Shape Industrial Districts...... 40 Appendix 4a ...... 42 Other Cities’ Industrial Land Use Policies ...... 42 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 52 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 54

Page 2 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Job producing land is a critical component of a healthy and prosperous city. Industrial zoned areas of Los Angeles offer employment opportunities for residents of all skill and education levels, create and support jobs in multiple other business sectors, and generate taxes that sustain the quality of life elsewhere in the City by funding streets and sidewalks, police and fire services, libraries, trash collection, and more. For these reasons, the City of Los Angeles has had a long-standing adopted policy to preserve industrial lands. The General Plan Framework states that the City of Los Angeles must CITY OF LOS ANGELES GENERAL PLAN “actively ensure that the City has sufficient quantities of FRAMEWORK LAND USE GOAL : land suitable to accommodate existing, new and relocating industrial firms.” It also limits the conversion of existing “Industrial growth that industrial land to other land uses to avoid creating “a provides job opportunities for fragmented pattern of development [that] reduces the the City's residents and maintains the City's fiscal integrity and viability of existing industrial areas.” 1 viability.”

This existing policy states the City’s intent to:

• Protect industrial zoned land; • Retain and expand existing businesses; • Attract new uses that provide job opportunities for the City’s residents; and • Maintain a healthy jobs/household ratio that supports the General Fund and its capacity to pay for essential services and programs for the City’s existing and future population.

Despite this long-standing policy to support industrial and employment generating land uses, the policy has been increasingly overlooked, recently prompting a renewed effort to retain critical job- producing lands, the jobs they support, and the revenues they generate for the City. The industrial sector in Los Angeles employs fully one–quarter of the City’s total workforce 2 and creates an estimated $219,000,000 annually in City tax revenue. More than 410,000 persons are employed in the industrial sector. 3

The diverse and dynamic economy of Los Angeles is increasingly home to many types of ‘new economy’ jobs that are considered industrial. Technological advances and global economic changes are replacing ‘smokestack’ industries with more light manufacturing, apparel, biomedical, logistics

1 General Plan Framework, Section 7.2.11 (1996, 2001). 2 California Employment Development Dept., Labor Market Information Division, ES202 data (2005). 3 This number represents persons working in the City of Los Angeles, irrespective of place of residence.

Page 3 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

and creative industries. Moreover, Los Angeles provides opportunities for start up businesses; industrial zones offer the conditions needed for entrepreneurs and small businesses to grow and expand, as well as transition to full production.

In addition to directly supporting job-producing uses, industrial zoned land is crucial to many services essential to Los Angeles’ business and residential communities including utilities, distribution, recycling, construction and maintenance yards, animal services, and automobile repair. These businesses are also critically linked to other business sectors that rely on goods and services produced in industrial zones.

Competition for industrially zoned land in Los Angeles is extremely high; industrial land in the City has the lowest vacancy rate in the nation, remaining consistently below two percent. Yet the supply of these critical job-producing areas is becoming increasingly scarce as non-industrial uses such as residential, big-box retail, schools, open space and recreational facilities continue to encroach on industrial land. Currently, 26 percent of Los Angeles’ industrial land is already used for non- industrial purposes4, leaving just six (6) percent of the City’s total land area available for active industrial uses. In Downtown Los Angeles, West Los Angeles and increasingly in Hollywood, residential developers have purchased industrial properties to convert them to high-end housing, creating speculative markets that result in increasing land prices and uncertainty about future land use decisions, making it difficult for our most important industries to do business in Los Angeles and for new industries to have the confidence to invest. As a recent market report forecasting the fate of industrial land in Los Angeles cautions:

“The major concern is what the developers will do with the minimal vacant land that is left in Los Angeles County. Developers of all types of product: residential, retail, office and industrial, will all scramble to gobble up land and turn it into what they believe will be the most profitable use. The recent trend in Los Angeles has been mixed-use and high-end condominium construction. If this trend continues, industrial space will be in even tighter demand, pushing more users in the area to move east [to the Inland Empire].” 5

When industrial businesses and jobs leave the City, it not only redirects economic value and revenues to other cities, it potentially leaves Los Angeles residents with fewer—and often lower- paying—employment opportunities. To protect job-producing land in the City of Los Angeles, the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development appointed an Industrial Development Advisory Committee in 2003 to make policy recommendations to the Mayor and City Council to help the City:

4 Not including the Airport and Port of Los Angeles. DCP GIS (2004). 5 Grubb & Ellis, Industrial Market Trends: Los Angeles County (Second Quarter 2007).

Page 4 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

• Encourage industrial economic activity in the City of Los Angeles;

• Retain and optimize the use of the City’s industrial zoned land;

• Increase the number of quality jobs available to local residents; and

• Increase the City’s revenues from industrial activity.

The Committee issued the Industrial Development Policy Initiative Phase 1 in early 2004 and Phase 2 in late 2005. These reports characterized Los Angeles’ industrial base, examined the factors that influence the vitality of the industrial sector, and made preliminary policy recommendations to expand the City’s industrial base. Both the 2004 and 2005 reports underscore the significance of the City’s industrial land use policies to the City’s economic prosperity.

As the public bodies responsible for implementing City land use policy, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning (DCP) and the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) have an obligation to ensure an adequate supply of land for existing businesses to operate and to employ the City’s residents, as well as to enhance the City’s ability to foster business and job growth.

By 2005, Los Angeles was experiencing intense pressure to convert relatively inexpensive industrial land to other uses including residential development and public and private schools. As a result, the Mayor directed DCP and CRA/LA to look more deeply into the ramifications of the potential loss of the City’s industrial areas. The Industrial Land Use Policy (ILUP) Project was thus undertaken to:

Address the increasing numbers of zone change, general plan amendment and redevelopment plan variation applications to convert industrial land to other uses; and Evaluate the efficacy of the City’s existing industrial land use policy in order to provide guidance to DCP and CRA/LA staff as they begin updating the Community Plans and related documents that include many of the City’s industrial/employment districts.

The ILUP Project staff released preliminary findings and conclusions in November 2006, which were presented to community members, residents, business owners, developers, advocacy groups, and City staff, for review and comment over a period of six months. ILUP Project staff subsequently conducted additional analysis to address issues raised by the various groups and revised the preliminary determinations.

This report is the culmination of ILUP Project research, analysis and public outreach. It is submitted in conjunction with industrial land use policy implementation directions to DCP and CRA/LA staff.

Page 5 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

The directions include both typological and geographically-specific staff guidance that together with this report provide policymakers and the public with a comprehensive understanding of the role of industrial and employment lands in the City of Los Angeles and why they are important to the social and economic health of the City. While its scope is Citywide, this report emphasizes conditions in Greater Downtown Los Angeles where the most acute land use conflicts are occurring, and thus where the most attention has been focused.

This report is organized into five sections:

I. Industrial Land and Zoning in Los Angeles reviews types of industrial uses in Los Angeles and policy/planning efforts that shape these uses;

II. The Importance of Industrial Land to the Los Angeles Economy reviews wage levels, demographics and workforce development issues related to industrial uses;

III. Real Estate Economics Shaping Industrial Land Uses in Los Angeles reviews current industrial demand and vacancy rates, impacts of demand for housing in industrial districts, and discusses the opportunities for housing development throughout Los Angeles;

IV. Conclusion summarizes and concludes report findings; and

V. Appendices include a summary of the methodology and analysis used in the review of the City’s existing industrial lands, excerpts from the General Plan Framework Element, brief descriptions of existing City policies that affect industrial land, and an overview of other cities’ strategies for preserving and enhancing industrial districts.

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I. INDUSTRIAL LAND AND ZONING IN LOS ANGELES

Zoning is important for the separation of land uses as well as to ensure that an adequate supply of land is available ZONING 101 for current and future development. Zoning is based on All private and public land in a comprehensive planning for the entire City to ensure that city is designated for a there is a balance of space to house and employ City particular type of use; this residents and to support the services that meet both separation of uses is commonly residential and non-residential needs. The distribution and referred to as zoning. Zoning is the tool used to implement organization of zones reflect the designation of land use broad policies related to land categories in the General Plan Land Use Element and development in the city. Zoning Community Plans. This allocation is intended to ensure allows certain uses to be that development is consistent with adopted plans and located on particular parcels that development does not adversely affect the City’s fiscal while restricting other uses. health or environmental resources. While it is possible to For instance, single family apply to the City Council for a change of zone for any residential zones typically do not allow commercial uses such particular parcel in the City, the intent of the Community as shopping malls and offices, Plans is to create rational land use and zoning designations or industrial uses such as and to discourage incompatible or inappropriate recycling yards or auto repair development, i.e., “spot zoning.” shops.

In Los Angeles there are four primary zoning categories— Industrial zones prohibit uses residential, commercial, industrial, and public facilities— such as housing and hospitals with each category divided into more specific zones to because of the potential for environmental and health allow for variation in intensity and mix of uses. The conflicts. It would be separation of uses is intended to protect sensitive uses inappropriate, for instance, to such as homes and schools from noise and traffic, and have a residence, school or allows commercial and industrial districts to exist without hospital next to a noisy or restrictions that could hinder business operations. noxious manufacturing plant.

Industrial Zones and the Industrial Sector

The Industrial sector represents a portion of the economy that includes manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, wholesale trade, publishing, logistics and motion picture production. Most of the activities that support these industries occur within industrial zones. For simplicity it is useful to classify businesses or uses into three main categories:

Page 7 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Heavy Industry describes the most intensive industrial uses, such as large-scale manufacturing operations, aerospace, transportation and logistics, refineries, scrap metal facilities, produce storage and distribution, and similar uses whose impact on adjacent land may be significant and noxious or noisy. 6

Lower-impact uses fit into the category of Light Industry . These include clothing design and manufacturing, furniture design and manufacturing, packaging and assembly, warehouse/distribution, biomedical research/manufacturing, and wholesale sales. Light industry also includes a variety of “neighborhood industrial services” that benefit from the close geographic relationship to customers, wholesalers and related services. Such uses include animal hospitals and kennels, automobile service and painting, lumber yards and specialty construction materials.

Studio & Production uses are especially important to the Los Angeles economy. These types of uses often require specialized buildings that provide high ceilings, wide clearances and extensive power infrastructure but do not produce many of the nuisances of some other industrial uses. Common activities in this category range from film and television production campuses with sound studios, lumber yards and prop houses, to digital sound studios and graphic production offices. These types of uses —while not noxious—may still produce limited impacts due to extended hours of operation and/or deliveries. They frequently locate in districts in close proximity to related industrial and commercial businesses in order to maximize the synergy and interdependence these uses have with each other and with suppliers, clients, and related independent contractors.

These categories correspond roughly to industrial zoning, which is separated into zones from heaviest (M3, M2) to lightest (M1, MR and CM) intensity. Heavy industry and uses that produce noise, odors or other environmental impacts are typically separated from other uses that produce fewer impacts, including light industrial uses. Figure 1 illustrates the distribution of industrial zones in Los Angeles.

6 Port and airport activities are considered heavy industry, but this report excludes these from the discussion due to their specialized needs and operating requirements.

Page 8 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

FIGURE 1: INDUSTRIAL ZONED LAND IN LOS ANGELES

Page 9 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Industrial Land Supply in Los Angeles

Just eight percent of the City of Los Angeles (excluding the Port of Los Angeles and LAX) is zoned for industrial use—about 19,000 acres. These 19,000 acres are the only parts of the City where industrial and other high-impact uses may locate. Of this total area, 26 percent is already used for non-industrial purposes including residential, retail and institutional uses (see Table 1).

TABLE 1: TYPES OF USES IN LOS ANGELES ’ INDUSTRIAL ZONES

Type Total Acres % of Total Light Manufacturing 5,349 28.1 Other Industrial Uses* 3,991 21.2 Warehousing 2,222 11.7 Institutional 1,906 10 Retail 1,550 8.1 Heavy Manufacturing 1,380 7.3 Residential 778 4.1 Commercial 615 3.2 Misc. and Unknown 525 2.8 Food Process Plants 279 1.5 Open Storage 267 1.3 Film & TV Production 110 0.5 Recreational 74 0.4 Industrial Uses 14,123 74%

Non-industrial Uses 4,923 26%

TOTAL 19,046 100%

*includes Mineral Proces sing, Oil and Gas, Lumber, Airport and Port of LA uses (not the actual Port and LAX), City Landfills, and Parking Lots. Source: IDPI Phase 1 Report 2004, page 74

Although certain uses are prohibited in industrial areas, the City of Los Angeles’ zoning code is permissive, meaning that the code allows certain non-industrial uses—retail stores, offices, animal clinics/kennels, gas stations, and auto sales, most of which are allowed in commercial zones—in industrial zones. So even without industrial conversions or zone change applications, industrial districts are subject to being compromised by the presence of such uses.

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In addition to the competition that industrial zoned land experiences due to the variety of uses allowed, discretionary actions by decision-makers have also contributed to the diminishing supply of land for industrial and employment uses. The General Plan Framework makes it clear that conversions to non-industrial uses should only be allowed “where it can be demonstrated that the reduction of industrial lands will not adversely impact the City's ability to accommodate sufficient industrial uses to provide jobs for the City's residents or incur adverse fiscal impacts.”7 Approving conversions of industrial parcels on a project-by-project basis without regard to the broader citywide context, coupled with Los Angeles’ permissive zoning code, has diminished the availability of the City’s industrial lands along with the jobs, industries, and General Fund revenues they support.

Evolving Industrial Districts

The term “industrial” no longer only refers to large factories producing steel, cars or other mass produced goods. Today the term describes a broader array of job-producing uses and activities—in addition to traditional industrial uses—such as furniture and clothing design, biomedical research/manufacturing, and entertainment-related post-production activities that do not necessarily generate impacts such as noise, traffic and pollution.

While the industrial/employment sector is evolving, Los Angeles County remains the largest manufacturing region in the United States. Although globalization has generally triggered an exodus of jobs from many American city centers, the strategic importance of Los Angeles and its industrial lands has been strengthened. As a recent industrial market report for Los Angeles states:

With the regional Los Angeles economy thriving, industrial space will remain at a premium. Although other parts of the nation have suffered because of the outsourcing of manufacturing, Los Angeles has been able to cope with the problem. Due to the greater volume of imports here, the demand and need for logistics and warehouse/distribution space is very high. 8

Industrial districts are a critical component of the dynamic entrepreneurial economy of Los Angeles. In many instances, these thriving districts developed where a core industry was first established, later followed by support services and related businesses.

7 General Plan Framework, Chapter 3 Section 14.6. 8 Grubb & Ellis, Industrial Market Trends: Los Angeles County (Second Quarter 2007).

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This can be seen in several industrial districts in Los Angeles that have located proximate to regional transportation infrastructure and have evolved into specialized districts such as fashion design/production, “Everything is made within a two- goods distribution (including food), entertainment and mile radius of this building. This is our way of remaining competitive.” aerospace. These industrial districts are home to many small and start-up operations, which are a critical ERIC KIM AND HENRY KIM , CO-OWNERS OF component of the dynamic regional economy. The MONARCHY CLOTHING COMPANY IN DOWNTOWN entertainment industry and its support activities such LOS ANGELES as prop houses, lumber yards, digital film editing and sound stages are clustered primarily in industrial districts of Hollywood, Studio City and other parts of the San Fernando Valley. Warehousing and logistics industries are clustered into districts around the port and airports (both LAX and Van Nuys), along the freeway and rail lines bisecting the San Fernando Valley, and around the freight transportation hubs east and southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. Smaller industrial clusters remain along former railroad lines in portions of South and Southwest Los Angeles.

Strategic Importance of Downtown Los Angeles

Los Angeles’s expansive rail and freeway networks connect the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to the greater Southern California region and to the rest of the United States. At the confluence of these networks, the industrial lands of Downtown Los Angeles are attractive for industries such as logistics, goods movement, wholesale and import trade, food distribution and fashion. The Downtown Fashion District is the apparel hub of the West Coast, and caters to high-end and rapid- turnaround clients that rely on the quality labor pool and proximity of Los Angeles’ fashion industry. As the LA Times recently wrote, “At a time when more and more clothing companies are seeking cheaper manufacturing abroad, dozens of fledgling labels like Monarchy [Clothing Company] aren't. This new collection of manufacturers is capitalizing on Los Angeles' growing status as a fashion hub and helping stem some of the job losses to China, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries—and redefining an industry that has long been a staple of the local economy.”9

9 Yi, Daniel. “Clothing maker keeps it all local.” Los Angeles Times , September 6, 2007.

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Land for Emerging Industry Sectors

Tomorrow’s industrially-zoned land, reserved for business growth and employment, is likely to look different than today’s. It is important to preserve and strengthen the City’s ability to maintain and expand a diverse and flexible economic and industrial base. Key to such flexibility is securing industrial land upon which cutting-edge sectors can grow, and providing new foundations for our local economy, while retaining existing businesses that currently employ hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles residents. While economists predict that sectors such as trade and logistics will continue to be robust, there are emerging industries in Los Angeles such as green technology that are particularly promising and important to the City’s future competitiveness.

Los Angeles has significant strengths and is well positioned Eco-industrial parks and bio- to be a global leader in fields as diverse as clean medical research parks are technology, biomedical device manufacturing, digital arts, being developed in other cities furniture and apparel design and other high growth with bold strategic visions for industries. Clean technology is a good example. As the their futures (including Boston, green economy booms, Los Angeles is poised to become a Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco). Such developments capital in the fast-growing clean technology sector. Clean can cluster businesses with or green technology (alternative energy, energy efficiency, certain core capabilities (e.g., clean transportation, green building recycling, etc.) makers of photo-voltaic and produces goods and services in a more resource-efficient solar energy products, electric and sustainable way. This nascent industry has raised more vehicles, circuit boards, steel than $2.7 billion in venture capital investment during the fabricators, design firms, first nine months of 2007, up 46% from the entire year of renewable construction, etc.) that reduce dependence on 2006. 10 This makes green technology the third-largest transportation and increase source of venture capital, behind software and competitiveness. biotechnology.

In green technology, Los Angeles has significant advantages over other regions: the City has committed to numerous actions that can help build the green economy (e.g., Clean Air Action Plan, implementing Assembly Bill 32, 20% Renewable Portfolio Standard, Green Building Plan). With three leading research universities in the Los Angeles region—University of California Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and California Institute of Technology—and with a large, trend-setting

10 Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association. “Cleantech Venture Investments By Us Firms Break Record In 2007” (http://www.nvca.org/) November 28, 2007.

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consumer market, the City has both the human capital and the marketplace for green technology businesses to thrive.

Additionally, industrial lands in Los Angeles play an important role as incubator space for small start up and creative businesses. This entrepreneurial pattern fits perfectly into Los Angeles’ tradition of supporting a broad base of independently owned and operated businesses; most businesses in Los Angeles are small, independently owned and operated. 11 These firms represent entrepreneurial and innovative businesses that can only become established under conditions available in industrial zones—relatively low rents, small spaces/lots and/or business incubator space. Many of these businesses are cleaner than those of the past and they provide good career-ladder jobs for local neighborhoods that have seen a decline in other local manufacturing jobs.

In order to recruit and attract these and other new businesses, the City must provide land where they can locate. Moreover, as businesses grow and expand, they often need sites to transition into larger-scale manufacturing and assembly firms. A common complaint from entrepreneurs and investors is that Los Angeles lacks available land to incubate start-up companies or to attract and retain more established companies. This factors into the decisions of some entrepreneurial businesses to leave Los Angeles once their products become commercialized. Preserving industrial land in Los Angeles is critical to encourage innovation in these emerging industries, to attract growing companies from other areas, and to grow job-producing companies already in Los Angeles.

11 94.5% of LA County businesses have fewer than 50 employees. LAEDC, Downtown Los Angeles 2004 Economic Overview & Forecast (prepared for Central City Association (February 2004).

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II. THE IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRIAL LAND TO THE LOS ANGELES ECONOMY

Industrial jobs are a critical component of the region’s employment base. From building construction to computer manufacturing to motion picture/audio According to the Los Angeles production, industrial jobs employ about 410,000 Economic Development Corporation people, about 25 percent of the total workforce in the (LAEDC), the largest sectors in City. 12 These industrial sector jobs support an manufacturing within L.A. County estimated 270,000 households and 790,000 people. 13 employed the following number of Over 160,000 City residents are employed in the workers in 2005: manufacturing sector alone, and Los Angeles County is o 61,500 in apparel; the largest manufacturing employment center in the o nation.14 60,500 in computer and electronic products; The industries that comprise the businesses and jobs o 51,900 in transportation discussed in this report are based on the North products; American Industry Classification System (NAICS), used by the statistical agencies of the United States to o 48,200 in fabricated metal classify business establishments.15 NAICS classifies as products; “industrial”: transportation, manufacturing, utilities, o 43,400 in food products; construction, and wholesaling, along with high-tech and industries such as computer and electronic o 25,500 in furniture. manufacturing and software reproduction.

Los Angeles’ Industrial Workforce

Certain communications, publishing, motion picture and sound recording industries are included as a part of the expanding creative industries sector. These jobs range from highly-skilled, technical positions to entry-level apprenticeships and career-path positions for unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Compared to retail and service jobs, industrial jobs often provide higher wages and better opportunities for skills development and career advancement. For instance, average wages for industrial jobs in the City are about $47,000 annually while the average retail job pays around

12 California Employment Development Dept., Labor Market Information Division, ES202 data (2005). 13 Census 2000, Census 2005 American Community Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Spending 2001-2002. 14 Grubb & Ellis, Industrial Market Trends: Los Angeles County (Second Quarter 2007). 15 NAICS Sectors 21 (Mining), 22 (Utilities), 23 (Construction), 32 (Manufacturing-Durable), 36 (Manufacturing- Non- durable), 42 (Wholesale trade), 48 (Transportation and Warehousing), 493 (Warehousing and Storage Facilities, 511 (Publishing Industries, and 512 (Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries).

