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Usher on Planning: It’s Something You Do, Not Something that’s Done to You |
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Citizen Guide
Edited by Sara Epstein
Outspoken Planning Commission chief Jane Ellison Usher told the Playa del Rey Neighbors she came to “rally the troops” and get them ready to participate early-on in the planning process. Here’s some of the advice she offered, as reported in the Argonaut News:
- If residents wait until a hearing to speak against a project, they're bound to be disappointed when they get two minutes at the microphone to voice their opposition.
- The most important person in the land use decision process is your City Council member.
- The Community Plan is the "constitution" for land use.
- If you think a project is happening on the 'QT', utilize the ZIMAS site to find out information about the project, ask your councilmember to find out who the city planner is on the project and sit with the councilmember and brainstorm.
- There is a hierarchy of zoning, from the least intensive use to the most intensive, and the most intensive zone permits all uses of the least intensive zoning.
- Residential development used to be the "cash cow," not commercial, but the pendulum has swung and the "love affair with residential development" is abating.
- Neighborhood Councils should "cross-pollinate" by building bridges with one another on various issues and raise a collective voice.
- Community members need to know how to participate in the process so that it's something you do, not something that is done to you.
- There are common misconceptions about the process and how you affect it, and they will wring you out and string you out and wither you on the vine.
- Collaboration between the community, the applicant/developer, the Neighborhood Council and the city councilmember is essential to the process.
- I like to ask Neighborhood Council leaders what their stakeholders think, and I don't want to undercut Neighborhood Councils.
- I am hopeful that Neighborhood Councils will become an incredibly strong voice and that they have the potential to become a legitimate voice.
(Jane Ellison Usher is the President of the LA City Planning Commission. She spoke earlier this month to the Playa del Rey Neighbors and guests on planning. These excerpts are from the Argonaut News report on that meeting. See the full report , including Usher’s advice on basic tools and other how-to advice.)
CityWatch
Vol 6 Issue 68
Pub: Aug 22, 2008
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