Urban Design Guidelines
DRAFT to be released

Neighborhood Councils and community groups across the City should be alert to the release of the Citywide Urban Design Guidelines for the City of Los Angeles.  This has been a project of the Department of City Planning for some time but the first we’ve heard about its release for public comment and expected adoption by the City Planning Commission in 2010 is just this past week.  With the City’s budget cuts and especially the cut backs in City Planning staff, the process of the release of the environmental document (Negative Declaration) and draft guidelines are a big surprise.   We have an opportunity to get involved now but we must do so quickly and work together to get the word out.  The negative declaration document is out and has a comment deadline of Aug. 25.  Because of our efforts, this date is being extended to September 7, 2010. The draft guidelines will be released any day now along with the invitation to participate in public discussion meetings.   Its time for land use committees to agendize, review and comment.

The Citywide Design Guidelines have been a project of the Department of City Planning as directed by the City Planning Commission and part of their “Do Real Planning” policy.  They also tie in with the City’s Urban Design Studio that Emily Gabel-Luddy (now retired) and Simon Pastucha established.  You may recall that Emily and Simon presented their plans and projects at PlanCheck and several neighborhood council groups and coalitions a couple of years ago.  The Urban Design Studio is part of the City of Los Angeles Planning Department and has completed projects such as: Walkability Checklist, Downtown New Street Standards, Downtown Design Guide, Central City Community Plan: Urban Design Chapter, Placemaking Academy.  For more information on the Urban Design Studio see http://www.urbandesignla.com/   Upon adoption of the new Citywide Urban Design Guidelines there will be a checklist for all projects.

We met with Michelle Sorkin (Project Lead) and Mindy Nguyen (Intern) at the Department of City Planning assigned to this project. The Citywide Urban Design Guidelines are for residential, commercial and industrial.  Lucille Saunders who is with the La Brea Coalition, arranged for our meeting.  Michelle said that Los Angeles does not have urban design guidelines like other jurisdictions do and that they are long overdue in the City of Los Angeles.  They have studied 20 or so other guidelines as part of their research.  The guidelines will be a tool in addition to Community Plans, Specific Plans and other existing design guidelines already in place.

The purpose of our meeting was to ask about the process of the release to the public of first the negative declaration that is currently out for public comment with a Aug. 25, 2010 comment deadline.  Without the guidelines, how can the public comment on that environmental document?   We learned that it is common for the City of Los Angeles to release a negative declaration (CEQA environmental document) prior to the guidelines. It is just how the city does it.   But, even though the published environmental notice has a Aug. 25, 2010 deadline for comments, anyone can comment up to the City Planning Commission hearing which appears to be a month or so away.  Date has not been set for that hearing.  The draft guidelines look to be ready and Lucille and I received copies.  I asked for a digital copy so we can get them distributed.  Michelle said that three public meetings are being scheduled for August 30 and 31.  No other details so far other than the dates and that they will be held in the evening. They are developing a brochure to go with the public notice.  With today’s date of August 13, 2010 we let her know that this is a short time window for scheduling as most of us have meetings scheduled six weeks ahead now.  A longer time should be considered.  Michelle said that even though the published environmental notice indicates the cut off time for comments as Aug. 25, it will be extended as a result of Lucille’s concern.  Michelle’s emphasis that Environmental notices are usually allowed comment up to and including the public hearing before the City Planning Commission met with surprise.

Where do we go from here?  This is part of a work plan that PlanCheck has not been in the loop on.  I’m not sure that we can ever get that information but that may be the missing link.  Had we known, we could publish a list of Citywide work projects that planners are working on so we can check in on their release from time to time.  By sending out this notice, we are alerting our Land Use Committees so they can be looking to agendize and discuss the guidelines.  Attend all public meetings and weigh in at that level, encourage participation by our land use committees and stakeholders.  PlanCheck continues to work to get in the communication loop sooner so we don’t find out about these types of projects and issues at this stage.  Our goals have always been “early notification”.  We need to make sure we are part of the process at the earliest possible stage just like any other project.

Cindy Cleghorn,
PlanCheckNCLA