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$29,000 annually. 16 Table 2 provides a sample of industrial sector wages in Los Angeles that shows the diversity of skills and wages paid.

TABLE 2: SAMPLE INDUSTRIAL AND RETAIL WAGES Total Median Median Annual Employment Hourly Wage Occupation Salary INDUSTRIAL WAGES Textile cutting machine setters, operators, and tenders 2,110 $8.85 $18,410 Food cooking machine operators and tenders 1,450 $9.05 $18,830 Tailors, dressmakers, and custom sewers 1,420 $12.31 $25,610 Welders, cutters, solderers, and braziers 8,750 $13.14 $27,340 Industrial truck and tractor operators 20,630 $15.25 $31,720 Automotive service technicians and mechanics 17,890 $15.40 $32,040 Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations 128,280 $18.85 $39,200 Media and communication equipment workers, all 2,560 $20.86 $43,380 other Industrial machinery mechanics 3,000 $20.67 $42,990 Transportation, storage, and distribution managers 3,230 $35.69 $74,240 RETAIL WAGES Cashiers 87,320 $ 8.69 $18,070 Retail salespersons 125,640 $ 9.82 $20,420 Counter and rental clerks 15,960 $ 9.84 $20,460 First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers 32,430 $ 17.41 $36,200 Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey, May 2006 OES Estimates

Despite the tremendous amount of employment provided on industrially-zoned land, the City has been losing jobs while its population continues to increase. In 1980 there were 1,815,494 jobs in the City of Los Angeles compared to a population of 2,969,181—about 0.61 jobs per person. By 2005, the population had risen by 33 percent to 3,934,714 while jobs had decreased by about 3 percent to 1,759,202—just 0.45 jobs per person. 17 Thus, while the City added about 965,500 people, employment dropped by about 56,300. In addition to providing relatively high-paying jobs, the industrial sector also offers a wide range of employment and advancement opportunities to the residents of Los Angeles.

A significant portion of the City’s population experiences barriers to employment due to low education levels, less specialized skill sets, language barriers, low incomes and lack of mobility.

16 California Economic Development Department (2005). 17 Southern California Association of Governments Regional Transportation Plan (May, 2006).

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In the City, 11 percent of workers in all employment sectors take public transit to work compared to 36 “Job retention and creation are percent of the workforce employed in the industrial directly related to enhanced sector.18 economic development These constraints are especially pronounced in opportunities. ” 19 Central Los Angeles , where 38 percent of the GENERAL PLAN FRAMEWORK ECONOMIC population is employed in industrial sector jobs (see DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER table below). For instance, 79 percent of the Downtown population has only a high school diploma or less, compared to 51 percent of the Citywide workforce. Transit dependent households in Central Los Angeles are also double the Citywide percentage. The prospect of industrial businesses that provide jobs to Los Angeles’ residents closing down or leaving the region as a result of being “priced out” or otherwise finding themselves adversely impacted by residential development is likely to cause significant displacement of the workforce and/or create additional challenges in their finding new employment in Los Angeles, particularly for those industrial workers who are lower-income, less formally educated, and less mobile. Industrial businesses can provide accessible jobs for these workers, with higher wages than retail and service jobs, centralized locations, opportunities for training, and the potential for upward mobility.

TABLE 3: COMPARISON OF WORKFORCE CHARACTERISTICS IN LOS ANGELES

Within 1 mile Citywide

of Downtown

Persons over 25 who have high 79% 51% school diploma or less

Population living below poverty 38% 22% line

Housing units without access to 39% 17% private automobile Civilian popul ation 16 & over employed in industrial sector * 38% 21% (manufacturing, wholesale trade, transportation, and warehousing) *Industrial in this table does not include motion picture & sound recording industries or publishing industries. Census 2000

18 2005 American Community Survey, US Census. Los Angeles City, CA, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, S0802. Means of Transportation to Work by Selected Characteristics. 19 Central Los Angeles defined as Census tracts within 1 mile radius of Downtown Los Angeles.

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“Ripple Effects” to the Los Angeles Economy

As a sector that provides shipping, wholesaling and manufacturing for an array of products used by individuals and other businesses, the industrial sector is inextricably linked to many non-industrial sectors such as retailing, publishing, marketing, professional offices, restaurants/catering, accounting, building design and more. Figure 2 below, prepared by the San Francisco Department of Planning, shows the interdependence between industrial sector businesses—identified as “production, distribution and repair business”—and other economy sectors such as finance, residential, and tourism. 20 The San Francisco report illustrates the importance of industrial sectors to other critical sectors of the economy highlighting the interdependence or ‘linkages’ that industrial businesses and jobs have in support of the production of goods or services.

FIGURE 2: PRODUCTION , DISTRIBUTION AND REPAIR LINKAGES TO KEY SECTORS

20 From ‘Industrial Land in San Francisco: Understanding Production, Distribution and Repair’ (July 2002).

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In Los Angeles for instance, produce and other food products are stored, packaged and distributed from warehouses and distribution centers located in Downtown In 2006, businesses in the to restaurants, hotels, convention facilities, schools and Greater Downtown Los others businesses throughout the region. Industrial uses Angeles industrial zones such as printing and machinery repair provide services for reported more than $10 large corporations and hundreds of small independent billion in business revenues. offices. The fashion industry relies on imported goods that Wholesale business are finished and distributed locally. And the entertainment represented the major portion of reported income. industry relies on post-production studio space, set design facilities, props and materials supply houses, catering, and CITY OF LOS ANGELES OFFICE OF FINANCE other activities that take place on industrially zoned land.

In many cases the strengths of these linkages are also dependent on geographic proximity. In interviews with Downtown industrial businesses, many owners explained that their businesses served local non-industrial markets that needed high-quality high-turnaround products. For instance, one designer/apparel manufacturer conducts a large amount of business with Los Angeles’ specialty retailers of motorcycle and car racing sports— creating custom graphics, clothing and other materials. The ‘ripple effect’ of the manufacturing and wholesale industries—particularly garment manufacturing in and around Downtown Los Angeles— extends well into other industries, and relies upon geographic proximity.

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III. REAL ESTATE ECONOMICS SHAPING INDUSTRIAL LAND USES IN LOS ANGELES

With a constrained supply and a thriving economy, the demand for industrial land in Los Angeles is the strongest in the nation . Yet increasing land speculation for non-industrial uses on ever- diminishing industrial lands is pricing out industrial tenants and exacerbating the loss of jobs from the City.

Current Industrial Demand and Vacancy Rates

Los Angeles’ vacancy rate for industrial space is extremely low with rates hovering around one percent. Recent real estate market research from Grubb & Ellis found that the LA Central 21 market has the region’s lowest vacancy rate and is the tightest in the United States. The report from Grubb & Ellis states, “Tenants must face the fact that no space is under construction and must either pay premiums to rent or buy space, or move further east to find some relief.”22

The vacancy rate for both Central Los Angeles and Downtown Los Angeles has been steadily declining as demand rises (see Figure 3). Despite this high demand, scarcity of land, speculative real estate markets for housing (which results in owners of industrial land “holding out” for potentially more lucrative buyers/developers), and high construction costs have kept creation of new industrial product relatively low 23 . While the market is tightly constrained throughout the region, the greatest relative demand is in Central Los Angeles. Table 4 shows the demand for industrial land in Southern California by sub-region. The table also illustrates the variety of industrial land: incubator space, research and development, and ‘flex’ space are all different industrial product types. As shown in the right-hand column, rent is about $0.60 per square foot, well below per-square foot rents for residential and commercial uses.

Because nearly all non-industrial uses can outbid the industrial users of the relatively inexpensive industrial land, industrial conversions are causing market speculation that is driving up industrial land costs and ‘pricing out’ industrial tenants, as described below.

21 “Central LA” includes Downtown Los Angeles, Echo Park, south Glendale, Pico Rivera, Lincoln Heights, Vernon, Maywood, Southgate, City Terrace, Commerce, and Bell. 22 Grubb & Ellis, Industrial Market Trends: Los Angeles County (Second Quarter 2007). 23 Communication with Grubb & Ellis analyst (December 20, 2007).

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FIGURE 3 CENTRAL AND DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES INDUSTRIAL VACANCY RATES 2002 -2006

SOURCE: Grubb & Ellis. Industrial Market Trends LA County, Second Quarter 2007

TABLE 4: INDUSTRIAL MARKET SNAPSHOT - LA COUNTY SECOND QUARTER 2007

Total Square Vacant Square Vacant Avg. Rental By Submarket Feet 1 Feet 2 % Rate 3 / Sq. Ft* *All asking rents are quoted as Warehouse/Distribution Space and in NNN basis. Central Los Angeles 301,825,687 3,137,991 1.0% $0.54 Mid-Cities 121,798,508 2,902,589 2.4% $0.57 Los Angeles North 181,033,700 4,194,407 2.3% $0.71 San Gabriel Valley 184,402,104 2,981,257 1.6% $0.57 South Bay 220,296,398 4,739,585 2.2% $0.63 Totals 1,009,356,397 17,955,829 1.8% $0.60* By Product Type (All Submarkets) General Industrial 499,746,487 7,118,536 1.4% $0.66 Incubator 9,353,730 62,030 0.7% $0.83 R&D/Flex 36,275,252 1,223,686 3.4% $1.01 Warehouse/ Distribution 463,980,928 9,551,577 2.1% $0.60 Totals 1,009,356,397 17,955,829 1.8% $0.65 (1) Inventory includes multi -tenant, sin gle tenant and owner -occupied buildings with at least 10,000 sq. ft. (2) Vacant space includes all physically vacant space. (3) Rates for each building are weighted by the amount of available space in the building. SOURCE: Grubb & Ellis. Industrial Market Trends LA County, Second Quarter 2007

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In a 2006 analysis, Keyser Marston Associates (KMA) reported that industrial developers can typically pay about $38 per square foot for land while residential developers can often pay about $177 per square foot. 24 When land owners and developers raise their price expectations based on a perception that land is marketable for residential, commercial or other non-industrial uses, property values will rise above an economically feasible level for typical industrial users. This real estate speculation ‘prices out’ industrial tenants.

Real estate speculation has additional negative consequences. Industrial land owners may hold industrial zoned land without investing in industrial operations—with the expectation that more lucrative land uses would be allowed in the future. The lack of regular maintenance accelerates the obsolescence of the structures and perpetuates the cycle of disinvestment.

While economic cycles in single or multiple business sectors can alter the demand for land, zoning and the General Plan are designed to assure a balanced, sustainable economy for the City’s long- term future, regardless of the inevitable ups and downs of the real estate markets. For instance, in what was once an underutilized industrial zoned district adjacent to the Downtown Historic Core now stands a thriving Toy District that generates over a billion dollars of sales and related economic activity annually. 25 The district was able to develop because the City did not cede to the pressure to convert industrial zoning to residential zoning during a period of weak demand. The purpose of land use planning is to look beyond the short-term expediencies of cyclical and speculative markets to assure that the City is always in a position to take advantage of future job producing opportunities.

Demand for Housing in Industrial Districts

The City Charter mandates that, to be approved, development projects must be consistent with the General Plan; projects inconsistent with the General Plan should be denied. Most of the initial industrial-to-residential conversions were approved as adaptive reuse buildings in the Downtown Artist in Residence District, where the Central City North Community Plan specifically encourages this change under certain circumstances. These initial projects were, therefore, consistent with the General Plan. However, more recently, projects were approved that partially met the criteria for conversion but departed substantially from the City’s General Plan Framework and adopted policies. As a result, projects have been approved for industrial sites that are inconsistent with land use designations in the General Plan. This has occurred because projects have been evaluated with a narrow site-specific perspective and on a building-by-building basis without sufficient attention to

24 ILUP Research Memorandum: “Industrial to Residential Land Use Conversions,” Keyser Marston Associates, June 26, 2007. 25 Central City East Association: Economic and Fiscal Impact Analysis (February 2005).

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the neighborhood or district context in which the buildings are located or to the City’s long range need to sustain a balanced economic base.

While many of the residential project approvals have been in the Artist In Residence District, those that were not have set a confusing precedent and contributed to housing market speculation in industrial lands—particularly in Downtown Los Angeles, where land owners or residential developers have sought to selectively convert industrially-zoned parcels with the expectation that government officials will—as they have in the past—approve a zone change to permit housing. Arguments have been made that allowing residential development on these less-expensive industrial lands will result in lower home prices and help ease the City’s affordable housing crisis. Yet evidence to the contrary is clear—of the 1,746 housing units built in Downtown Los Angeles’ industrial areas since 2001 26 not a single affordable unit was produced by the ‘market’. Less than 3% of housing on industrial land since 2001 has been affordable—and that occurred only as a result of a requirement to do so and because financial assistance from the CRA/LA or other public entities was provided. Despite claims that industrial land is needed to help assuage the City’s affordable housing crisis, the fact is that industrial land typically sells for roughly one-third of the cost of residential land, while units sell at nearly the same rates as high-end condominiums in nearby South Park. A comparison of housing sales on industrially-zoned land versus residentially- zoned land in Downtown Los Angeles shows that condominium sales prices were only about 2% less on industrial land .27

Opportunities for Housing Development Throughout Los Angeles

Housing—particularly affordable housing—is a Citywide need. However, Los Angeles does not need to compromise its industrial districts to solve the City’s housing crisis. The General Plan Framework and the Community Plans, which together make up the Land Use Element of the General Plan, direct housing development to job centers, mixed use districts, and areas with access to transit and neighborhood amenities. Such areas can attract and support the commercial uses, amenities, and services that residents need and desire and that create neighborhoods.

According to the current 2002 Housing Element of the General Plan, Los Angeles has an adequate supply of land zoned for housing. In and around Downtown, for example, based on an analysis conducted by the CRA/LA staff, there is still significant potential for residential and mixed use development on underutilized commercial and residential zoned parcels in South Park, Little Tokyo and the Broadway Theatre District. Excluding projects for which building permits have been issued, are under construction, and are in the entitlement process, there is capacity for approximately 10 -

26 An additional 586 units in 12 projects have received discretionary approvals but are not yet under construction. 27 Memo from Keyser Marston Associates, October 27, 2006.

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20 million square feet of additional residential space in Downtown Los Angeles. 28 At an average of 1,000 square feet per unit, this currently vacant or under-utilized land could support between 10,000 and 20,000 new residential units that could house between 16,000 and 32,000 new residents, based on an average household size of 1.6 persons.29

Economic Impact of Conversion to Housing on the City’s General Fund

The industrial land in Los Angeles is critical to the economic prosperity of the City; the General Plan and all of its elements are based on the preservation and maintenance of the City’s industrial land base. The “The City's fiscal structure has Framework Element, the foundation of the General historically been dependent on a Plan, establishes land use designations and densities, jobs-rich environment. A decline policies and programs that sustain the City's fiscal in the jobs/ housing ratio would structure as a jobs-rich environment, based on the reflect a growth pattern in which premise that there will be a healthy jobs-housing residential development balance of approximately 1.4 jobs 30 for every household. outpaces commercial and Without these jobs, the demand for municipal services industrial growth. Given that will continue to grow commensurate with population nonresidential land uses growth, but the City's revenue base and related ability generate proportionately more to provide municipal services would grow at a lower fiscal revenue than residential rate. The greater the imbalance, the less likely the City development, a decline in the will be able to maintain current levels of municipal jobs/housing ratio would services, much less provide services for the additional represent an undesirable growth 360,000 residents anticipated in the City of Los Angeles pattern for the City from a fiscal by 2030. 31 perspective.”

Based on case studies in local jurisdictions including the CITY OF LOS ANGELES GENERAL PLAN FRAMEWORK 2001 City of Los Angeles, Keyser Marston Associates concluded that residential uses draw down approximately 65-75 percent of unrestricted General

28 Based on vacant parcels, including parking lots, identified in Community Redevelopment Agency Survey of blighted properties (2005). 29 “Downtown Los Angeles Market Report and 2006 Demographic Survey of New Downtown Residents,” Downtown Center Business Improvement District, February 2007, p 34. 30 General Plan Framework, Chapter 7 Economic Development p 7-5. 31 Southern California Association of Governments Growth Forecast (2005-2030).

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Fund expenditures for police, fire, library, cultural, park and other municipal services, while contributing less than 25 percent of General Fund revenue. 32 Thus, residential uses place demands on City services beyond the revenues they generate. Commercial and industrial uses, on the other hand, generate net positive revenues to the General Fund, meaning that the costs they incur for public services are lower than the revenues they generate. Lands designated for industrial use have never been contemplated to generate and support residents. As such, costs associated with providing municipal services such as police, fire, libraries, trash collection, and parks to residents introduced in previously industrial only districts have not been factored into the City’s General Fund nor have they been factored into the land uses established in the General Plan. These costs constitute a “double hit” to the General Fund by increasing costs to the City while decreasing revenues.

In addition to the disproportionate fiscal impacts of new residential uses in industrial areas, the conversion displaces the businesses that fund these REDEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE CENTRAL INDUSTRIAL REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT GOAL : services. Because industrial areas typically lack the infrastructure needed for residential uses—notably “A healthy industrial environment sidewalks, trees, green space, schools, etc.—new which generates and attracts new residential uses in industrial areas redirect demand private investment to increase job and resources for new investments in community opportunities, property values, and tax revenues.” infrastructure while the infrastructure in older residential areas continues to deteriorate. At the same time, industrial areas are left without the crucial infrastructure investment required to remain viable, further exacerbating the lack of private investment in industrial districts.

Impacts of Industrial-to-Residential Conversion on the City’s Long Term Development

When land use changes are made on a project-by-project basis, the risk of compatibility problems between new and old uses is increased over time. Noise, air pollution and truck traffic are some of the common byproducts of industrial activity. Experience shows that new residents in industrial districts eventually complain about these noxious impacts and the noise, traffic and other activities

32 Research memorandum: “Industrial to Residential Land Use Conversions: Fiscal and Economic Considerations” Keyser Marston Associates; May 4, 2007, page 2.

Page 25 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

associated with industrial land, impeding the ability of industrial businesses to function and discouraging new industrial investment.

When industrial zones are changed and residential uses locate in these districts, industrial users may not be able to relocate, resulting in long term incompatibilities (they may also be unable to expand, adversely affecting their productivity and potential longevity). In particular, many heavy industrial users are unable to relocate due to high relocation costs, new regulations, or lack of available sites. This results in a negative situation for both industrial users and new residents. For instance, in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, where the intention was to gradually replace industrial uses, a mix of incompatible industrial and residential uses has persisted for decades, exposing residents to toxic chemicals, odors, air pollution, and water contamination.

Randomly locating residential development in industrial areas also increases the likelihood that neighborhood amenities and infrastructure will not work adequately for either the industrial or non- industrial occupants. New residents expect basic infrastructure like curbs, gutters, storm drains, and wide sidewalks in addition to typical neighborhood amenities like parks, trees, and attractive lighting, while industrial users expect wide streets and narrow sidewalks to accommodate truck traffic. When conversions to housing are made on a project-by project basis, a comprehensive public investment strategy is not implemented, resulting in inadequate infrastructure and amenities on a neighborhood or district basis.

In addition to possible displacement and conflict of uses, scattered housing development in industrial districts can detract investment from previously established residential neighborhoods. Redevelopment efforts to improve neighborhoods are processes that, even in prime economic conditions, may take decades to achieve. Locating unplanned housing in industrial or other nonresidential areas only diverts private investment from planned neighborhoods attempting to achieve the critical mass needed to attract services and amenities such as grocery stores, restaurants and other neighborhood services.

There are also important public health issues associated with proper land-use planning. New research from the University of Southern California has confirmed that children living within 500 meters (approximately 1,500 feet) of freeways are suffering from significantly adverse respiratory effects of traffic pollution “which could result in important deficits in attained lung function in later life.” 33 Many industrial areas are strategically located near freeways; converting these areas to residential use will only exacerbate the existing public health problems associated with automobile pollution.

33 Gauderman, et al. 2007. ‘Effect of exposure to traffic on lung development from 10 to 18 years of age: a cohort study’. Published Online January 26, 2007. DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60037-3.

Page 26 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Other planning efforts—beyond those of just City Planning and CRA/LA—are based on the presumption that land use planning will occur in a rational comprehensive manner. For instance, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) and other agencies are addressing truck access and circulation problems through operational changes, engineering measures, capital improvements and policy changes. The truck routes they plan traverse most of the City’s industrial areas providing access for goods distribution. Billions of dollars have been strategically invested in the Alameda corridor—an express railway linking the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach with rail yards, intermodal facilities and industrial lands east and north of Downtown Los Angeles—as well as to the City’s truck routes. And Los Angeles Metro’s transit planning is developed in coordination with the City’s land use planning efforts to ensure that bus, subway, and light rail service is targeted to the appropriate areas that can support sufficient levels of ridership and link defined activity centers strategically located across the City.

Additionally, designated revitalization areas such as Enterprise and Empowerment Zones—enacted specifically to support jobs and businesses—rely on a minimum proportion of designated zones remaining in employment production. The introduction of housing into predominantly jobs producing areas jeopardizes these special assistance zones and could trigger a loss of financial support from federal and state sources.

Page 27 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

CONCLUSION

Recent conversions of Los Angeles’ diminishing industrial and employment land to non-industrial use raise important planning and public policy concerns regarding the economic, social and physical development of Los Angeles. The General Plan Framework, the City’s blueprint for development and growth, recognizes the diverse needs of the City and establishes an array of policies to guide City departments in its implementation. The City must balance various goals to meet the needs of today’s residents without foreclosing on future opportunities. The Framework highlights the need to provide not only adequate land for housing, commercial, recreational, cultural and public facility uses but also the importance of ensuring that the City has adequate land for businesses, the jobs they create and sustain, and the revenues they generate for the City’s General Fund. Further, the General Plan Framework elevates the need to make economic opportunities available throughout the City, with special emphasis on “portions of the City that historically have not received a proportional share of such opportunities.” 34 Sustaining those businesses that employ today’s residents is a critical part of a sound industrial land use and economic development policy for Los Angeles. Equally important is retaining land to attract and grow businesses so that they can continue to employ current and future residents.

Consistent implementation of the City’s adopted industrial land use policies will help to ensure that existing industry continues to function, that current residents remain employed, that jobs of the future can locate in Los Angeles, and that neighborhoods are properly planned and developed. It is imperative that we consistently adhere to clear rules to: attract and retain private investment; for CRA/LA and other economic development agencies to foster investments by and in the City’s businesses; to implement improvements to land and infrastructure; to seek out and support private business expansion; and for the Port of Los Angeles to continue its program of growth and modernization. Similarly, if Los Angeles hopes to attract green/clean technology and other emerging industries, the City must convince investors that it will protect their investment—best demonstrated by clear and consistent application of land use and development policies.

This report has demonstrated the critical role of job-producing industrial land to the City’s long-term economic health and to the hundreds of thousands of residents employed in the industrial sector. Although there are claims that industrial land in Los Angeles is an abandoned remnant of an earlier manufacturing heyday, industrial demand for these areas—particularly as demonstrated in Downtown, portions of Hollywood and West Los Angeles—is still the most competitive in the nation. At a time when economic analysts are concerned that there is too little industrial land in the City to sustain job growth, City policymakers should be especially prudent about the future of Los Angeles’ industrial lands.

34 General Plan Framework Economic Development Chapter. Objective 7.10

Page 28 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Appendix 1

METHODOLOGY / ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK

This section provides a summary of the process used to analyze industrial districts in the Industrial Land Use Policy (ILUP) Project. The General Plan Framework states that industrial areas should be studied on a regular basis. The ILUP methodology is the suggested approach to conduct these regular evaluations of the City’s industrial districts. It should be used in area-specific analyses and applied during community plan updates and other long term planning efforts.

The ILUP Project divided industrial zoned lands into four typologies that can be applied in determining how land use policies, including uses and densities, should be implemented. For each district evaluated, the analysis considered current conditions, viability of existing uses, and compatibility issues within the districts and with adjacent areas. Also considered was the need to maintain flexibility to accommodate new industries that are still evolving and could one day play an important, unforeseen role in Los Angeles’ economy and job market. The four typologies are: Employment Protection Districts, Industrial Mixed Use Districts, Transition Districts and Correction Areas. (These are defined and explained in the body of the Staff Directions memorandum.)

A. Analysis and Key Considerations in Implementing Industrial Land Use Policy

The ILUP Project analyzed industrial districts experiencing the greatest pressure for conversion to residential use. The Project study area contained three geographic survey areas (Westside, Hollywood and Greater Downtown), further subdivided into sub areas and analysis zones based on similarities of uses and character. Analysis began with a field survey to catalogue existing land uses in industrial zones, based on the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) (see Land Use Survey Methodology).

Each industrial district was examined within its unique It is the intent of the General context; geographic, economic and social factors were Plan Framework Element to considered. Multiple resources were evaluated to preserve industrial lands for supplement the land use information. Employment and the retention and expansion of existing and attraction of business data was collected from InfoUsa (2006) for each new industrial uses that analysis zone. Keyser Marston Associates, under contract, provide job opportunities for provided City and regional industrial and housing market the City’s residents. conditions data. Existing land uses were evaluated for CITY OF LOS ANGELES GENERAL PLAN consistency with adopted plans and policies including the FRAMEWORK 2001 General Plan Framework and Community Plans, CRA/LA redevelopment project area plans and specific plans,

Page 29 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

special planning areas (such as Enterprise and Empowerment Zones), and current study areas (Transit Oriented District overlays, River Improvement Overlay, River Master Plan, etc.). Additionally, industrial studies from cities across the U.S. and Canada were also reviewed, with emphasis on approaches used to preserve industrial lands.

Interdepartmental teams of the DCP and CRA/LA reviewed the information, and obtained input from LADOT, Housing, Public Works, and CDD staff. Based on analysis and extensive discussion, preliminary findings were prepared with suggested implementation measures. These were mapped and further refined by the interdepartmental reviews. The preliminary findings were presented to the public in the fall and winter of 2006. Additional refinements to the findings and implementation measures were made based on public input and further research. Final staff guidance on implementation was published in December 2007.

B. Factors To Be Considered in Evaluation of Industrial Zones

Land Use Policy: The adopted General Plan Framework and Community Plans represent comprehensive and long-term goals and policies for development of the City. Land use designations and policies identify where industrial and other job producing activity is appropriate. Business investment is more likely where there is certainty in land use policy, as evidenced both by the City’s planning documents and by its track record of handling applications for change of use and change of zone.

Strategic/Focused Planning Efforts: Uses within Specific Plan Areas or other plans or study areas such as Transit Oriented Districts (TOD) or the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan indicate where public and private investment is currently being directed, and where particular types and mixes of uses are to be encouraged. Adaptive Reuse areas signify where mixed use and conversion strategies have been directed in a concerted effort to reintroduce vitality into downtown districts specifically.

Existing Uses, Scale and Concentration: Areas with a preponderance of industrial uses suggest retention as a cohesive jobs and employment district. Introducing new non-industrial uses in these areas may adversely affect the future viability of industrial or job producing activity. Small pockets or islands of industrial uses may be more suitable for conversion. Uses adjacent to or surrounding industrial districts need to be examined for compatibility with and/or transition from industrial areas to minimize adverse impacts on industrial operations. Special attention needs to be given to districts with particular industry clusters or specialized linkages (agglomeration) i.e., garment/fashion, produce, entertainment, etc.

District Character/Infrastructure: Many industrial districts are underserved and under-improved. Street, drainage, sewer, lighting, utility and sidewalk infrastructure are substandard for industrial uses and need to be improved for better functionality. Transit and pedestrian amenities, as well as design guidelines for new development, are limited in industrial areas. Industrial districts lack the traditional neighborhood services such as retail, open space/parks, libraries, and schools, and need

Page 30 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

additional capital investment if they are to be converted to non-industrial use. Fire and Police service levels and demands in industrial districts are different from those in residential districts, raising the need for both additional capital and operating expenditures if their use is to be changed.

Access: Industrial operations as well as the region benefit from their proximity to freeways and railways, and connections to the ports and airports to move goods and products. Truck routes and rail corridors are established for the region and industrial districts have developed in proximity to these access routes. Industrial operations often require specialized access to structures such as wider streets and turning radii, and loading areas. Locating housing in close proximity to major transportation facilities raises environmental and health concerns, including noise and pollutant exposure.

Parcel Characteristics: Size and configuration of sites determine the potential for viable industrial use. Large, assembled sites are suitable for industrial uses such as logistics, warehousing, research/ development parks, studios and other large-scale uses. Smaller parcels provide inexpensive sites for start-up businesses as well as incubator space for emerging industries. Vacant parcels may suggest either that transition is appropriate or that new industrial development opportunities exist; further analysis is required to ascertain cause of vacancy.

Economic Development Initiatives: Local, State and Federal programs such as Redevelopment Project Areas and Enterprise and Empowerment Zones provide important incentives for certain business activities. Often designation and associated funding are contingent upon a minimum proportion of industrial activity within plan or zone boundaries.

Reuse/Remediation Costs: Heavy industrial sites are likely to have considerable contamination. Such sites may not make feasible conversion projects due to the costs to remediate.

Local and Regional Economic Impact: There is the potential for current employees to be displaced with conversion, as well as potential fiscal impact on City revenues and costs to provide services.

Market Trends: Investment in new construction and/or renovation of industrial buildings indicates that industrial landowners and businesses are confident in the long term viability of their operations. Lack of investment may indicate lack of demand or lack of confidence that the City will continue to protect the area for its business or job potential, or that owners see the potential for increased land value with a potential conversion to another use. Very low vacancy rates suggest continued strong demand and viability, even in areas with seemingly obsolete buildings and weak infrastructure.

Demographics: Consideration of the local residential population, including transit dependency, sector employment and education should be made when determining appropriate land uses and activities. If the area were to be converted to another use, there is the potential for the local workforce to be displaced from current employment; the potential for retraining and alternate work placement should be considered.

Page 31 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Proximity to Transit: Many industrial areas have limited access to transportation options such as regional and local buses and light rail. Those areas with adequate or planned transit access should be evaluated for their ability to provide access to transit dependent workers, as well as the more traditional creation of mixed-use transit oriented districts.

Neighborhood Characteristics : The availability and proximity, as well as the absence of local groceries, restaurants, parks and public amenities is one indicator of the appropriateness of introducing new non-industrial uses in an industrial district. Before such assessment can be made the density and critical mass of residents needed to attract such amenities should be considered as an indicator of the ability to provide such services in the future.

C. Guiding Principles For Undertaking Analysis of Industrial Areas

The following principles were used to guide the analysis of industrial zoned land:

Provide adequate industrial land to support a diversified and sustainable economy for the current and projected population. Provide land that helps meet the business growth and employment needs of current and future Los Angeles residents. Ensure that there is land for important services and other uses that are undesirable and inappropriate in other geographic areas. Protect current and future viable job-producing land from intrusions of incompatible uses. Provide clarity in land-use decision-making and the entitlement process for investors, business owners, workers and neighbors. Allow for agility in responding to the market. Keep synergistic districts intact (i.e., entertainment, fashion, toy, produce, flower). Plan for functional neighborhoods, and take actions that will attract a critical mass. Consider timeframe for evolving districts. Encourage transformation of inappropriate or no longer viable industrial land in non-industrial areas with housing and other uses. Consider environmental justice and appropriateness of uses. Facilitate mixed use buildings and districts where appropriate. When zone changes and/or other actions increase land value, ensure that community benefits are appropriately identified and provided. Whenever possible, provide mechanisms to mitigate the business- and job-loss impacts when zones are changed. Phase development to allow for absorption. Minimize or prevent unhealthy or incompatible uses by concentrating new housing development in areas planned for residential or mixed use neighborhoods.

Page 32 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Appendix 2

General Plan Excerpts

Chapter 3 - Land Use GOALS, OBJECTIVES AND POLICIES ISSUE ONE: DISTRIBUTION OF LAND USE

GOAL 3A A physically balanced distribution of land uses that contributes towards and facilitates the City's long-term fiscal and economic viability, revitalization of economically depressed areas, conservation of existing residential neighborhoods, equitable distribution of public resources, conservation of natural resources, provision of adequate infrastructure and public services, reduction of traffic congestion and improvement of air quality, enhancement of recreation and open space opportunities, assurance of environmental justice and a healthful living environment, and achievement of the vision for a more liveable [ sic ] city.

Objective 3.2 Provide for the spatial distribution of development that promotes an improved quality of life by facilitating a reduction of vehicular trips, vehicle miles traveled, and air pollution.

Policy 3.2.3 Provide for the development of land use patterns that emphasize pedestrian/bicycle access and use in appropriate locations. ( P1 , P2 , P4 )

Objective 3.4 Encourage new multi-family residential, retail commercial, and office development in the City's neighborhood districts, community, regional, and downtown centers as well as along primary transit corridors/boulevards, while at the same time conserving existing neighborhoods and related districts.

Policy 3.4.2 Encourage new industrial development in areas traditionally planned for such purposes generally in accordance with the Framework Long-Range Land Use Diagram and as specifically shown on the community plans. ( P1 , P2 , P18 , P21 , P26 , P37 , P39 )

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Chapter 3 - Land Use GOALS, OBJECTIVES AND POLICIES ISSUE TWO: USES, DENSITY, AND CHARACTER INDUSTRIAL

Definition It is the intent of the General Plan Framework Element to preserve industrial lands for the retention and expansion of existing and attraction of new industrial uses that provide job opportunities for the City's residents. As indicated in the Economic Development Chapter of the Framework Element, some existing industrially zoned lands may be inappropriate for new industries and should be converted for other land uses. Where such lands are to be converted, their appropriate use shall be the subject of future planning studies. Policies provide for the consideration of a broader array of uses within the industrial zones than has traditionally been acceptable to facilitate the clustering of uses, which may include retail, that support the basic industries or the location of industries in the same area where the waste products of one can be recycled as a resource for another ("industrial ecology") or a campus-like cluster of related uses.

GOAL 3J Industrial growth that provides job opportunities for the City's residents and maintains the City's fiscal viability.

Objective 3.14 Provide land and supporting services for the retention of existing and attraction of new industries.

Policies Uses and Density

3.14.1 Accommodate the development of industrial uses in areas designated as "Industrial-Light," "Industrial-Heavy," and "Industrial-Transit" in accordance with Tables 3-1 and 3-9. The range and intensities of uses permitted in any area shall be determined by the community plans. (P1 , P18 )

Table 3 -9

Land Use Designation Corresponding Zones Industrial -Light CM, MR 1, MR 2, M1, M2 Industrial -Heavy M 3 Industrial -Transit CM, M1, M2, C2

Page 34 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Provide flexible zoning to facilitate the clustering of industries and supporting uses, thereby establishing viable "themed" sectors (e.g., movie/television/media production, set design, reproductions, etc.). ( P19 )

3.14.2 Promote the re-use of industrial corridors for small scale incubator industries. ( P1 , P2 , P26 , P31 , P36 )

3.14.3 Limit the introduction of new commercial and other non-industrial uses in existing commercial manufacturing zones to uses which support the primary industrial function of the location in which they are located. ( P1 , P38 )

3.14.4 Promote the development of a mix of commercial and light industrial uses in areas designated as Industrial-Transit. ( P1 , P38 )

3.14.5 Consider the potential re-designation of marginal industrial lands for alternative uses by amending the community plans based on the following criteria:

a. Where it can be demonstrated that the existing parcelization precludes effective use for industrial or supporting functions and where there is no available method to assemble parcels into a unified site that will support viable industrial development; b. Where the size and/or the configuration of assembled parcels are insufficient to accommodate viable industrial development; c. Where the size, use, and/or configuration of the industrial parcels adversely impact adjacent residential neighborhoods; d. Where available infrastructure is inadequate and improvements are economically infeasible to support the needs of industrial uses; e. Where the conversion of industrial lands to an alternative use will not create a fragmented pattern of development and reduce the integrity and viability of existing industrial areas; f. Where the conversion of industrial lands to an alternative use will not result in an adverse impact on adjacent residential neighborhoods, commercial districts, or other land uses; g. Where it can be demonstrated that the reduction of industrial lands will not adversely impact the City's ability to accommodate sufficient industrial uses to provide jobs for the City's residents or incur adverse fiscal impacts; and/or h. Where existing industrial uses constitute a hazard to adjacent residential or natural areas. (P1 , P18 ) 3.14.9 Initiate programs for lot consolidation and implement improvements to assist in the retention/expansion of existing and attraction of new industrial uses, where feasible. ( P36 , P37 )

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Chapter 7 – Economic Development GOALS, OBJECTIVES AND POLICIES

GOAL 7A A vibrant economically revitalized City.

Objective 7.1 Focus available resources on a coordinated and comprehensive effort to promote economic activity in Los Angeles, including an aggressive marketing program that communicates the resources and assets available within the City.

Policies 7.1.2 Encourage community-based service and development entities in efforts to create small business expansion at the local level. ( P35 , P43 )

7.1.3 Create and implement an economic development strategy. ( P35 )

7.1.4 Develop an infrastructure investment strategy to support the population and employment growth areas. ( P36 )

7.1.5 Allocate available public resources within the context of the market demand anticipated over the next five years. ( P38 )

7.1.6 Identify Federal and State mandates which represent unreasonable barriers to future economic development in the City, and begin to address these mandates through appropriate lobbying efforts. ( P27 )

GOAL 7B A City with land appropriately and sufficiently designated to sustain a robust commercial and industrial base.

Objective 7.2 Establish a balance of land uses that provides for commercial and industrial development which meets the needs of local residents, sustains economic growth, and assures maximum feasible environmental quality.

Policies Industrial

7.2.8 Retain the current manufacturing and industrial land use designations, consistent with other Framework Element policies, to provide adequate quantities of land for emerging industrial sectors. ( P1 , P18 )

Page 36 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

7.2.9 Limit the redesignation of existing industrial land to other land uses except in cases where such redesignation serves to mitigate existing land use conflicts, and where it meets the criteria spelled out in Policy 3.14.6 of Chapter 3 : Land Use . ( P18 )

7.2.10 Ensure that the City's industrial sites are regionally competitive to maintain and enhance a core manufacturing base. ( P37 , P38 , P39 )

7.2.11 Ensure that the City has sufficient quantities of land suitable to accommodate existing, new and relocating industrial firms, whose operations are appropriate to a specific location in Los Angeles. ( P18 , P26 , P38 )

7.2.12 Establish, as shown in Figure 7-1, the area adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles, the rail corridor bisecting the San Fernando Valley, and the South Central/Southeast industrial area as market-linked targeted industrial areas (market-linked areas are described on page 7-4). ( P1 , P18 )

7.2.13 Facilitate environmentally sound operations and expansion of the Port of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles International Airport as major drivers of the local and regional economy. (P3 , P5 , P6 , P42 )

7.2.14 Take steps to assure that new industries developed are sensitive to environmental and conservation issues, and that cumulative environmental impacts are addressed.

GOAL 7C A City with thriving and expanding businesses.

Objective 7.3 Maintain and enhance the existing businesses in the City.

Policies Industrial

7.3.4 Recognize the crucial role that the Port of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles International Airport play in future employment growth by supporting planned Port and Airport expansion and modernization that mitigates its negative impacts. ( P5 , P40 )

7.3.5 Improve the movement of goods and workers to industrial areas. ( P3 , P4 , P45 )

7.3.6 Retain the City's existing manufacturing base through an outreach program to existing businesses and an ongoing assessment of their specific land use requirements. ( P35 , P36 , P62 )

7.3.7 Prioritize the retention and renewal of existing industrial businesses. ( P35 , P36 , P37 )

Page 37 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

7.3.8 Assist existing industries located in Los Angeles with their expansion plans and/or relocation efforts to find suitable industrial sites in the City. ( P36 , P37 )

GOAL 7D A City able to attract and maintain new land uses and businesses.

Target Industries

Objective 7.5 Capture a significant share of regional growth in the "targeted" or emerging industries in the City of Los Angeles.

Policies 7.5.1 Identify emerging and pro-actively clean industries to specifically attract to the City of Los Angeles. ( P35 )

7.5.2 Maintain an ongoing dialogue with representatives of major firms in the target industries to determine facility/siting, infrastructure, and labor force requirements. ( P35 , P37 )

7.5.3 Strive to provide an industrial business climate that meets the needs of the targeted industries. ( P21 , P35 , P36 , P40 )

7.5.4 Proactively market Los Angeles to emerging industries to encourage them to locate within the City, with an emphasis on the attraction of environmentally-oriented and "clean" industries. ( P35 , P40 )

GOAL 7E A City with a highly qualified labor force.

Objective 7.7 Achieve an effective "match" between the qualifications of the local labor force and the anticipated personnel requirements of existing and emerging industries in the City.

GOAL 7F A fiscally stable City.

Objective 7.8 Maintain and improve municipal service levels throughout the City to support current residents' quality of life and enable Los Angeles to be competitive when attracting desirable new development.

Page 38 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Policies 7.8.1 Place the highest priority on attracting new development projects to Los Angeles which have the potential to generate a net fiscal surplus for the City. ( P35 , P36 )

7.8.2 Implement proactive policies to attract development that enhances the City's fiscal balance, such as providing financial incentives and permitting assistance. ( P35 , P36 , P40 , P67 )

7.8.3 Encourage mixed-use development projects, which include revenue generating retail, to offset the fiscal costs associated with residential development. ( P18 , P22 )

GOAL 7G A range of housing opportunities in the City.

Objective 7.9 Ensure that the available range of housing opportunities is sufficient, in terms of location, concentration, type, size, price/rent range, access to local services and access to transportation, to accommodate future population growth and to enable a reasonable portion of the City's work force to both live and work in the City.

GOAL 7H A distribution of economic opportunity throughout the City.

Objective 7.10 Program resources in a manner that encourages appropriate development, housing opportunities, transit service and employment generation in all areas of the City, with particular emphasis on those portions of the City which historically have not received a proportional share of such opportunities, consistent with the City's overall economic policies.

Page 39 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Appendix 3

Other Existing Policies that Shape Industrial Districts

Adaptive Reuse Ordinance

In 1999, the City adopted an ordinance to facilitate the conversion of old, abandoned Downtown office buildings into housing. That ordinance made it possible to convert many historic buildings within a designated geography into apartments and condominiums by waiving modern zoning requirements that were difficult to apply to historic buildings. The adaptive reuse ordinance has now been expanded to Hollywood, Koreatown, Chinatown, and other areas and a modified version has been adopted that applies Citywide. The expanded ordinance does not allow live-work by right; zoning administrator approval is required. New construction—live-work or otherwise—is not allowed.

When Adaptive Reuse projects are in industrial zones, they have to meet certain criteria. This includes limiting permissible occupations to arts-related occupations such as architects, multimedia, fashion, and interior design. And, pursuant to the code, no building can be converted to residences under the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance if such conversion will displace current or future industrial uses.

Joint Living and Work Quarters

Joint Living and Work (Live-Work) Quarters permit combined living and work units that include a kitchen and a bathroom in abandoned industrial buildings. The residential portion of the unit, including the sleeping area, kitchen, bathroom, and closet areas, can occupy no more than 33 percent of the total floor area, and the living space is not separated from the work space. Living and work spaces which are independently accessible are not considered live-work.

To gain approval, the Los Angeles Municipal Code (Section 12.24.X.13) states “that the uses of property surrounding the proposed location of the joint living and work quarters and the use of the proposed location will not be detrimental to the health, safety and welfare of prospective residents of the quarters; and that the proposed joint living and work quarters will not displace viable industrial uses and will not substantially lessen the likelihood that the property will be available in the future for industrial uses.”

Artist in Residence District

The Artist in Residence District (AIR) is an area of Downtown Los Angeles designated by the Central City North Community Plan, and bounded by First Street, the Los Angeles River, Sixth Street, and Alameda Street. The purpose of the AIR District, as stated in the Central City North Community Plan, is “to identify the presence of the artists as a distinct and integral part of the Central City North

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Community.” This is the only district in which City policy encourages residential development in an industrial area.

Single Room Occupancy Interim Control Ordinance

In May of 2006 the City enacted an interim control ordinance to temporarily prohibit the conversion or demolition of guest rooms or efficiency units in Residential Hotels, which at the time were being rapidly converted into market-rate residential developments and exacerbating the affordable housing crisis. The Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) reported that from 1995 through 2003, the City lost ten Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels 35 with a net loss of 1,087 units. 36 These SRO hotels are primarily located in Downtown Los Angeles and are mostly located on industrially-zoned land. Conversion of these SROs to market-rate housing unaffordable to the vast majority of Los Angeles residents is a component of the Downtown housing market resurgence that is also putting pressure on industrial buildings to convert to luxury housing.

Downtown Residential Development Guidelines

The CRA/LA’s Downtown Residential Development Guidelines restrict the use and development of Residential Hotels in the City Center and Central Industrial Redevelopment Project Areas to preserve existing affordable housing, guarantee one-for-one replacement of affordable Residential Hotel units when a Residential Hotel is proposed for conversion or demolition, and prevent or mitigate the hardship that results to predominantly lower income households when residential displacement occurs.

The CRA/LA will not sign permit requests for demolition, rehabilitation or conversion of a residential hotel unless:

1. The proposed new use is an affordable housing project covenanted for at least 55 years 2. The demolition, rehabilitation or conversion is required by the Building and Safety Department to meet immediate health and safety violations and no Residential Hotel occupants are permanently displaced. If permanent displacement is necessary to meet code requirements, the Residential Hotel occupants must be relocated in accordance with the Development Guidelines and development of replacement units would be triggered. 3. The Residential Hotel is converted or demolished but Residential Hotel units are replaced on a one-for-one basis and all displaced persons receive relocation benefits.

35 Single Room Occupancy (SRO) Hotels are a subset of Residential Hotels, distinguished by a lower ratio of bathrooms to guest rooms than in other Residential Hotels. 36 Interim Control Ordinance (Ordinance No. 177557, May 10, 2006.

Page 41 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Appendix 4a

Other Cities’ Industrial Land Use Policies 37

The importance of developing policies to preserve and promote industrial uses is not a problem unique to Los Angeles. Many other cities throughout North America have addressed the changing nature of industry and pressures from residential conversion with innovative strategies to preserve areas that create and sustain local jobs—ranging from land use policies to economic incentives to public outreach. The following list of strategies from other cities is not meant to be exhaustive, but to give a sense of the diversity and scope of various approaches.

Land Use Policies

In New York City, planners and policymakers designated ‘Industrial Business Zones’ (IBZs) to better reflect the most productive industrial districts within the city. Within these IBZs, there is an officially- mandated guarantee not to rezone or allow residential uses. ‘Buffer areas’ were created around these IBZs to allow conversions under certain circumstances. The City of New York—which controls about 13 million square feet of industrial space itself—began offering city-owned parcels to industrial businesses seeking to build their own facilities. During 2004, roughly 400,000 square feet of building space was constructed and about $45 million invested to develop these sites, resulting in the retention of 294 industrial jobs and the creation 300 additional jobs.

Likewise in the City of Chicago, ‘Permanent Manufacturing Districts’ (PMDs) have been extremely effective in preserving industrial areas. PMDs were created as prototypical industrial sanctuaries, and are almost always combined with the use of Tax Increment Financing to ensure tax incentives for land owners. Each PMD provides that no residential uses will be permitted, with supplementary regulations specifying uses and restrictions adopted on an ad-hoc basis for each particular area when the district is applied to the zoning map.

In addition to setting aside land for industrial use, many cities are revising their zoning codes to accommodate changes in the industrial sector. In the City of Baltimore, new zoning categories were added to the city’s zoning code to remedy weaknesses in the existing industrial zoning classifications. New categories included: Industrial Park for properties of 20 acres or more, which would impose setbacks, design guidelines and performance standards to ensure quality development; Urban Business , which would accommodate office and technology uses (the city

37 Research by CRA/LA staff and LAEDC Memo on Best Industrial Land Practices of Other Industrial Cities (September 11, 2007).

Page 42 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

decided that urban business zones should be created that exclude retail); and Port-Compatible Development , which designates and protects industrial and port-related activities.

The City of Vancouver wanted to bring zoning regulations into the 21 st Century to better reflect the modern industrial sector in their city; these changes included: increasing the allowable floor area for service industrial uses; creating new definitions (for example, a new definition was created for “software manufacturing”); increasing the amount of accessory and office space allowed; and facilitating “change of use” in inner-city industrial areas (for example, manufacturing uses may be permitted without requiring additional parking if it cannot be provided). And in the City of Toronto, zones formerly designated ‘commercial’ and ‘industrial’ are now defined more openly as employment areas that ‘reflect the broad objective of retaining places of business and developing and intensifying job growth’ 38 The new land use designations give flexibility and allow the specifics of zoning laws to address specific needs.

Many cities have developed criteria that must be met before conversions will be considered. In the City of Vancouver, before land can be released from industrial uses, it must be shown that the proposed development will not affect the operations of adjacent existing or potential future industrial activity in the area. Moreover, the proposed development should not increase land values of surrounding industrial land. In the City of Baltimore, certain guidelines must be met to change the use such as demonstrating that the intensity, investment levels and economic benefits of the new use far outweigh the alternative industrial use; that any nearby concentration of viable industry would not be negatively affected by the new uses; and that the new use should produce more jobs than the alternative industrial use.

In the City of Portland, Employment and Industrial Zones have use restrictions that protect these lands by curbing the development of non-industrial uses through a discretionary review process that encourages the preservation of industrial uses while allowing residential uses in very limited situations, such as: where residential uses will not interfere with industry (have adverse effects on nearby industrial firms), where they will not alter the overall industrial character of the area based on existing proportion of industrial to non-industrial uses, and where the residential development needs to be located in an industrial area/building because industrial firms and/or their employees constitute the primary market of the proposed use. Similarly, Oakland recently developed a list of criteria that ensures economic benefits, social/environmental justice, and access to transit before converting industrially-zoned land.

38 Section 4-2, Toronto Official Plan.

Page 43 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Economic Development Incentives & Strategies

Cities can develop policies that address the needs of industrial businesses through their economic development strategies. In the City of Portland, financing and incentive strategies were used to preserve the city’s most readily developable industrial land supply, including: targeting public infrastructure investments (roads and utilities); creating industrial land banking activities; developing local tax incentives such as allowing property tax abatement for industrial redevelopment projects; and expanding government loan and grant programs that could be used for environmental remediation on industrial land. In Toronto, the City of Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) helped with business relocation assistance and was able to relocate some tenants successfully. For example, one of the larger firms successfully relocated was Canpar (one of Canada’s leading small parcel delivery companies), which TEDCO assisted in relocation while ‘achieving the City’s objectives of employment land preservation and job retention.’ The Canpar shipping facility was relocated elsewhere in the city with significant assistance that included: purchase of land elsewhere within city limits; development of ½ the new site; and construction of the new buildings.

Education, Outreach & Marketing

Communicating the city’s polices and encouraging feedback from diverse constituencies is critical to developing an effective policy. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) implemented a universal IBZ branding campaign as well as IBZ-specific packages to market individual IBZ areas, and the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) conducted outreach to industrial companies.

In the City of St. Louis, there was a small but job-rich industrial area that was facing loft conversions. A private consultant proposed that the city should stem land speculation by announcing and publicizing the city’s plans for industrial retention, as well as the promotion of the significance of small businesses on the local economy, often not recognized by area stakeholders and public officials.

The City of San Francisco generated a report entitled: Industrial Lands in San Francisco: Understanding Production, Distribution, and Repair (PDR) to help stakeholders understand what industrial means in the modern era, why it is important to the San Francisco economy, and what needs to be done about this critical part of San Francisco’s urban development.

Page 44 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Appendix 4b

SUMMARY COMPARISON OF INDUSTRIAL LAND USE STUDIES

Other Related

Reason for Study Description of Program Land Use Implementation Strategies/Misc.

Port expansion – need to Presented guidelines for change -of - New Zones: Industrial Park, Urban Brownfield dev elopment, TIF protect port-related industrial use decisions. Evaluation of 8 Business, Mixed Use, Port- financing, Eminent Domain, and property; Development industrial areas and Compatible Development. “streamlined permitting” for pressure and job retention. recommendations for 12 ‘unstable’ desirable development properties. Allow office and technology by exception in industrial zones if more jobs would be created than Baltimore Development alternative industrial use. Currently a 10 year moratorium for Corporation (consultant) Goals: development in portside industrial Rezoning: concentrate M-3 in zones. Plan does not contain

Baltimore Baltimore • Maintain an adequate supply of established clusters. Buffering & strategies for workforce industrial land landscaping standards for development or housing. Industrial Land Use • Provide certainty for developers downzoned areas. Analysis Report / 2003 • Reinforce existing office and residential districts. New Maritime Industrial Overlay 30% of City, 15,133 acres/ District. 13.5% vacancy

Job creation and retention; Preservation and gro wth of 8 Marine Industrial Park Si te location, workforce Residential development established industrial areas. development, advocacy and pressure, esp. in Downtown/ Comprehensive, strategic use of land, • Institutional Master Plan navigation (district liaisons), job training and financial resources. • All M1, M2, M3 allowed financial assistance (tax breaks and Mayor & Redevelopment • 2500 jobs and 180 businesses incentives) and a formal, collective Authority • Tenants include biomedical voice in future planning. manufacturers, beer brewers, Boston’s Back Streets curtain makers, and computer manufacturers Program / 2002

Boston Boston 5% of City, Strategic Plans: 1,561 acres/ 2.7% vacancy • Ex: South Boston / Massport SP • Maintain Priority on Port-Related

Activities • Improve Port Access while 46,000 jobs in 2000/ 7% City Limiting Traffic Impacts Employment • Facilitate Development of a Mixed-use District.

Page 45 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Loss of manufacturing jobs / Identified 25 industrial corridors and Industrial Residential Buffer Zones – TIFs (Tax Increment Financing) for City of Chicago 13 Planned Manufacturing Districts proposed: ‘Commercial, infrastructure improvements and job which together preserve about 50% Manufacturing and Employment’ creation programs. Enterprise of Chicago’s M-zoned land—outside zone would allow commercial zones, Industrial Street and Alley of these, change of use is reviewed developments up to a 5:1 floor to Vacation program, 1 Eco-Industrial Industrial Corridors & case-by-case. area ratio, but developments larger Network (Calumet). If adaptive Planned Manufacturing than 75,000 square feet, must go reuse area is recommended, sales Districts The Industrial Corridor Program is through a ‘Planned Development’ tax increment to be invested in review. neighboring industrial areas. Focus designed to make Chicago's industrial environment competitive by bringing on communications upgrades in 4 New Downtown designations 8.63% vacancy rate company and community interests industrial areas. together to plan and implement including: improvements in dedicated industrial ‘Made in Chicago’ assists local • DS, Downtown Service – for areas. production/manufacturing areas with many types of 193k sq ft total businesses with marketing and commercial and service uses

Chicago Chicago business development. The program makes resources that are essential for the livelihood of downtown available to select Local Industrial City uses condemnation, tax Retention Initiative (LIRI) businesses and residents. 98,000 manufacturing jobs in Typical uses range from large reactivation, and lien foreclosure to organizations to create, implement 2000 distribution and shipping centers acquire and assemble industrial and manage strategic development to small-scale office, parcels. Now applying in more areas plans for specific corridors. commercial, and light industrial with retail and residential operations, to big-box retailing. speculation.

4 new half-step districts allow smoother transitions between existing districts, in terms of FAR and # of dwelling units.

Industrial Land Use Policy Policy study and land use change Implementation options being Beginning stages of inter -agency Project recommendations in response to the explored include: effort to design business attraction, trend of converting industrial land for workforce development and residential, commercial and • Rezoning through Community affordable housing strategies in the institutional uses. Staff Plan Process to allow for new evolving industrial climate. City of Los Angeles recommendations regarding current definitions of industrial uses and transitional districts. Department of City Planning, city policy—to preserve industrial Community Redevelopment • Offering development districts for job-producing uses—and agreements to developers of Agency/LA Recognized need for infrastructure recommendations to review certain conversion projects to provide key areas for new General Plan public benefit improvements; working to identify

designations and/or zoning will be • Modifying Artist Housing and funding sources for these Live/Work definitions improvements. 14,093 acres of Industrial transmitted to the Planning Commission (pending Spring • Industrial design and building Los Angeles Los Angeles Use (8% of City zoned guidelines /Summer 2007). industrial) • Vertical integration of uses No change to the General Plan will • Increased FAR for new industrial uses directly occur from these policy .9% Vacancy Rate recommendations; stakeholder input regarding land use changes will be included in the Community Plan Update process.

Page 46 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007 Diversify the local 3 general recommendations were Adopted Rec ommendations : Study did not account for increased economy. submitted: city services when converted from - Designate 2,193 acres for industrial to residential. • Provide policy statements continued industrial use, which to guide land use, represents 55% of industrial-zoned Industrial Land Use • Outline criteria for LU acreage and 70% of industrial-used decisions, City did not adopt measures to Study land. • Limit LU changes prohibit residential development in - Revise Minneapolis Plan to clarify Employment Districts (Industrial 3,987 acres industrial zoning; that Industrial Business Park Living Overlay District – ILOD) City decided to combine

Minneapolis Minneapolis Opportunity Areas (IBPOA) are 3,132 acres industrial land recommendations: ‘Strengthen policy prioritized for industrial use. use statement in Minneapolis Plan; Clearly define - Clearly define boundaries of Industrial Business Park Opportunity Employment Districts.’ Areas in the Minneapolis Plan.

Residential development Preserve industrial zoning by IBZs: M2 and M3 zoning IBZs: pressure & Interest in diverse designating 16 Industrial Business designations guaranteed in economy / Mayor Zones (IBZs) in areas with high perpetuity (current administration’s • Dedicated business councilors concentration of industrial uses, to commitment) • Relocation assistance to firms

prohibit residential. outside IBZs • Market IBZs to emerging and Protecting and Growing expanding businesses NYC’s Industrial Job Base / • Discourage illegal conversions 2005 Ombudsman Areas: IBZ geographic boundaries were • Lower the cost of Industrial real estate production and delineated largely on pre-existing • Enforce industrial zoning maintenance with incentives, • Buffer zones between Res & boundaries of In-Place-Industrial- rebates, etc 4% of City, 6,101 acres IBZs Parks, established in 1980. • Commercial fleet parking • MX – Industrial Mix zoning violations program to facilitate Trained on-site ombudsmen • delivery and services 233,000 jobs in 2000 mitigate compatibility issues • Education centers with New York New York Area planning studies conducted to • Tax incentives and zoning dedicated business councilors commitments do not apply identify solutions unique to each IBZ. and Ombudsmen located in • Ex: Tribeca and Loft Districts each IBZ

• Make under-utilized city owned land available for industrial use. New M1-D designation (non IBZs): Designated three (3) Industrial buffer • Administer Bi-annual industry (Ombudsman) areas adjacent to survey Areas which have a significant residential. number of residences; allow conversion to residential by right.

Page 47 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Residential/Industrial land use Following their zoning update, 4 Industrial Districts: Zoning recommendations developed conflicts Business Oakland prepared land use as location specific, i.e. CIX only in Development Staff w/planning, recommendations for industrial areas, • Commercial and Light Industrial West Oakland, etc. workforce development, and Business Mix (CIX)- technology, redevelopment agency (& live/work conditionally, big box near freeway/BART consultant) • Light Industrial Business Mix Currently under (IBX) - Heavy commercial and consideration/discussion: a correct light industrial. Heavy manufacturing & live/work proportion of residential conversions 17.73 Industrial Districts–- conditionally. in by-right industrial areas. Zoning Update, Industrial • General Industrial (GI)-uses that Lands Policy Review generate offsite impacts. All uses that may inhibit industrial uses prohibited. This zone only Mid-study, council voted to exclude 2,804 acres, 8% Industrial land mapped 300 ft from existing some areas of agreed-upon Open Space, Residential, and use industrial retention. Institutional. • Industrial Office Park (IO) - Large parcel development; light industrial, R&D, wholesale & 4.8% Vacancy rate dist, large scale office.

4 Criteria for industrial / residential 25,458 employed in conversions Manufacturing, warehousing, and utilities. 15% of employed • Gen Plan Consistency- should Oakland Oakland residents in these sectors. support neighborhood & citywide goals. If converted, no neg. impact on industrial business. • Economic Benefit- Not located on lands that could be used to produce jobs. No secondary impact to other Oakland-based business. • Environmental Quality- Conversion should include buffers and mitigation from industrial impacts. • Transit Modes & TODs- no conversion of sites with direct access to cargo/freight. New residential should be TOD so as not to increase traffic in industrial districts.

Health and Safety Overlay Zone created for industrial districts within 300 feet of residential to regulate health impacts of uses.

Page 48 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007 Residential and mixed -use As part of zoning update, new zoning New Zone Designations: conversion pressures districts were created that actively preserve and enhance the • NDI – Neighborhood Industrial: productivity of industrial areas. allow a broad range of industrial uses and encourage No Study development patterns that include a mix of housing, employment and shopping

opportunities. 7.1% of City; 2,545 acres of • UI – Urban Industrial: allow mid- sized to large industries in a industrial use flexible district with multi-use buildings and flexible spaces for

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh office parks, incubator spaces, high technology and service 8.7% vacancy rate sector industries. • GI – General Industrial: accommodate a full range of industrial, manufacturing, warehouse, and similar uses which are incompatible with lower intensity land uses.

Accommodation of ‘New Identify 20 year industrial land needs Protection of Industrial and Public infrastructure investment, tax Urban Economy’ & based on regional job forecasts and Employment districts through strict breaks, public/private partnerships employment preservation design strategies for Portland’s discretionary review process: no to assist in master planning industrial and employment zones adverse impacts on industrial firms, industrial real estate developments. Bureau of Planning + multiple generally allow a full range of not alter character thru incremental Development Commission regional agencies industrial use categories; the change, need for industrial location; established 7 industrial clusters; distinctions between the zones lie buffers, transit and landscape plan Transit Dept.’s Freight Master plan; Central Eastside Industrial more in their development standards must be included. ‘Plan Districts’ are River Planning process to revitalize Zoning Study, 2003 / and allowances for non-industrial neighborhood designations that riverfront industrial areas; Regionally Significant uses. comply with current zoning and Brown/Greenfields study. Industrial Areas include other regulations (job Portland Portland retention, environmental/cultural 6.3% vacancy rate protection, etc). New zones: 48,690 employed in Industrial Office (to include digital manufacturing, wholesale, industry with customer visits), and warehousing and utilities. Industrial Serving Retail. 18.4% of employed persons work in these sectors.

Affordable housing shortage Service/Light Industrial District that A relatively s mall portion of the & preservation of existing prohibits general office use, but targeted PDR areas will have strict industry specifically allows work space for protections from non industrial uses. design professionals, in keeping Industrial Protection Zones with the zone‘s specific arts-related theme. New PDR (production, 7% zoned industrial distribution and repair) zoning 3% industrially zoned land expected designations: Large Commercial to remain. 51,220 employed in PDR, Light PDR, Core PDR.

San Francisco Francisco San manufacturing, warehousing, wholesale and utilities. 13% of employed work in these sectors.

Page 49 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007 “Employment Land A major background study was In progress. Implementation has been on hold. Conversion” / City of San performed to estimate future demand Currently undergoing Gen Plan Jose (consultant) for industrial land as part of the San update. New Mayor (inaugurated Jose General Plan Update. Analysis Jan. 1, 2007) is interested in of San Jose's economic base and exploring new zoning options. employment trends, interviews with San Jose Industrial Land experts regarding future space use Supply and Fiscal Impact patterns, and estimates of building Analysis / 2004 needs by economic sector. Includes an overview of high technology

industries and 15 in-depth interviews 3,023 Vacant Acres with corporate leaders to estimate the 20-year demand for industrial land.

Includes recommendations about 116,240 employed in development mixes and densities that San Jose Jose San manufacturing, warehousing, would use the city's land resources wholesale and utilities. 27.8% efficiently, intensify development in of employed work in those the areas served by light rail, provide sectors. a positive fiscal outcome, and support long-term economic development while meeting the city's need for new housing. Projected land demand for employment uses and determined which areas would be most important for San Jose's long-term competitiveness, particularly in the high-tech industries.

Enco urage industrial activity Promote expansion/locational 3 Types of Industrial Zones: Retain and expand Seattle’s & diverse economic base opportunities for manufacturing, manufacturing and maritime sectors: advanced technologies, and a wide • General Industrial Zones (IG1 & range of industrial-related commercial IG2)- full range of industrial uses • Provide user-friendly permitting activities such as warehouse and and limited commercial for industrial users. • Industrial Buffer Zones (IB) - Industrial Areas Land Use distribution. • Improve transportation to keep Policies provide transition from industrial freight moving. to residential/mixed residential • Industrial Brownfield cleanup commercial- incl. widest range programs. of uses. Required performance standards to separate uses 49,171 employed in • Industrial Commercial Zones manufacturing, wholesale, (IC) – Promote biz development, warehousing and utilities. light manufacturing. + R&D.

Seattle 15.8% of employed work in Required development these sectors. standards to mitigate conflicts. Manufacturing Center Overlay Zone (MCO) – established as rezoning applications on existing industrial areas to encourage industry, esp. tech/research.

Other mechanisms include landscaping, setback and street standards.

Page 50 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007 Need to repopulate/grow city New ‘Strategic Land Use Plan’ SLDC targets smaller indus trial authorized in 2005; incorporates parcels for strategic assembly into Strategic Land Use Plan neighborhood-level planning into modern-sized parcels fit for (January 2005) broader land use categories. redevelopment

86 Million sq. ft., Vacancy

St. Louis Louis St. Rate: 5%

Approx 20% of City M-zoned

Residential development Employment Areas (Land Use Uses: Offices, manufacturing, Employment Di stricts the focus of pressure & declining Designation): Protect and promote warehousing, distribution, research regional economic strategy: manufacturing sector economic activity in order to attract and development facilities, utilities, new and expand existing employment media facilities, parks, hotels, retail • Investments in clusters that are key to Toronto’s outlets ancillary to the preceding infrastructure competitive advantage: uses and restaurants and small • Marketing

8% vacancy scale stores and services that serve • Develop quality Employment area businesses and workers. Districts that are globally competitive locations and offer a • Places of worship, recreation wide choice of sites for new and entertainment facilities, business; business and trade schools and “Live/Work” is considered residential • Nurture Toronto’s diverse branches of community colleges economic base; or universities may locate only and not permitted in Employment • Provide a range of employment on major streets. Areas; “Artist Live/Work” is opportunities for Toronto • Big box restricted to area considered non-residential, must be residents that can be reached by boundaries (intersection with affordable and is permitted in

Toronto Toronto means other than the private other zones) by exception only. Employment Areas automobile. • Residential not permitted.

Employment Districts – Large districts comprised exclusively of Employment Areas land use designation. Can accommodate substantial growth in jobs and met the needs of some of the City’s key economic clusters.

• Ex - Manufacturing, warehousing and product assembly; Commercial office parks.

Retain industrial land for port and Increase allowable FAR for service Vancouver‘s I -3 zone allows river-related industry, and for industrial. Create new definitions Information Technology office uses Industrial Lands Strategy / industries that employ city workers (e.g. software manufacturing, artist outright, and other offices only 1995 & Metropolitan Core and/or serve city businesses and studio, Class A+B). Increase through a public review process. Jobs and Economy Land Use residents. allowable accessory office space. Plan / 2005 Reduce height and bulk provisions. Replace heavy industrial with light industrial. Facilitate change-of-use Not under review: Jobs/economy in inner city neighborhoods. For areas where land use policy will Vancouver Vancouver 1.4% Vacancy conditional change of use, proposed not be reviewed by this study; e.g., development should not increase local mixed use districts with land values of surrounding housing above commercial; recently industrial. planned areas; and the Port.

Page 51 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American Community Survey, US Census Bureau. Los Angeles City, CA, Los Angeles-Long Beach- Santa Ana, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, S0802. Means of Transportation to Work by Selected Characteristics 2005.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Spending 2001-2002.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) Survey, May 2006 OES Estimates.

California Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, ES202 Data 2005.

Central City East Association: Economic and Fiscal Impact Analysis, February 2005.

Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles, Survey of blighted properties. 2005.

Downtown Center Business Improvement District, “Downtown Los Angeles Market Report and 2006 Demographic Survey of New Downtown Residents.” (February 2007).

Gauderman, et al. 2007. ‘Effect of exposure to traffic on lung development from 10 to18 years of age: a cohort study.’ Published Online January 26, 2007. DOI:10.1016/S0140- 6736(07)60037-3.

Grubb & Ellis, Industrial Market Trends: Los Angeles County (Second Quarter 2007).

ILUP Research Memorandum, “Downtown Housing – Relative Affordability of Downtown Core and Industrial Units.” Keyser Marston Associates, October 27, 2006.

ILUP Research Memorandum, “Industrial to Residential Land Use Conversion – Comparative Land Value Analysis.” Keyser Marston Associates, January 27, 2007.

ILUP Research Memorandum, “Industrial Land Use Conversion – San Jose Experience.” Keyser Marston Associates, March 27, 2007.

ILUP Research Memorandum: “Residential and Industrial Area Comparison.” Keyser Marston Associates, June 26, 2007.

Los Angeles, City of. General Plan Framework, Chapter 3: Land Use ( http://cityplanning.lacity.org ).

Los Angeles, City of. Industrial Development Policy Initiative (IDPI) Phase I Report (2004).

------. IDPI Phase II Report (October 2005).

Page 52 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

Los Angeles, City of. Single Room Occupancy Interim Control Ordinance. Ordinance No. 177557, May 10, 2006.

Memorandum from Bud Ovrom, Deputy Mayor, to General Managers Requesting Recommendations and Strategies to Preserve City’s Industrial Zones. December 12, 2005.

San Francisco, City of, Department of Planning . “Industrial Land in San Francisco: Understanding Production, Distribution and Repair.” July 2002.

Southern California Association of Governments: Regional Transportation Plan (Various reports, May 2006).

Southern California Association of Governments: Growth Forecast 2005-2030.

Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association. “Cleantech Venture Investments By Us Firms Break Record In 2007.” ( http://www.nvca.org/ ) November 28, 2007.

Toronto, City of. Toronto Official Plan, Section 4-2.

US Census Bureau. Greater Downtown Demographics . 2000.

Page 53 Los Angeles’ Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy ∙ December 2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LAND USE SURVEY and DATA SUPPORT TEAMS ILUP TEAM

Marianne Askew Steve Andrews Anita Bizzell Jane Blumenfeld Claire Bowin Matt Lust* Jonathan Brand Sharon Mayer* Marie Cobian Jason Neville Ryan Ehsan Conni Pallini-Tipton Jenna Gulager Donald R. Spivack Naomi Guth Mark Winogrond* Christopher Jackson

Gabriela Juarez GIS AND GRAPHICS John Kamp John Kenyon Shakeh Boghoskhanian Christopher Koontz John Butcher Lindsay Koshgarian Joyce O’dell Erick Lopez Kim Pfoser Yi Lu Louisa Ranick Christine Mahfouz Michael Uhlenkott Dave Neubecker Tom Weisenberger

Alex Paxton Katherine Peterson INTERNS & VOLUNTEERS Maritza Prezekop Kevin Baba* Josh Rohmer Angie Cameron Jenny Scanlin Adam Deromedi* Haydee Urita-Lopez Jon Kim* Arthi Varma Shawn Kuk* Craig Weber Ken Quan* Karen Yamamoto Gretchen Siemers*

Josh Shake

Hector Solis*

Special thanks to:

Department of City Planning Staff

Community Redevelopment Agency Staff *Former team members

Page 54 Home Who We Are Our Ordinance The City’s Ordinance Add Your Name Thoughts & Updates Contact Us Take Action! 

Our Letter & Signers An Open Letter from Urban and Civic Leaders to the Los Angeles City Council and Department of City Planning: The undersigned are a group of community members and leaders, architects, urban planners, developers, and academics who deeply care about the future of the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles. The Arts District is a unique and irreplaceable part of Downtown Los Angeles and we hope the City Council adopts a specific plan that will preserve the defining characteristics of our neighborhood — a plan designed to build on the innovation, creativity, and economic activity developed over the last three decades. The Arts District is a prime example of how proper planning and zoning can transform a blighted urban center. The Artist-in-Residence Ordinances have empowered artists and entrepreneurs to re- imagine and re-purpose an area that had been severely underutilized. If the Arts District is to maintain its unique place as a vibrant center of creativity, economic prosperity, and diversity, a forward thinking land use policy should be adopted; a policy that will safeguard and promote these values. Rigid building codes and out-of-date urban planning practices should be set aside while a thoughtful evaluation of new tools is being conducted. The attached proposal for an Interim Land Use Policy framework in the Arts District was created with the goal of maintaining and strengthening the extraordinary diversity which has been a defining hallmark of the Arts District. It ensures that new projects will maintain a balance of creative space and live/work space. The proposal seeks to ensure that the creation of any new live/work spaces maintains the distinctive live/work environment characteristic of the Arts District — and does not promote the suburbanization of this vital urban center. Los Angeles has many multi-family residential neighborhoods, like West LA, but it has only ONE Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles. It is critical that the new area plan be designed to build on rather than undermine the defining characteristics of the Arts District.Specifically, we advocate that Type I and II buildings must be the primary method of construction and an appropriate density should be afforded to offset the cost of construction. Wood structures should be constructed in a way that will maximize the flexibility and adaptability of design and must maintain commercial capabilities. Live/work units should be designed with true live/work utilization in mind. Live/work should provide the flexibility and structural integrity that promotes multiple uses. Live/work should not be diluted into a veiled excuse for turning the Arts District into a bedroom community. Ground floor space should be dedicated to traditional uses that enhance the pedestrian experience. It is wholly inconsistent with the characteristics of the District to undermine the pedestrian experience by allowing ground level parking. New construction in the Arts District should provide parking below or above street level. We feel strongly that the Department of City Planning should craft a land use policy based on the long-term best interest of Los Angeles and the community as a whole, a policy that is uniform and evenly applied, a policy that protects the defining characteristics of the District, and a policy that is not subject to endless variances granted to satisfy the needs of specific developers. We encourage you to use the attached draft ordinance as the building block for creating a meaningful land use policy for the Arts District. Respectfully, Here you will find the people behind the design of this ordinance and the people who support it. We would like to add your name too. You can lend your voice here. I support the Community written Arts District Ordinance (Responses) : Supporters Name SANAZ ABDI Ellen Abramson Gina Acuña PRICE AGAH Alexandra Agajanian BRANDON ALULEMA ODGEREL AMINA AUSTIN ANDERSON HELEN ANDERSON RAUL ANGELES Aires Arch JOSE ARLLANO ANA AYON Jane Baek Michael Baquiran Mohammed Barakat Yuval BarZemer ELIAS BARRY MICHAEL BAUM MICHAEL BAUM BEGUM BAYSUN matthew beehler KAZAR BEILEVIAN VALERIE BENAVIDES Bevan Bennett Denton Biety Robin Blanchard Aaron Bonner Blair Borden Mark Borman Qathryn Brehm TONY BRUNO STEVEN BRYANT KRYSTA BRYER IAN BUCHHOLZ AMY BURDO CRAIG BURLINGAME Diego CanoLasso GERARDO CANTOZ KATIE CARNES MARY CARTER Sylvia Castano ALEX CASTINEDA JOSHUA CASTRO David Cerwonka STAN CHA REBECCA CHAN SARAH CHANG Yu Young Chang Joel Chandler HALSEY CHAPLIN MIKE CHAVEZ ALLIE CHAVEZ JAMES CHEEKS ILI CHEN SAM CHIPLIN STEVEN CHOI Kevork Cholakian MILES CILETTI CAMERON CLOSE ALYN CLOUD Dawn Cody John Colao MIKE COMPIE Avianna Compoc Marten Compoc CHRISTINE CONSTABLE Stephen Corwin SARAH CROAK HARLEY CROSS JOSEPH CRUZ ADDET DAIRABAYON JUSTIN DAVIS FREDDY DEGADO Beatrice De Jong LUIS DELOSANTOS Matt Devitt Jamie DeVore Fernando Diaz J. DITON TRI DO DIEGO DOMINGUEZ DOUGLAS DUNNAM MIKE DUONG Miller Duvall TERRY ELLSWORTH Marie P Elter SETH EUBANKS Scot Ezzell ALVARO FERREIRA LUCIA FEUREUR CHRISTINA FISHER Derrick Flynn Ron Fong KELLEY FRANCIS JEFFREY FROEHLICH Christopher Fudurich DABY GALLARDO Mark Gallo VICTORIA GAMBURG EM GARDL AMBER GELLIN AMBER GELLIN Michelle Gertzman NELSON GIBBS A. GILBERT Ed Glendinning Sarah Gochrach DANIELLA GOLDFRAD ANTHONY GONZALEZ ANDRIA GONZALEZ

KATIE GRANIN LINDA GRAY Tracy Green Rinat Greenberg Anthony Mark Hankins ULYSES HARDY BECKY HARTING MATT HECKLAN Mickey Hedges Matthew Heffner AUDREY HENDERSON KRISTIE HERNANDEZ LUZ HERNANDEZ Liz Hesik Lindsay Hollister Todd Hughes SAM HUNT Susan Hutchinson NICOLE IRALDO TARA JANE KRISTINE JAROB JOHN JASON Robert Jefferson Jonathan Jerald THED JEWEL catherine jimenez DAN KARVOUNIS Andrew Kasdin JOSH KAYE TIM KEATING Amanda Keiden WILLIAM KEIHN Jennifer Kerner Arsen Khachatrian RALEIGH KNIGHT HEATHER KONAINE Trisha Kooba MEKAIL KREUSS Alana Krigger Marin Kunert Lili Lakich LEO LAMPRIDES BONIE LASTRA BRIAN LAZARO RODNEY LEE MINAH LEE MICHELLE LEE CATHERINE LEE Christina Lee Jessie Lemos Drew Lesso HELEN LI Ray Lin Scott Liken DIANA LOPEZ EDITH LOPEZ ILIA LOPEZ Lucas Magasweran CHARLIE MAGOVEM James Mansfield Michael Manzoori Y. MARTINEZ ALLISON MARTINEZ JO MASKIN JOSHUA MATTHEIS Jim McBride Brendan McCarthy WALT McCLEMENTS Morgan McLachlan Katherine McNenny Lauren McQuade Jasser Membreno JULIE MENDEZ JULIE MENDEZ MAT MICKEL TIGER MOON BRITNEY MOORE NIC MOORE ADRIAN MORA RAY MORENO KERA MORGAN Delmore Morsette Lilli Muller WENDY NAVE A. NEWSOME RAYMOND NEWTON LINDA NGUYEN Thomas Nagano Adam Normandin Deena Novak Elle Nucci Paul Oberman MATTHEW ODEN LAURA ORELLANA JOSE OROZCO LISA PALERMO KEVIN PAPYA BEN PASQUALE DANIELLE PHILLIPS Anna Marie Piersimoni JANICE PLANK Lorena Porras MATT PUGH DANNU QUESADO Tim Quinn BENNY QUINONEZ Penny Raile ISHMAEL RANIM MARK REDHEAD Natalie Reynoso RIANA RHOADES MELISSA RICHARDSON GRAHAM RILEY EDDIE RILEY LILLIAN RIVARD CHRISTIAN ROBINSON SONIA ROBINSON ALEX RODRIGUEZ MELANIE RODRIGUEZ ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ ALEX ROSE LORI ROSEN ROCCO ROSSI ELIZABETH RUBIN THERESA SABO CHRISTOPHER SACHS S. SAGE KARIN SALEH SHAUN SAMPSON SHERILLE SAMSON JAMES SANDER MARK SANDERS Heath Satow Jonathan Schiminske Susanna Schulten Cindy Schwarzstein James Scott RODLIN SCOTT Robert Scott BEN SEARLE jt sebastian KIM SECOQUIAN SARAH SELTZER Wendy Sherman KAZ SHIMADA LARRY SMITH BETTIE SMITH ASHLEE SMITH JULIA SMITHNEWTON PATRICIA SOTO DENNIS SOTTERO Phillip Spencer Tiffany Steffens John Strutz DELL TAYLOR HENRY TAYLOR HENRY TAYLOR Todd Terrazas MAIA THOMAS Sharon Tomlin JOSE TOMOS Elizabeth Topping TABITHA TORREA NATALIA TORRES Randy Torres Jesta Trujillo Tracy Tynan Vivian Um SAM VAN DER WOLT Patricia van Hasselt MAURICIO VAN HASSETT NICK VANDFIELD Rush Varela CHRISTINE VARNEY Sarkis Vartanian Laura Velkei JACOB VIDANA JAKE VIRAMONTEZ MICHAEL WAKABAYASHI Ann Wallace Ethan Walter STEVE WARD Bethany WardLawe JeanMarc Weber Dan West STEPHANIE WHEELER Peter Wibisono Justin Wilcott Grant Williams RAMONE WILLIAMS DAVID WILLIANS LEILANI WILSON STACI WOO Lauren Woodward MICHAEL WOOLSTON RYAN YANG ARTHUR YEUNG Jin Yoo Dale Youngman Oscar Zaldana RICHARD ZIPLER Christopher Zwimer

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February 15, 2007

Ms. S. Gail Goldberg Director of Planning Los Angeles Department of City Planning 200 North Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012-2601

Ms. Cecilia V. Estolano Chief Executive Officer Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles c/o Delia Chambers 354 S. Spring St., Suite 800 Los Angeles, CA 90013

Dear Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Estolano,

Thank you for extending the comment period for the “Preliminary Recommendations for Industrially Zoned Land in the Greater Downtown Los Angeles Area” (“Preliminary Recommendations”). We appreciate your commitment to Downtown stakeholders during this process. This letter and the attachments herein represent Central City Association’s (“CCA”) and the Fashion District’s response to the Preliminary Recommendations.

While we appreciate those recommendations intended to continue the positive growth of the Arts District and Fashion District, we do not believe the Preliminary Recommendations go far enough to ensure Downtown’s continued economic success. We believe the Preliminary Recommendations, if enacted, will reduce Downtown Los Angeles’ economic potential, harming job creation, workforce housing development, smart growth opportunities, and the creation of a 24 / 7 Downtown community.

We believe that the City should adopt an innovative, flexible industrial land use policy, described in further detail in this letter, that incorporates the Arts Districts, and surrounding area; the entire Fashion District; and other areas to be determined in subsequent recommendations. We believe these areas should not be set aside exclusively for industrial uses. In addition, we are completing a survey of other industrial areas in Downtown and will provide any additional comments in a subsequent letter.

Arts District: We support the Planning / CRA recommendation to continue growth of the Arts District (Alameda Corridor Analysis Area 2). We support Councilmember Huizar’s request, however, that this recommendation be extended into Alameda Corridor Analysis Area 5, between Mill and the L.A. River south at least to Violet Street. CCA does not support the public benefit mandate included in the current recommendation.

Fashion District: We support the Planning / CRA recommendation to rezone portions of the Fashion District (Downtown Industrial Core Analysis Areas 1 and 3); however, we believe this recommendation should extend to the entire Fashion District, which includes Downtown Industrial Core Analysis Areas 1 through 6, 8 and 9.

While the Fashion District and the Arts District have different needs, we believe a general strategy of encouraging mixed-use and live/work development will provide a unique blend of job-producing uses and workforce housing in Downtown. In particular, we support creative land use incentives, such as increased floor area ratio, height, creative parking solutions, and flexible open space requirements, that will make job creation components economically feasible for mixed-use developers. These incentives serve to off-set existing high land costs and site constraints, which make it cost-prohibitive for industrial uses to grow and expand.

Maintain Existing Approval Process: CCA understands that the Planning Department is contemplating imposing new planning processing requirements for M-zone properties in the Arts District. We believe that these processing changes, which would include a zone change, General Plan Amendment and potentially lower threshold for triggering EIR review for adaptive reuse projects that include partial demolition and partial new construction, should only be imposed following the City’s adoption of the area’s Community Plan Update. Until then, Arts District residential conversions, inclusive of those with new construction components, should be processed, consistent with the City’s 20 year history of discretionary review and approvals, i.e. through Planning Expedite Dept, under LAMC Sections 12.24 (x) (13) and 12.24 x (1b).

Public Benefits: Planning and CRA staff have indicated that the relatively low land cost associated with converting Downtown’s M-zones to other uses may justify mandatory public benefits for new live/work projects. With the current floor area ratio at 1.5:1 and the historic lack of infrastructure investment in the area, mixed-use projects cannot support an array of public benefits. In order to finance public benefits, including ground floor job creation components, developers need appropriate land use incentives from the City.

A Note About Skid Row: Planning and CRA staff recommended that permanent supportive housing be permitted along with industrial uses in the area between San Pedro and Alameda Streets and 4th and 7th Streets (Downtown Industrial Core Analysis Areas 10 and 11). We oppose this recommendation and strongly believe that this will have the ill-effect of institutionalizing homelessness in Downtown. Containing services within 50 city blocks did not work in the 1970s, and it will not work today. We support the City’s goal to regionalize services for homelessness and help those in need make their way out of Skid Row.

In addition, we provide you with the following comments:

1. Downtown Industrial Job Creation Trends

Downtown, which serves as a central distribution hub for many industries, including toy, produce, and apparel, is a magnet for small industrial users, whose success initially depends on their proximity to distribution hubs. These industrial users, as start-up businesses, fit within Downtown’s smaller industrial parcel and area infrastructure constraints. Typically, as these businesses grow, they become less dependent on Downtown’s distribution centers. Therefore, as their space requirements expand, they move elsewhere, unable to fit within Downtown’s site and infrastructure constraints. 2 These businesses are readily replaced by new, smaller industrial users in a “new industrial growth cycle.” This cycle has worked successfully and without government intervention for more than 20 years.

Even if the City adopted a sweeping series of industrial land use reforms and incentives, Downtown Los Angeles’ industrial district will never be able to accommodate larger industrial users (50,000 – 100,000 square feet), with their demand for huge lots and wide streets. Not only are most Downtown industrial parcels too small and the streets too narrow for large industrial users, the land is too expensive. For instance, the recent freeze on conversion of industrial land to residential and other uses has had no impact in reducing land costs. In fact, a CBRE Consulting study shows that the cost of demolition, remediation, and City zoning restrictions, alone, increases the price of Downtown’s industrial land to $150 - $300 / square foot. In addition, a recent Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (“LAEDC”) consulting study, shows that in the Fashion District, the average transaction price is $450 / square foot, not including residential transactions. The City would need to grant prohibitively expensive subsidies to make this land affordable to mid-size and large industrial users.

Industrial user requirements have downsized significantly in recent years, now averaging approximately 5,000 to 10,000 square feet in size. New uses, such as new media and other new economy industries are entering Downtown along with electronics, apparel and produce uses. These new uses tend not to generate environmental hazards and, in many cases, their needs can be mitigated sufficiently to accommodate residential development on adjacent sites or upper floors.

Mixed-use developers are increasingly adept at mitigating concerns associated with compatibility issues. For instance, it is our understanding that there are creative new ways to configure truck loading and unloading, such that resident impacts are minimized. The success of these mitigations is increasingly evident in the Arts District, which has had a strong residential base since the mid-1980s. Residents consider film location sets more intrusive than adjacent industrial uses, which rely on loading / unloading of goods.

2. Mixed-Use Developments Creates High Paying Jobs and Housing

Los Angeles is ten years behind most cities in keeping pace with housing demand and is consistently measured unfavorably with other major urban areas in maintaining a positive jobs-to-housing balance. Virtually every study that we have reviewed affirms that job growth and housing growth are mutually dependent, and as a result, inextricably linked. Even with the significant residential growth that has occurred in Downtown over the past five years, there is still only one housing unit for every 23 jobs.

Given the unique characteristics of Downtown’s historic jobs–to–housing imbalance, we believe it essential to continue building a strong residential community, as the means to attract new business Downtown.

Linear City’s Toy Factory Lofts is a prime example of the positive impact mixed-use development can have on an underutilized industrial corridor. Just a few years ago, the Toy Factory Lofts building was home to a small toy company that went bankrupt, 3 employing only a few dozen people. Today, it is a thriving development with 109 live/work lofts and more than a half a dozen ground floor businesses, employing more than 120 people. Home to cutting edge technology and fashion companies, as well as countless independent business owners in the lofts above, Toy Factory has provided a much-needed space for innovation and ingenuity. Wages within the Toy Factory’s ground floor component range from $15,000 to more than $100,000 per year.

The Fashion District stands as a shining example of the salutary economic benefits and resulting synergies from mixing industrial and residential development. Over the past several years, the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance has spurred the creation of more than 700 residential units. 600 more are in the pipeline. In the same period of time, wholesale employment has grown by 1,500 jobs. In fact, a recent LAEDC study shows that additional residential uses will continue to increase and expand the thriving apparel industry that has significantly benefited Downtown’s economy. Allowing residential units above ground floor industrial uses will maintain the amount of land available for jobs, while creating a critical mass of residents to attract much-needed restaurant and service amenities to the community.

3. Residents of Mixed-Use Developments Benefit Los Angeles

A perception exists that residential development is a drain on the City’s finances. This is simply not true. According to CBRE Consulting, mixed-use developments generate 300% to 500% greater tax revenues per acre of land (assuming the existing planning standard of 1.5:1 FAR) than industrial uses in the City. In addition, privately-funded residential developments upgrade area infrastructure, including street lighting and sidewalks, sewer lines, storm drains, seismic strengthening, fire, life and safety modernization, ADA accessibility, code-required parking, and street trees.

Meanwhile, positive pedestrian activity increases public safety and attracts investment into vital resident and employee services. Building job-producing developments with residential components also meets the City’s goals of increasing “smart growth” developments and workforce housing.

Downtown is home to a half a million jobs, higher education institutions, multiple METRO stations, bus lines, and four freeways. We believe Downtown is the appropriate place for high residential density.

4. Land Use Tools to Encourage Mixed-Use Development

Implementing policies that encourage mixed-use, job creating developments in the Arts and Fashion Districts and neighboring areas will end the ad hoc, “spot zoning,” which has been detrimental to City’s community building efforts. We recommend the following:

Mixed-Use Overlay Zone – Incorporating a “by-right” approval process for mixed-use development should be a crucial component of Downtown’s announced community plan update. We believe overlay zones will encourage the creation of an important mix of services in Downtown.

4 Land Use Incentives – Providing developers land use incentives to make feasible the inclusion of ground floor commercial or industrial uses below live/work or residential units will increase positive, job-creating development in the industrial district. Land use incentives could include the following: increased floor area ratio, height increases, creative parking solutions, and flexible open space requirements.

Environmental Standards of Industrial Uses – Providing incentives to manufacturing uses in targeted mixed-use areas to improve their environmental standards will increase their compatibility with new development.

Design Standards for Mixed-Use Development – Establishing minimum design standards will promote the health and welfare of the new residents and employees while improving the district’s safety.

Preserve Neighborhood Building – Permitting mixed-use development projects in the areas already approved for conversion will send an important message to the development community and will further critical investment in jobs, neighborhoods and infrastructure in the Arts District, Fashion District, and other burgeoning communities in and around Downtown.

Attachments

In addition to the comments above, please find the following attachments, which provide additional feedback to the Preliminary Recommendations:

- CBRE Consulting, “Industrial vs. Mixed Use Zoning,” February 2007. This study demonstrates that mixed use development will significantly benefit Downtown and result in more jobs and higher tax revenues than a policy of industrial land preservation.

- Corrections to the “Data and Recommendations” Maps for the Alameda Industrial Area and the Downtown Industrial Core.

We appreciate your consideration of these remarks. Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to continuing our work with you on this important issue.

Best Regards,

CAROL SCHATZ KENT SMITH President & CEO Executive Director Central City Association L.A. Fashion District

5 MEMORANDUM

PLANNING CRA/LA

DATE: JANUARY 3, 2008

TO: STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF CITY PLANNING STAFF, COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY

FROM: S. GAIL GOLDBERG, AICP, DIRECTOR OF PLANNING, DEPARTMENT OF CITY PLANNING

CECILIA V. ESTOLANO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY

RE: STAFF DIRECTION REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE AND POTENTIAL CONVERSION TO RESIDENTIAL OR OTHER USES

This memorandum provides direction and guidance to staff of the Department of City Planning (DCP) and Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA/LA) regarding industrial zoned land in the City of Los Angeles. It underscores that the City’s adopted policy is to retain industrial land for job producing uses, as established in the adopted General Plan Framework and Com~nu~aity Plans, reinforced in several Redevelopment Plans, and consistent with the Mayor’s economic development strategy. The instruction provides guidance to implement the adopted policy, and is directed to staff responsible for evaluating entitlement applications as well as those developing new Community Plans, Specific Plans, Overlay Districts, Redevelopment Plans or Plan Amendments, Designs for Development, and other long range planning efforts.

We expect staff to implement the City’s adopted industrial land use policies using the directions and guidance contained herein.

Industrially zoned lands in Los Angeles are occupied by active and productive businesses that provide employment and services to thousands of City residents, and are an essential component of the City’s diversified economic base. The industrial vacancy rate in Central

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 1

C PC-2015-1938-0209 Los Angeles is less than one percent, by far the lowest of any major metropolis in the nation. These industrial!employment lands are vital for the City’s long term economic sustainability and mechanisms should be implemented to improve their quality, effectiveness and aesthetics.

The direction and guidance to staff contained in this memorandum is based on a number of factors, including the 24-month-long Industrial Land Use Policy project (the "ILUP Project") conducted by DCP and CRAiLA staff to re-evaluate the viability of the City’s industrial districts, particularly those areas experiencing the greatest pressure to convert to other uses - industrial districts located in the Central City, Central City North, Boyle Heights, South Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles, Hollywood, Wilshire and West Los Angeles Community Plan Areas, and the Adelante Eastside, Central Business District, Central Industrial, Chinatown, City Center, CD9 Con’idors South of the Santa Monica Freeway, Hollywood and Wilshire Center-Koreatown Redevelopment Project Areas. The ILUP Project included extensive data analysis, evaluation of community input, and field surveys of these industrial areas. In November 2006 the ILUP Project staff released a set of preliminary conclusions; these were presented to community members, residents, business owners, developers, advocacy groups and City staff for review and comment over a period of six months. Project staff subsequently completed additional analysis and further research to address issues raised during the review process and drafted revised implementation guidelines for staff, which are set forth in this memorandum.

The ILUP Project: ¯ Establishes guidance to staff of DCP and CRA/LA in processing individual applications for land use changes and for development of future Community Plan updates and CRA/LA redevelopment plans, ¯ Identifies short- and long-term directions to staff regarding specific geographic areas. ¯ Identifies areas where industrial uses and zoning should be retained pursuant to existing Plans, along with industrial areas that, for avariety of reasons, may no longer be viable or appropriate for industrial/employment use and should be considered for conversion to other uses. ¯ Identifies Community Benefits to mitigate the loss of industrial/employment land. ¯ Identifies the need for new land use and zoning code categories that better address evolving industrial/employment issues as well as the need to revise some of the City’s existing zones as part of a longer-term industrial land use strategy. ¯ Reiterates both the City’s adopted land use policy and the CRA/LA’s adopted redevelopment plans for areas outside of those studied,

Neither the ILUP Project nor our direction to staff contained in this memorandum takes any action that changes current land use designations or alters the City’s existing policy with respect to industrial land.

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 2

C PC-2015-1938-0210 This memorandum is organized into the following sections:

A. Land Use and Zoning Determinations B. Community Benefits C. DCP - CRA/LA Long Term Work Program Goals and Directions

In addition, there are three attachments: Attachment A, Geographically-Specific Staff Directions; Attachment B, the ILUP Project Background Report "Los Angeles’Industrial Land: Sustaining a Dynamic City Economy", and Attachment C, Supporting Materials.

This memorandum provides both short- and long-term guidance. In the short term, staff should apply the geographically-specific directions in Attachment A in evaluating entitlement applications, including general plan amendments, redevelopment plan variations, zone changes and live/work applications. In the long text, staff should use these directions along with the materials in Attachments B and C when formulating comprehensive planning recommendations related to industrially-zoned land, including the work program (Section C) to update Community Plans, Redevelopment Plans and the Zoning Code, along with other policies to accommodate the changing nature of industrial land uses. Together, this guidance will help protect Los Angeles’ current and future economic base and enhance industrial/employment lands throughout the City.

The General Plan Framework, Community Plans and Redevelopment Plans have been adopted by the Mayor and City Council to establish the City’s vision and implementing policies. These policies guide City decision-making, capital expenditures and annual budget allocations. They are comprehensive in nature and any modification to them requires thorough analysis and broad based community participation, Recognizing that the process to change adopted plans is lengthy, this memorandum provides direction to staff for both short- and long-term approaches to industrial/employment districts.

A. LAND USE AND ZONING DETERMINATIONS

ILUP Project staff studied industrial districts located in the Central City, Central City North, Boyle Heights, South Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles, Hollywood, Wilshire, and West Los Angeles Community Plan Areas as well as the Adelante Eastside, Central Business District, Central Industrial, Chinatown, City Center, CD9 Corridors South of the Santa Monica Freeway, Hollywood and Wilshire Center-Koreatown Redevelopment Project Areas; studied lands were categorized into the following four typologies:

1. "Employment Protection Districts" - Areas where industrial zoning should be maintained, and where adopted General Plan, Community Plan and Redevelopment Plan industrial land use designations should continue to be implemented. Residential uses in these Districts are not appropriate.

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 3

CPC-2015-1938-0211 2. "Industrial Mixed Use Districts" - Areas that should remain as predominantly industrial/employment districts, but which may support a limited amount of residential use. 3. "Transition Districts" - Areas where the viability of industrial use has been compromised by significant land use conversions or the adoption of "Alternate Policies" (AP) such as Specific Plans or Transit Oriented Districts (TOD), and where this transition to other uses should be continued. Unlike "Industrial Mixed Use Districts," stand-alone housing or mixed-use developments containing housing and commercial uses may be appropriate in "Transition Districts." 4. "Correction Areas" - Areas where earlier land use decisions resulted in inappropriate land use patterns. A change in zoning and land use designations to correct existing land use conflicts is appropriate and should be encouraged.

See Section C: DCP- CRA/LA Long Term Work Program Goals for additional direction and Attachment A: Geographically-Specific Staff Directions for maps and corresponding detailed staff direction.

1) EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION DISTRICTS

Short Term." ¯ Recommendations for change of use or zone should not be made in these areas. Staff should generally recommend that applications for residential uses be denied. Long Term: ¯ Identify mechanisms, standards and means to improve the physical and operating environment for industrial users, address land use incompatibilities and address the interface between industrial/employment areas and adjacent neighborhoods. ¯ Identify through the Community Plan update process the capital and infrastructure needs and the actions necessary to assure the long-term viability of these areas for jobs and industry. These should include a capital improvement program that will improve conditions for industrial businesses (streets, access and loading, lighting, sewerage, drainage, design, etc.) to generate confidence among industrial users in the long term viability of these Districts. ¯ Revise zoning in these Districts to prohibit non-industrial uses and uses that compromise job-producing potential. ¯ Support the development of a business attraction/investment strategy that includes improvements to zoning regulations and identifies targeted future uses such as "clean technology" by coordinating with the Mayor’s Business Team and other City Departments.

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 4

C PC-2015-1938-0212 2) INDUSTRIAL MIXED USE DISTRICTS

Short Term: Staff should generally recommend denial of applications for conversion of industrial to other uses. To ensure that Industrial Mixed Use Districts remain primarily job-producing lands, staff should recommend approval of a residential development only with a jobs-producing component and other Community Benefits (see Section B). Where staff can make the findings for a project’s approval, Community Benefits should be applied to address the loss of economic activity and jobs, and to offset the impact of the pe~aT~anent loss of employment land. Long Term: Prioritize in DCP and CRA/LA work programs key areas designated as industrial mixed use districts, such as the Comfields Arroyo Seco Specific Plan (Chinatown) and the Artist in Residence District, so that appropriate zoning and General Plan changes can be made expeditiously. Use Community Plan updates, Specific Plans, Overlay Districts, Designs for Development, Redevelopment Plan Amendments and other comprehensive planning efforts to most effectively address the need for specific investment, amenities, design regulations and mitigations in areas that allow for the introduction of a broader mix of uses but which remain primarily industrial districts. Identify through the Community Plan update process the capital and infrastructure needs and the actions necessary to assure the long-term viability of these areas. These should include a capital improvement program that will enhance conditions for industrial businesses in areas that will continue to be predominantly industrial (streets, access and loading, lighting, sewerage, drainage, design, etc.) while addressing the needs of allowed non-industrial uses, ¯ Incorporate in the Community Plan updates measures or Community Benefits (see Section B) to address the loss of employment lands and the need to provide amenities in areas that have not previously been planned for non-industrial use. ¯ Revise zoning in these districts to identify and encourage industrial and employment uses that complement one another and support the development of an Industrial Mixed Use district.

3) TRANSITION DISTRICTS

Short Term: ¯ Staff should generally recommend approval of applications for changes of use or zone provided Community Benefits are incorporated to facilitate the successful integration of uses and to compensate for the loss of industrial/employment land, consistent with any Alternate Policy (if one exists for the area) such as a Transit Oriented District (TOD), Specific Plan or Design

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 5

C PC-2015-1938-0213 for Development (Where such are in place or in process, they are noted on the individual maps in Attachment A). Long Term: Make key targeted planning efforts a high priority, such as the Washington Boulevard Request for Proposal (RFP) Area, the Boyle Heights/1St and Mission and 1St Street/Alameda/Little Tokyo TOD areas. Use Community Plan updates, Specific Plans, Overlay Districts, Designs for Development, Redevelopment Plan Amendments and other comprehensive planning efforts to most effectively address the need for specific investment, amenities, design regulations and mitigations in areas that convert from industrial zoning and land use. ¯ Incorporate measures or conditions in the Community Plan update process to address the loss of employment lands and the need to provide amenities in areas that have not previously been planned for non-industrial use. The Community Benefits list (Section B) should be used for guidance in identifying conditions that could be considered. Develop a capital improvement strategy that provides appropriate infrastructure where there will be a new mix of uses. ¯ Revise zoning in these districts to promote uses that are compatible, prohibiting heavy industrial and/or other noxious uses.

4) CORRECTION AREAS

Short Term: ¯ Projects that convert industrial zoning to non-industrial zoning are generally appropriate. In such cases, Community Benefits related to industrial displacement are not required, although specific conditions may be required to address particular use juxtapositions on a site-by-site basis. Long, Term: ¯ Staff should seek to remedy these land use situations by establishing the proper land use and zoning through the Community Plan update process. Community Benefits related to industrial displacement are not required. ¯ New Community Plans should identify actions and City departments and agencies responsible for providing amenities and infrastructure in areas that have not previously been planned for non-industrial use.

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 6

C PC-2015-1938-0214 5) INDUSTRIAL LAND NOT IN ILUP PROJECT STUDY AREAS

Short Term: [] Staff should continue to implement current City policy to preserve industrial zoning for employment uses. Retain industrial land designation, pursuant to adopted City policy. Applications in industrial zones outside of the ILUP Project Study Areas should be handled in the same manner as those in Employment Protection Districts (see Section A1). ¯ Provide more thorough analysis of projects including consistency with the General Plan Framework’s Industrial Land Use and Economic Development policies, principles and criteria (Attachment B), as well as Community Plan and Redevelopment Plan goals and objectives related to job retention and expansion. [] Consider applications for live/work conversions and adaptive reuse entitlements on an area-by-area, rather than only on a project-by-project basis, i.e., consider district- or area-wide impacts of the introduction of new uses on existing industrial operations along with the discussion, analysis, and criteria contained in this memorandum. Long Term: [] Use and build upon the body of research and recommendations contained herein during the Community Plan update process. Except in unique situations, only consider land use changes in conjunction with a comprehensive planning update effort. It is recognized that some industrial districts may have been compromised or are no longer optimal for industrial use. The Community Plan update process, in which a comprehensive planning effo~ can address appropriate land use and zoning in conjunction with the need for infrastructure and Community Benefits, is the appropriate mechanism for addressing such circumstances. ¯ When evaluating areas for industrial/employment potential: ¯ Retain and improve industrial/employment districts for current and future employment uses until and unless otherwise designated through the Community Plan update process. ¯ Avoid the creation of non-conforming and incompatible uses or juxtapositions of incompatible uses. ¯ Explore the use of Designs for Development or Overlay Districts to institute standards and regulations to guide development. ¯ Explore ways in which displaced businesses can most effectively be relocated and/or their employees directed to new employment or employment opportunities. ¯ Explore design standards and approaches wherein existing industrial uses can be retained even when other non-industrial uses are introduced. ¯ Work to incorporate these recommendations into other initiatives that affect industrial lands such as the City’s Green Building Program, Los Angeles River Revitalization efforts, and CRA/LA’s Healthy Neighborhoods Policy.

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 7

C PC-2015-1938-0215 B. COMMUNITY BENEFITS

When considering approval of projects within "Industrial Mixed Use" and "Transition" Districts, staff’ recommendations should include Community Benefits set fol~h below. Such Community Benefits would be in addition to any other requirements set forth in the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC), adopted Community or Redevelopment Plans, the project’s environmental evaluation and clearance, or other conditions that might be appropriate based on the characteristics of the subject site and its surroundings.

If staff determines that unique circumstances suggest that approval of an application for change of use or zone in an Employment Protection District or an area not studied is appropriate, the findings for such determination must be clearly articulatedI and the project should be required to incorporate Community Benefits to ensure compatibility and to compensate for the permanent loss of employment land. If Community Benefits are not assessed, staff must provide findings as to why the project does not require such Community Benefit(s).

The use of development agreements is strongly encouraged as a means of effectuating appropriate Community Benefits.

a. Relocation Consultation for Displaced Business ¯ Require the use of a relocation consultant, paid for by the applicant, to identify sites, needed entitlements at relocation sites, and other conditions which would need to be met to effectuate the relocation. b. Job Training Assistance Fund ¯ Require a $15,000 payment2 for each industrial job displaced into a City approved job training assistance fund. Assistance will be targeted to employees of displaced businesses wherever possible. c. Minimum Job-Producing Space ¯ Require and appropriately design (with regard to floor to ceiling heights, clearances, access to loading docks, etc.) a minimum percentage of project floor area equivalent to at least one (1) story or 0.5 FAR, whichever is less, to be permanently maintained for industrial/employment use and occupancy. d. Affordable Housing ¯ Require a minimum number of on-site affordable units in residential, mixed-use, artist housing or live/work projects, based on the following percentages: 10% very low, 15% low, or 20% moderate income. A density bonus may be used towards satisfying this requirement. ¯ Use covenants to restrict affordability for a minimum of 55 years; provide for shared equity recovery if the units are developed as for-sale units.

The General Plan Framework Land Use Policies 3.14.6 should be addressed in such instances. Conservative costs for assistance for displaced jobs are at least $15,000 per job, comprised of $10,000 for retraining, case management and job placement services; $2,500 for supportive services (childcare, transportation, tools/equipment); and $2,500 for wage support during training and placement. Enrollees may also need an on-the-job training subsidy to obtain specific skills for that particular employer.

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C PC-2015-1938-0216 [] If on-site affordable units are infeasible, assess a fee for or require offsite units within a reasonable proximity to the site, but not on parcels that would exacerbate the loss of industrial land. e. Open Space [] Require an open space fee equivalent to the Quimby fee in high-density residential (R5) zones for all housing types (including rental units), regardless of the density of the project. [] Allow offsets to the open space fee for privately created and maintained, but publicly accessible, open space. f. Infrastructure Improvements Require appropriate infrastructure improvements such as sidewalks, curbs, gutters, trees, street lighting, etc. to create residential amenities in conjunction with changes to land use and!or zoning to provide residential uses. Such improvements should be designed to advance urban design, access and walkability standards appropriate to the particular site and its environs. g. Additional Conditions Within the Artist in Residence District Only (including the potential expansion thereto): [] Require that the applicant covenant all residential or live/work units for artists3 with a valid business license. [] Prohibit private covenants, conditions and restrictions (CCRs) that restrict "hot arts" and artists that manufacture art. [] Include a certain percentage of floor area to be designated for communal work, gallery or other artist-related uses. (This can be credited toward the Community Benefit Minimum Job Producing Space requirement).

Exceptions:

Deviations (hardship exemptions) from above Community Benefit requirements should be considered only with appropriate documentation of the hardship or unique circumstances.

3 Per code section 12.13A,2(a)(27) Occupations limited to those that may be practiced in live/work units: accountants; architects; artist and m~isans; attorneys; computer software and multimedia professionals; consultants; engineers; fashion, graphic interior and other designers; insurance, real estate and travel agents; and photographers. Similar occupations, as determined by a Zoning Administrator, may also be practiced in live/work units.

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C PC-2015-1938-0217 C. DCP - CRA/LA LONG TERM WORK PROGRAM GOALS AND DIRECTIONS

In addition to the geographically-specific directions set forth in Attachment A, staff should integrate the following guidance into future work programs.

1. COMMUNITY PLAN AND REDEVELOPMENT PLAN UPDATES

The City’s adopted policy is to retain industrial land for job producing use. All of the City’s industrial districts must regularly be evaluated and strategies developed to improve their current conditions. The premise of this regular evaluation is that the City’s industrial districts should be retained and improved as centers of employment and production.

Revise Plans for Consistency An initial step would be to employ the process used in the ILUP Project in examining industrial lands in other parts of the City. The application of this methodology should result in the classification of the City’s remaining industrial lands into the typologies identified in this memorandum (see Section A). Incorporate new zoning and general plan land use designations in Community Plans and Redevelopment Plans or Plan Amendments (see section on Zoning & Building Code Revisions).

Identify new Industrial/Employment Districts Identify and evaluate areas not currently designated for job producing uses (including areas zoned for public facilities) that could be added to the industrial/employment land supply. Determine if any such areas should be converted to new industrial/employment districts (review the typology in Section A), especially if zones are amended as discussed below.

¯ Increase Industrial Floor Area Ratio (FAR) Explore permitting a FAR greater than 1.5:1 in targeted higher density areas such as those located in or near planned TODs, Specific Plans or Design for Development Areas, especially where such additional density can assist in producing more jobs or job-producing space, such as residential-industrial or office-industrial mixed-use environments. If it is determined that additional FAR adds sufficient value to potential projects, this can be achieved through a floor area ratio payment such as that calculated pursuant to the formula for Transfer of Floor Area Rights (Los Angeles Municipal Code, Chapter 1, Article 4.5) so that the City receives funds to finance public improvements in these districts.

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C PC-2015-1938-0218 2. ZONING & BUILDING CODE REVISIONS

While manufacturing processes have changed over time, zoning regulations have not kept pace with changes in technology and industrial operations. The Zoning Code should be revised to create more refined industrial/employment districts: zones that are exclusively employment; zones that pelrnit commercial and/or retail uses by design; those that permit other uses that can co-exist with employment uses, etc. Appropriate minimum design and perfo~anance standards should be developed for each.

Amend Existing Industrial Zones and Update the Range of Uses Allowed in Industrial/Employment Zones ¯ Create exclusive industrial or employment zones by revising current zones and drafting new zones. Minimize the current permissiveness in M zones that allow other uses (i.e., commercial big box and free- standing office uses by right), and apply mixed zoning only where a particular mix of uses is specifically intended or appropriate. Where non-industrial uses appear appropriate, consider permitting such uses under a conditional use process so that mitigations and performance standards can be applied to avoid their adverse impact on the by-right industrial uses. Industrial and mixed use zones should provide a hierarchy of industrial/employment and non-industrial uses, along the following lines:

Heavy industrial/employment - for uses that involve processes which result in noxious products or by-products; involve substantially noisy processes, vibrations or smells; create substantial demand for truck and rail movements and/or operate at hours that are detrimental or adverse to other uses. Prohibit most other uses in these areas so that they are reserved for these types of production. ¯ Rezone certain M2 areas to M3 areas where these heavier impact uses exist and are appropriate. Such areas include those industrial zones in the vicinity of the Harbor, areas immediately proximate to major freight transportation hubs and those with excellent access to rail and freeways.

Moderate industrial/employment - for uses that involve processes which are generally not noxious or objectionable but whose material movement, hours of operation or transport needs make their isolation from other uses desirable, and for which the intrusion of other uses could economically result in their displacement. These may be considered appropriate buffer zones between heavy and light zones. Examples include sound stages and warehouses.

Light industrial/employment - for uses that involve processes or procedures that generally are compatible with other (non-industrial)

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C PC-2015-1938-0219 uses but which could likely be adversely affected economically by allowing a substantial number of non-industrial uses in the zone, Examples include garment manufacturing, electronic assembly and research and development uses.

Industrial/employment mixed - for uses that involve processes or procedures that generally are compatible with non-industrial uses and for which a mix of limited commercial and residential uses may be reasonable. In specific areas, the mix may be limited tlu’ough the use of performance standards, Qualifying ("Q") Conditions or by requiring conditional use permits. In all cases the industrial/employment use shall be a by-right use.

Service industrial/employment - for uses that are generally not compatible with neighborhood or regional commercial uses, but which provide basic business and personal services and therefore need to be located proximate to business and residential consumers. Examples include lumber yards that serve entertainment industry studios, animal hospitals and kennels, plumbing and electrical supply, and small-scale automotive repair and service.

¯ Create More Dense Industrial Zones ¯ Allow increased floor area ratio (FAR) in certain industrial zones to accommodate emerging uses and changes in building typologies. Many industrial areas are limited to a 1.5:1 FAR. Increasing the allowable floor area may provide the incentive developers need to improve properties and operations. Such increase may facilitate research or office uses above or adjacent to warehouse or production areas or allow for more seamless continuity from research to production to distribution of certain products. ¯ Consider a floor area or density increase in Industrial Mixed Use areas where specific types of worker housing or work-live housing may be desirable because such housing would promote more effective and efficient employment activity. Consider a floor area or density bonus for preferred industrial uses (such as projects with a high number of skilled!job ladder and living wage and higher paying jobs).

¯ AmendExisting CommercialZones ¯ Update the list of allowable uses in certain commercial (C) zones to reflect modem types of industrial uses. This would result in a broadening of areas in which compatible employment and suppol~ service uses can be located. Allow a greater range of commercial and light industrial activities within certain commercial zones in specific geographic areas. ¯ Expand uses allowed in some commercial zones to include services, light industrial uses and animal hospitals, which are currently only

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 12

C PC-2015-1938-0220 allowed in industrial zones, where those uses can be compatible with other commercial uses. Identify minimum design and performance standards to ensure integration of new allowable uses. Explore the use of Qualifying ("Q") conditions, conditional use permits, or performance standards to ensure compatibility of new allowable uses in C zones in specific geographic areas. ¯ Amend the Commercial Manufacturing (CM) Zone or develop a new zone(s) that would allow a broader range of uses such as creative office, software development, and the like, and would allow residential to coexist with these uses within new buildings. Such a zone would require a minimum number of jobs or job producing uses or spaces integrated into new housing development. This recommendation may require that both the LAMC and the Building Code be amended to allow greater vertical integration of uses .4

¯ Address Non-Conforming Use Regulations ¯ Address the LAMC provisions governing nonconforming uses to support an orderly transition to any new land use.

¯ Develop Urban Design Standards ¯ Adopt standards that promote unified, attractive industrial and employment districts. DCP and CRA/LA staff should collaborate to develop minimum standards for setbacks, massing, blank walls, landscaping, fencing, street and sidewalk dimensions, turning radii, loading zones and docks and streetscapes that enhance industrial districts and contribute to the attractiveness and effectiveness of these areas. Connections to adjacent districts should be encouraged through pedestrian and bicycle linkages where appropriate. Appropriate buffers should be developed to avoid adverse and incompatible juxtapositions of uses at the edges of such districts. Green Building Program and Healthy Neighborhood principles should be evaluated for applicability.

4 The Building Code does not currently allow the mixing of residential and industrial occupancies within the same "unit" in a new building; such mixing is only permitted within a unit in industrial buildings converted to residential or joint live/work quarters,

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CPC-2015-1938-0221 3. ECONOMIC INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

The City’s industrial lands cannot be revitalized and improved by planning and zoning efforts alone. A comprehensive City strategy must be developed, which may include the following activities:

¯ Implement the following Industrial Development Policy Initiative (IDPI) Recommendations (refer to IDPI Phase 1 and 2 Reports for additional discussion ofpotential strategies): o develop an economic development strategy, o revise the tax structure for industrial businesses, o appoint an ombudsman for industrial retention and attraction, and o enhance workforce development strategies, employee retraining and funding for such programs. [] Develop infrastructure analyses and capital improvement plans for industrial/employment areas. ¯ Provide relocation assistance to businesses in identified Employment Protection Zones. ¯ Consider concerted effort to attract industries that develop green technologies. ¯ Cooperate with other agencies to identify and implement economic development strategies. For instance, the Community Development Department oversees the implementation of state and federal Enterprise and Empowerment Zones in the City. These economic incentive zones provide business tax relief, reduced water fees, reduced parking requirements and increased allowable heights within designated areas. Designated areas retain these incentives only when a certain minimum percentage of industrial uses are present. ¯ CRAiLA should enhance its work program to acquire and prepare sites for industrial development (for example, the bio-medical park currently being formed in the CRA/LA Adelante Eastside Redevelopment Project Area, adjacent to the Los Angeles County Whiteside Redevelopment Project Area). ¯ Consider the creation of mechanisms to foster additional industrial clusters such as studio and entertainment production, creative industry, logistics, "green industries" and so forth. ¯ Consider the creation of publicly-owned Industrial Parks to ensure affordable space for industrial tenants, and to allow the creation of industrial buildings that the market may not be able to deliver such as multi- story structures. ¯ Pursue University Industrial Partnerships: Industrial districts present a unique opportunity to develop a technology campus where research and development, and academic instruction can be co-located. A limited amount of housing to directly support academic research and visiting staff /employees could be developed in a new zone or overlay area.

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 14

C PC-2015-1938-0222 " Pursue Private/Public partnerships to provide new public facilities in conjunction with new development. [] Develop a City-CRA/LA Team to monitor the inventory of industrial/employment land and to evaluate the effectiveness of the City’s industrial/employment land use policies. [] Explore the establishment of funding strategies such as impact fees to pay for capital improvements and offset impacts of transition from industrial uses, ¯ Expand CEQA analyses of industrial zone changes to better address impacts to public services, land use, transportation and infrastl~cture.

Attachment A: GEOGRAPHICALLY-SPECIFIC STAFF DIRECTIONS (see Map Packet)

1) Citywide Industrial Land Index Page (map of Studied Areas) 2) Sub Area Index Map & Summary Statistics: Acreage and Employment Data, and Typologies Description Sub Areas: ¯ Central City - Alameda ¯ Central City - Downtown ¯ Boyle Heights ¯ Southeast Los Angeles ¯ Central City North - Chinatown ¯ West Los Angeles ¯ Hollywood 3) Analysis Area Maps & Detailed Staff Directions: Acreage and Employment Data, Existing Land Use Summary, Plan Overlay & Special Districts (30 mappages)

Attachment B: LOS ANGELES’ INDUSTRIAL LAND: SUSTAINING A DYNAMIC CITY ECONOMY

Introduction and Background I) Industrial Land and Zoning In Los Angeles

- Industrial Zones and the Industrial Sector - Industrial Land Supply in Los Angeles - Evolving Industrial Districts - Strategic Importance of Downtown Los Angeles - Land for Emerging Industry Sectors

II) The Importance of Industrial Land to the Los Angeles Economy

- Los Angeles’ Industrial Workforce - "Ripple Effects" to the Los Angeles Economy

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C PC-2015-1938-0223 III) Real Estate Economics Shaping Industrial Land Uses in Los Angeles

- Current Industrial Demand and Vacancy Rates - Demand for Housing in Industrial Districts - Opportunities for Housing Development throughout Los Angeles - Economic Impact of Conversion to Housing on the City’s General Fund - Impacts of Industrial-to-Residential Conversion on the City’s Long Term Development

Conclusion Appendices

1. Methodology / Analytical Framework 2. General Plan Framework--Land Use and Economic Development Excerpts 3. Other Existing Policies That Shape Industrial Districts 4. Other Cities’ Industrial Land Use Policies

Attachment C: SUPPORTING MATERIALS

1) Memo fi’om Bud Ovrom, Deputy Mayor, to General Managers requesting recommendations and strategies to preserve city’s industrial zones, December 12, 2005. 2) ILUP Research Memorandum, "Downtown Housing - Relative Affordability of Downtown Core and Industrial Units," Keyser Marston Associates, October 27, 2006. 3) ILUP Research Memorandum, "Industrial to Residential Land Use Conversion - Comparative Land Value Analysis," Keyser Marston Associates, January 27, 2007 4) ILUP Research Memorandum, "Industrial Land Use Conversion - San Jose ~:~~,,v~on~.~i~j?,i~:~a~c~h~y~;22;2~a~n~S:~,:;~t,e~t~:~c~;~,~u,strial ~..~..o~.. Ao ~:~o ~.. ~o. Area Comparison," 5) Keyser Marston Associates, June 26, 2007.

COPIES TO: Honorable Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Honorable City Councilmembers City Planning Commissioners Community Redevelopment Agency Commissioners Deputy Mayor Bud Ovrom Deputy Mayor Helmi Hisserich Deputy Mayor Lalwy Frank Chief Legislative Analyst Gen’y F. Miller

STAFF DIRECTIONS REGARDING INDUSTRIAL LAND USE Page 16

C PC-2015-1938-0224

LARABA/ADCCLA LUC

LIST OF QUESTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS FOR THE DRAFT COMMUNITY PLAN

September 3, 2019

Dear Tal,

Thank you for sharing the draft of the community plan Downtown. This has been a long process and we recognize and appreciate the thousands of hours staff at the planning department have spent in creating this document.

In anticipation of getting the opportunity to discuss the draft, we felt a list of question might be helpful to prepare for the discussion.

In general, we feel that the list of goals (30 through 33) represents well the objectives of the community however we do need more clarification on how the planning document will deliver the results expected with the set of policies and zoning regulations that would deliver these objectives.

To a large degree, the biggest missing piece of information is the actual zoning definition of “Hybrid Industrial”

As you may recall, when the City attempted to pass the new zone, the community has challenged it and the city was forced to remove the new zone from its books. To a large degree the reason for objection was that we could not see the linkage between the goals as stated in your draft and how the new zone would deliver them. We are hoping the new version of the Hybrid Industrial Zone will better reflect an adherence to the stated goals and will demonstrate with real data why the planning department feels certain that the new language will deliver these goals.

Other than the missing information on “HI” the next potent tool that is offered is the community benefit plan offering additional FAR in exchange for a menu of options in three different tiers. At first glance, it appears that the three-tier system applies uniformly to all of downtown despite the fact that The Hybrid Industrial area has clearly different goals and priorities. We question why there is not a different hierarchy of benefit tiering system in the arts District that better represents the list of goals.

The one goal that feels like it is not getting its proper emphasis and treatment is the LA River and the fact that it sits at the Eastern boarder of the Arts District. Other than mentioning access via parks as a goal, the document fails to provide any criteria on land use along the river. Ie; height restriction, orientation towards the river, required easements along the river for future public access, and restriction on adding rail infrastructure along the river that further limits the possible restoration of this natural resource. Instead the plan recognizes the importance of the rail system??? This is certainly not the community goal as the railroad is the biggest barrier to the river. Of course, we recognize the importance of the rail system, but future infrastructure can be built to allow the efforts of the city to expand the river revitalization efforts.

The community plan is an excellent opportunity to put some content into the “REO” designation so we can avoid a line of high rises along the river.

Below are comments about the goals: LU Goal 30 – Agreed subject to clarifying what are Hybrid Industrial uses. LU 30.1 We agree with the goal but question how the department will “encourage the development of flexible space, which policy specifically will deliver this type of spaces and uses.

LU 30.2 Goal sounds good but not clear how the policy ensures “thoughtful” mix of uses if it is all zone Hybrid Industrial.

LU Goal 31 – Agreed

LU 31.1 – We agree all heartedly and believe that the existing 1.5 FAR can only be used for these uses and not for residential use. Will the plan ensure that?

LARABA/ADCCLA LAND USE COMMITTEE Draft community plan questions September 3, 2019 Page 2 of 4

LU31.2 – This sounds interesting; what policy will create that integration?

LU 31.3 – “Create an environment that facilitates innovation” what policy will create that environment?

LU 31.4 – “Support the advancement of clean tech corridor” - what policy will deliver that?

LU 31.5 – “promote opportunities for knowledge sharing…” what policy will create that?

LU 31.6 – “Establish the potential of vertical integration…by permitting mix of uses….” Will this be done by a change to the building code? Where does this tool live?

LU 31.7 – “Create opportunity for spaces that are affordable and accessible to start ups and a range of business sizes and industries….”, Is there a subsidizing mechanism in the community plan?, is there a defined benefit that would create ‘affordable commercial space for startup? Is there a definition to what is a startup and when a startup is no longer a start up? What about the definition of “range of business size” I assume someone will define what that range is, (number of employees, volume of business etc.?)

LU 31.8 – Promote building design with high ceiling and interior space that can accommodate a wide variety of productive uses….” We love this goal but ended up overrun by the planning department that caved into residential developer that insist on building with type II or type V construction. Will there be a policy that will require a column beam construction types (Type I, II, IV)?

LU GOAL 32 - Agreed

LU 32.1 – “Implement Live/Work housing options that can accommodate a range of productive activities and allow units to function as incubators….” We agree but the devil is in the details, the community based on experience of the past 40 years has asked for an average unit size of 1000 SF and was overrun by developers that insist that their residential model that average 750 SF works better for their Performa. So, will this be a “community plan” or a “developer plan”?

LU 32.2 – “Promote affordability through the development of a range of unit sizes”. This is another falsehood that the Planning department buy into without asking any experts. Developers will develop the smallest units possible as it generates the highest yield on a square foot basis. Building a loft space of 1200 SF does not cost 33% more than a 900 SF loft as you still have one kitchen and one bathroom and the same window. Therefor the rent for the larger unit can be more affordable on a square foot basis (it will certainly not cost a 33% more) and provide the user with more flexibility on how to use the space. The community can demonstrate this with plenty of examples and has articulated this as a goal of the community.

LU 32.3 – “Enhance livability by expanding access to commercial and institutional service” Great goal! What policy achieves that?

LU 32.4 – “Cultivate a live/work residential community by requiring a minimum amount of production space in new development project….” This is another remnant of the” HI ordinance” that no one has any idea what it means, how it works and how that space managed, by who, is it free, or is it a business. If the planning department can point to a place where the experience can teach us something, we would love to learn, but otherwise, this seem to be a potential waste of space.

LU GOAL 33 - Agreed

LARABA/ADCCLA LAND USE COMMITTEE Draft community plan questions September 3, 2019 Page 3 of 4

LU 33.1 – “Reuse, protect and preserve existing structures that characterize the unique form and development [pattern present at in the Hybrid Industrial places”. We can not agree more, however once the area is given the opportunity to add up to 4.5 FAR on top of the existing 1.5 FAR, a lot of these buildings will be erased as you have created higher value to big density development. The community has suggested to 1. Offer protections to historical and contributing building and 2. Offer a financial incentive to these buildings by giving them the ability to sell the potential development to other sites in the neighborhood (directly or through a bank) and make sure FAR that is given to other sites come from the bank. If this mechanism is not in place, how would the planning department ensure that these buildings do not see the wrecking ball?

LU 33.2 - “Foster the development of Durable and Flexible buildings that support the range of creative and productive uses…” Again, we agree but what does foster mean in land use language? What are the criteria for durable and Flexible? Which policy discuss these topics?

LU 33.3 – “Encourage retail and restaurant uses in partnership with productive uses to promote extended hours of activity…” someone will have to explain to the community what that means…

LU 33.4 – “Support walkable neighborhoods with active and livable street life that is shared by all modes “sounds great, are we closing the area to truck traffic and shortcuts between the freeways? The community is willing to be the guinny pig for new radical mobility ideas and test an environment that eliminates private cars, limits truck traffic to nights and early morning and utilizes AV, cycling and walking as main mode of transportation.

LU 33.5 - “Promote an enhanced public realm and network of pedestrian paths that connect neighboring resources such as parks to the Los Angeles River” As mentioned at the top of this note, The LA river has a significant role in the life of the Arts District and the rest of DTLA. Please consider the goals articulated above to be prominently in the list of goals for Hybrid Industrial /art District and Arroyo Secco.

Arts District specific policies

“As a formally Industrial and Wholesale district….” This statement is wrong, the Arts District was never a wholesale district!

LU 33.6 – “Support affordable housing for artist” we agree – will this be a requirement?

LU 33.7 – “Introduce shared street typologies that preserves historic and Industrial characteristics…” Will the plan introduce these standards or ….?

LU 33.8 - “Promote productive, creative, manufacturing, fabrication and light Industrial activities as a principal characteristic of the arts District…” This goal needs some help, we assume “productive and creative” are used as adjectives while manufacturing and light industrial are uses defined in the zoning code. How does a policy ‘promote”/ would no creative manufacturing be banned? Please reflect on the policy that delivers this.

LU 33.9 – “Encourage the development of Live/work housing that accommodates the changing way in which people work and live in the 21st century…” That sounds great but it would be great if we can get few examples on what the material changes on people are how live and work today compared to the 20th century. (eliminate kitchens because no one cooks, we use cell phones instead of laptops and regular phones. how does that impact the unit lay out/ etc.)?

Questions about community benefits:

1. Does the “BASE” development potential reflects the existing FAR in all downtown or does it contain changes/ 2. In the case of the arts District, the base is 1.5;1 FAR in most of the area however, the maximum FAR seem to have a number of different caps, what is the reason for this decision and what is it trying to achieve?

LARABA/ADCCLA LAND USE COMMITTEE Draft community plan questions September 3, 2019 Page 4 of 4

3. In the case of the Arts District the existing Base FAR is for M3-1 Zoned parcels. Would the change to Hybrid Industrial allow by write project of 1.5;1 FAR of live/work uses only? 4. if one of the main goals of the Hybrid Industrial is to increase job capacity, Innovation and productivity, shouldn’t the Tier one benefit address this goal before addressing affordable housing? 5. If tier 1 is a 35% FAR bonus in a 1.5 FAR base, how does that fit with the full development capacity of that area? 6. What are the specific criteria for the Tier II benefits? (how large does a community facility or open space needs to be? What is the mechanism of using FAR for preserving historic and contributing buildings? 7. Will all these activities remain in the roam of “discretionary decision” by the city? 8. In the arts District, a benefit of creating access to the river or providing a larger set back along the parcels that face the River should be considered a public benefit.

Many thanks in advance in trying to address these topics.

Mark Borman & Laura Velkei Co-Chairs LARABA/ADCCLA Land Use Committee

Cc: Gabrielle Newmark, President LARABA Todd Terrazas, Preisident ADCCLA

LARABA/ADCCLA LAND USE COMMITTEE 1/11/2021 Gmail - DEIR Comments for DTLA Community Plan

Laura Velkei

DEIR Comments for DTLA Community Plan

Laura Velkei Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 4:45 PM To: Brittany Arceneaux Bcc: Yuval Bar-Zemer

Hi Brittany -

You'll be receiving other correspondence from the team if you haven't already but we wanted to include the work we did on the matter that garnered hundreds of signatures supporting the Arts District Ordinance which we submitted to City Planning. Highlights of the ordinance included:

Minimum average size unit size of 1000 square ft (this is adjusted from 750 minimum) 1.5 FAR Commercial Space Post & Beam Construction Type one and Two Construction Historic & Contributing Buildings

In 2015, the Arts District Community submitted a land-use ordinance to the City of Los Angeles reflecting the desires of the community and to ensure the long term health and sustainability of the Arts District.

The plan was presented to the city as an alternative to the Hybrid Industrial Ordinance as it was more reflective of the community goals vs outside developer goals promoted by the now-indicted former council member Huizar.

Over 325 people signed the petition supporting the Arts District drafted plan. So as not to clutter up your inbox, the Ordinance submitted to the City and was offered to stakeholders in petition form again can be found here. A pdf version is also attached. (Timestamps and emails can be provided if needed)

In addition, all 3 of the Community Boards in the Arts District drafted and submitted letters as to their position on the matter.

We respectfully request that this petition and the linked letters previously submitted be included in the record and that the will of our community be enforced over the outside interests of other stakeholders not living or working in the community.

Please let me know if you need me to send the pdf of the org letters in addition to the links, we just wanted to have this on file before 5.

Have a great weekend!

Laura

-- Laura Velkei educate. unify. activate. (213) 373-1038 [email protected]

Follow me on: @lauravelkei lauravelkei lauravelkei

CPC - Our Letter & Signers - ONLINE PETITION.pdf 420K

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=27003c0999&view=pt&search=all&permmsgid=msg-a%3Ar-632676828860621501&simpl=msg-a%3Ar-63267682… 1/1

August 3, 2020

City Planning Dept. 200 N. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012

Re: ARTS DISTRICT COMMUNITY PLAN – Round 4 Community notes from LARABA/ADCCLA

Dear Planning Team –

We would like to thank the planning team for working so hard to bring many of our planning visions to fruition. While we applaud what we have achieved to date, we still have a few hiccups we need the planning team to address.

Site Background As you know, the Arts District was surveyed by “Survey LA” over the past several years and the findings of the survey concluded that the area may qualify as a Designated Historic District. While we have not reached that designation yet, we have been advised and have utilized contributing buildings designation to support the maintenance of our few remaining buildings. As such, the community has fought hard to maintain the character of the neighborhood and has worked towrds putting real tools in place to protect existing buildings from destruction.

Continuing Leadership concerns The items below represent the last and most concerning issues we need planning to address. We were deeply troubled by Planning stating these were immovable decisions. Our experience is that nothing is immovable with the right pressure points. Please recognize that when politicians and staff have moved on to other jobs, our community remains and we must deal with the consequences of those choices. 1. The Community plan ignores parcels held by the railroad company’s between the Arts District privately owned properties and the river. We’d like to make sure these properties are bound by the same criteria or more restrictive than the existing parcels. 2. The community excludes the Rancho Cold Storage parcel along Mesquit, giving exception to one property owner and setting a precedence and tone that such density is allowable which it is not currently and should not be. 3. The manner in which density is being calculated is deeply concerning as are the buy backs to increase density. A more efficient tool must be developed that factors all concerns not just one. Harsher “penalties” must be put in place to protect contributing buildings. A proper tool that is more defined must be developed to ensure that the intent of the goal is preserved. 4. We would like to get confirmation that the first 1.5 FAR is designated as commercial use. 5. River development must be consistent and environmentally appropriate. Our committee and community have very serious concerns with the cavalier approach to development goals along the river. The 15-floor height limit is not based in any planning ideals we could find nor are they consistent with environmentally appropriate uses as compared to other cities and communities. In addition to the inequity of the distribution of value, the river faces deeper environmentally concerning damage thru the shadows cast throughout the day by new 15 story obstructions. Planning must place attention to the gentle grading of buildings from the river into the community not only for the for the health of the river but for the health and equality of the community. While we appreciate that there are other opinions out there, the “science of why” lies squarely at the feet of the community and is backed around the country.

It is our hope that we give the Arts District the best possible base for our children and their grandchildren.

Sincerely,

Randall Miller Todd Terazzas

President, LARABA President, ADCCLA Los Angeles River Artists & Business Association Arts District Community Council LA

Encl. 2 diagram attachments Little Tokyo Community Council 1 106 ½ Judge John Aiso Street, Suite 172 Los Angeles, CA 90012 213.293.5822 | [email protected]

Via Email to [email protected] June 17, 2021 Attn: Brittany Arceneaux, Project Manager Downtown Community Plan Los Angeles Department of City Planning 200 N. Spring St., Room 667 Los Angeles, CA 90012

Subject Title: Little Tokyo Community Council Letter RE: DTLA2040

Dear Ms. Arceneaux,

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments regarding the Draft Downtown Community Plan Text, Plan Map, Zoning Map, and Zoning code (collectively, “DTLA 2040 plan”) on behalf of the Little Tokyo Community Council (LTCC).

Established in 1999, the LTCC is a non-profit community coalition with broad representation of residents, businesses, religious, cultural, and community organizations as well as other vested stakeholders in the Little Tokyo community. We work to protect, promote, and preserve Little Tokyo.

Little Tokyo is the second oldest neighborhood in Los Angeles and one of a handful of remaining Japantowns in the US. It is a vibrant community that is treasured for its deep history and culture, its unique collection of small businesses, a growing residential community, important cultural and religious institutions, and the newly opened Terasaki Budokan, a sports/community center. With an esthetically pleasing, safe atmosphere, Little Tokyo has become an important and vital community for its local base as well as a popular destination for visitors from around the world.

Little Tokyo has weathered many hardships, most significantly its founding as one of the few places in Los Angeles where people of Japanese descent were allowed to live and work. The injustice continued with the unlawful displacement of the entire community during WWII. Though its footprint was originally much larger, the current boundaries are East at the LA River, West at Los Angeles Street, North at the 101 Freeway and South at 4th Street. Today’s Little Tokyo faces many ongoing challenges which include: the effects of COVID-19, on-going threats of gentrification, dramatically increased numbers of people experiencing homelessness, and encounters with crime and vandalism.

ARTS & CULTURE Arts & Culture has been a part of the fabric of this neighborhood since its inception. The DTLA 2040 plan should embrace and enhance the unique qualities of Little Tokyo by promoting cultural preservation and community control over arts, culture, and religious institutions. We urge the City to implement the following broad recommendations.

● Increase the availability & affordability of art production & exhibition space for community-based artists ● Preserve Little Tokyo’s architectural and historic qualities and ensure that growth avoids displacement, meets community needs, and complements and is compatible with its existing character ● Provide maintenance and financial support for existing public art that was created through the Community Redevelopment Act (CRA) ● Financial support for Little Tokyo’s museums, performance spaces, nonprofit, and culture- building institutions The Little Tokyo Community Council is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) community coalition representing the interests of Little Tokyo, with membership from 1 businesses, residents, community organizations, religious institutions, and other vested stakeholders in the Little Tokyo community.

Little Tokyo Community Council 2 106 ½ Judge John Aiso Street, Suite 172 Los Angeles, CA 90012 213.293.5822 | [email protected]

PROMOTING AND PROTECTING SMALL BUSINESSES

Little Tokyo’s small businesses are at the core of its identity. Many of these businesses are decades old or have been passed down through generations and are what make the community unique. Little Tokyo has become an important destination and adds to the rich tapestry of Los Angeles. Efforts should support businesses that have fewer than 25 employees and are independently owned. Programs that encourage growth and support for small businesses should be retained, such as:

• The reinstatement of Neighborhood Empowerment Zones • The reinstatement of the Special Parking Revenue Funds Program (SPRF) • Designate Little Tokyo as a Special Parking Zone as a cultural destination to maintain parking requirements for future development • Timely and effective street trash removal, street cleaning and graffiti removal • Enforcement of zoning restrictions to maintain a village-like scale with low building height and low density development • Receptiveness to community input for directional signage, other street signs, traffic flow and streetscaping

Certain categories of larger businesses, especially those from Japan such as markets, bookstores and restaurants have historically proven to benefit the community, and rigid rules against chain/franchises may not necessarily apply. We support new, innovative businesses that recognize Little Tokyo as a pedestrian-friendly, transit accessible destination, with broad appeal.

HOUSING ● Encourage building of services including, but not limited to recreational facilities to benefit all resident categories ● Include open space and desirable design features in development plans to offset increased density ● Protect and preserve existing affordable housing. Ensure no net loss of affordable housing opportunities ● Ensure that appropriate amenities for seniors and those with disabilities are built as part of new housing developments

LTCC endorses the goals described in Sustainable Little Tokyo’s Community Visions as important goals for our community. We include these links to be included with our recommendations: Sustainable Little Tokyo | SLT 2013 and the Sustainable Little Tokyo | SLT 2020.

Thank you for consideration of these matters as the city crafts its DTLA 2040 Plan.

Sincerely,

Irene Simonian Chair, Little Tokyo Community Council Board of Directors

The Little Tokyo Community Council is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) community coalition representing the interests of Little Tokyo, with membership from 2 businesses, residents, community organizations, religious institutions, and other vested stakeholders in the Little Tokyo community.

08.23.21

Samantha Millman, President City of Los Angeles City Planning Commission 200 N Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012

Subject: DTLA 2040

Dear President Millman and Honorable Commissioners,

We are a Los Angeles Architecture frm dedicated to the revitalization of Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) through the reuse of existing and historic buildings. We have touched over 400 existing buildings in and around DTLA in the last 10 years. We’ve witnessed the strength of City directives to help transform our city and have been highly involved in policy reform such as the Bringing Back Broadway Initiative, LADBS’s Broadway Historic Commercial Reuse Bulletin, Non-ductile Concrete ordinance, and our Founder, Karin Liljegren, was involved in the 1999 Adaptive Reuse Ordinance.

We are excited by the prospect of the DTLA 2040 document to again bring positive change. We have been analyzing and following revisions in the general DTLA 2040 plan for the past few years. In particular, we focused on Adaptive Reuse under Article 9, working with Los Angeles City Planning (LACP) for the past year. We compared the new Adaptive Reuse incentives in the DTLA 2040 plan with the current Adaptive Reuse Ordinance and applied the new incentives to nine case study buildings. LACP has been highly engaged in answering our questions and clarifying the language, and we are very appreciative of their time and eforts.

Below we identifed our comments for both Article 9 as it pertains to Adaptive Reuse, and the general plan as a whole. While this document is highly transformative, we do not feel that it goes far enough. The cost of renovating and retroftting old buildings has doubled in the last 20 years due to new codes, strict interpretations of existing codes and general construction cost escalations. As codes are scheduled to be amended every three years, we foresee the costs escalating further. Despite the increased challenges, we believe that retaining and reusing existing buildings is the key to carbon reduction in our city, and will play a critical part in the Mayor’s ‘Decade of Action’ plan. These buildings need all the help that they can get to ofset the high costs and ensure they remain. Incentives such as allowing existing foor area which exceeds the maximum FAR and not counting additional foor area created within an existing building towards the max foor area limit for the lot are a perfect solution. In light of what we have all learned from our current health crisis, social injustice crisis and climate crisis, we need as much fexibility and adaptability in our codes as possible.

724 S. Spring St., Suite 501 omgivning.com Los Angeles, CA 90014 1 213.596.5602 Section 9.4.5.D.1.e - Adaptive Reuse Unifed Development We recommend:

1) To apply foor area incentives to all existing buildings rather than distinguishing between historic and non-historic adaptive reuse projects.

2) A recalibrated tiered approach of the Unifed Incentives to allow an increase in the foor area credits.

3) Flexibility built into the incentive to address the needs of small unifed development sites without penalizing large unifed development sites.

1. The 2040 Plan provides an additional incentive for historic projects as part of a unifed adaptive reuse project, however we think all existing buildings over 25 years old from the current date should become eligible for this incentive. Although they may not qualify as historic, existing buildings are also important cultural pieces that contribute to the character of a neighborhood or the city at large. We have learned through our research that “background buildings” are at the greatest threat of being demolished. Currently CEQA doesn’t allow for their protection, and that a Developer wishing to unlock a site's maximum developmental potential will likely demolish these “background buildings.” We have seen evidence of this throughout the Arts District in the recent past. While not every existing building deserves to be saved, we would encourage that thoughtful analysis be performed prior to the demolition of the mentioned background buildings. We believe that the Unifed Development tool, if written and calibrated correctly, will encourage such an analysis and discussion.

2. This incentive should exclude total foor area for unifed adaptive reuse projects up to a maximum of 1.5 FAR for all existing buildings over 25 years old and a maximum of 2.0 FAR for historic projects. This incentive should be tiered as well to allow a maximum 50,000 square feet of bonus FAR for all existing buildings over 25 years old and a maximum 65,000 square feet of bonus FAR for historic projects. The increase in the foor area credits for Historic Buildings (tiered approach) is necessary as historic buildings will likely be limited with the other incentives in the AR section of the code. Historic Buildings are subject to sight line studies to ensure new additions are set back from the buildings exterior walls. A general rule of thumb is that they are set back by one column bay from the building exterior wall. Intermediate and mezzanine foors are generally limited to this general rule of thumb of one column bay too, or are generally not allowed at all, due to existing character defning features.

3. We have discovered through performing a series of case studies that while this incentive that is currently written in the latest DRAFT Plan works well for the taller existing properties on larger sites, it is not as efective for smaller sites with shorter buildings. For this reason, we would also recommend keeping the newly proposed fat square footage option available to allow for fexibility in how this incentive may be utilized, with the suggestion that the incentive be structured as a bonus rather than an allowable exemption. Please see here

724 S. Spring St., Suite 501 omgivning.com Los Angeles, CA 90014 2 213.596.5602 for a series of case studies we have performed on several existing properties in DTLA that analyze this incentive in practice.

Rendon Hotel, Arts District: Existing 3-story background building (non-historic) with unifed ground up development on a small, 80’ x 80’ parking lot

Section 9.3.5 - Transfer of Development Rights Program ● We recommend expanding the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) program beyond the Arts District by removing the limitation to Subarea A.2 in the CPIO. The majority of historic projects in DTLA are outside of the Arts District. Historic properties often face much more difcult, costly and lengthy retrofts than non-historic/newer properties. It is our feeling that the requirements for a director determination and approved preservation plan in order to utilize this incentive will provide ample control measures for projects seeking additional FAR using this tool. Expanding the TDR program to include more historic buildings will provide much needed fnancial tools to ensure historic buildings are preserved, rehabilitated or reused for new uses.

724 S. Spring St., Suite 501 omgivning.com Los Angeles, CA 90014 3 213.596.5602 Section 9.4.6 - Adaptive Reuse - City Wide By Right ● We strongly encourage a citywide AR policy which allows “by-right” development such as Article 9. One scenario is an update to the 1999 Adaptive Reuse Ordinance through a targeted code amendment in order to adopt the adaptive reuse incentives from the DTLA 2040 plan before the creation and implementation of the full community plan. Otherwise, we anticipate citywide adaptive reuse projects will stall until the community plan is enacted due to the high holding costs associated with ownership and maintenance of a building prior to its development. The urgency of developing new residential units has never been more dire, as pointed out in our housing element letter found here. While AR city wide is one of the quickest ways to get new housing units online, the current DRAFT plan states minimal afordable unit requirements. While Omgivning believes in afordable housing units, we also believe in afordability by design. Reducing the lengthy entitlement process is one tool for successful afordability by design. We recommend that a fnancial feasibility study be performed before establishing minimally afordable housing unit requirements. While such a study will take time and fnancial resources. We recommend that a mechanism to allow for city wide AR by right be rolled out immediately, with no afordable housing requirements, while at the same time allowing for the afordability housing fnancial analysis to be performed. We fear that nothing could be worse for AR city wide and the housing crisis, than mandating minimal afordable housing unit requirements, which makes the AR housing conversion fnancially infeasible.

General DTLA 2040 Plan ● The historic core FAR requirements do not align with the existing context. Most existing buildings within the historic core are 12 stories in height and are often built to the property line. A base FAR of 12:1 would be more in-line with existing conditions and will promote a more consistent street frontage. (Example from DTLA 2040 Draft: Broadway (4th to 7th), Spring St and Main St, Base FAR - 6:1 and Bonus FAR - 8.5:1)

● The historic core articulation requirements of base-middle-top and banding requirements will likely result in an Architectural expression defned by mimicry and lacking the sophistication capable of modern building technology. We suggest the DTLA plan use restrictions in the form of height and massing to ensure congruence while still allowing for articulation and fenestration honest to our time. The relatively limited base FAR of 6.0 (as compared to the prevalent 12 story character of the area), combined with base-middle-top requirements, will likely result in proportionally awkward buildings that don’t properly relate to their context.

● The DTLA 2040 plan appears to be silent with respect to highway dedications. We suggest DTLA 2040 adopt a policy in line with the CASP to ensure setback consistency goals are not undermined by current archaic highway dedication requirements.

● The Downtown Plan includes a requirement for two bedroom units in specifc areas. Projects located within Subarea A.3 are required to provide a minimum of 30% of all dwelling units as

724 S. Spring St., Suite 501 omgivning.com Los Angeles, CA 90014 4 213.596.5602 two bedrooms or larger. This requirement is overly prescriptive and may not be viable at all locations.

● Sustainability features should be considered a community beneft and incorporated into the tiered incentive structure. By making FAR and height bonuses available to buildings with sustainability features above those required by code, the city can incentivize and promote a move towards the Mayor’s Green New Deal.

We commend the eforts of Planning staf and look forward to a fruitful collaboration.

Sincerely,

Karin Liljegren, FAIA, Omgivning Architecture and Interiors Principal and Founder

724 S. Spring St., Suite 501 omgivning.com Los Angeles, CA 90014 5 213.596.5602 8/24/2021 City of Los Angeles Mail - The Earth is ON FIRE, please do NOT approve developments with 1419 parking spots in Hollywood

Planning CPC

The Earth is ON FIRE, please do NOT approve developments with 1419 parking spots in Hollywood

T Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 8:02 PM To: Planning CPC Cc: [email protected], [email protected]

We need fewer cars in Hollywood, the traffic congestion and pollution on our Earth is NOT normal! Please do not help destroy Los Angeles and the Earth itself with 1419 parking spots in a highly polluted and congested area! We need walkable communities, fewer cars!

https://urbanize.city/la/post/hollywood-5420-sunset-boulevard-apartments

-- Best, Tieira

https://mail.google.com/mail/b/ALGkd0xMRewMKFJxCWZ-0RW84yojvyY_yLVoBz2-DULISiXdKF6A/u/0?ik=7b97dca4cd&view=pt&search=all&permm… 1/1