Oped#2/25″/dt1st/mark2nd
By PETER WEIL
The city of Los Angeles has been making life less complicated for developers. For the most part, it’s done so by improving and streamlining its notoriously complicated entitlement process. Unfortunately, unless they understand the ins and outs of these improvements, developers and their representatives won’t be able to take advantage of their benefits.
Perhaps the most “developer-friendly” change involves the establishment of what are known as case management units. This involves shepherding developers through the lengthy process of permit application and environmental review. Previously, the city offered developers no official assistance when an application was filed; the only way you could be confident that your application would progress smoothly was if you happened to enjoy an informal “relationship” with city staff.
Now, the Planning Department and the Building and Safety Department assign case managers to proposed projects. These managers will sit down with a developer before he prepares his application and identify for him all the specific entitlements and permits he will need to make his project a reality. Once the developer has filed his application, his case manager will then coordinate contact with all the departments involved, helping to schedule the various hearings the project will need and serving as the developer’s single source for information.
As soon as a developer has a definitive site plan, he should contact the case management unit to request a “kick-off” meeting, where the case manager will assemble all the necessary staff to comment on the project, discuss the requisite entitlements, and determine the scope of environmental review. From then on, a developer can chart his application’s progress as it moves through the system and respond quickly as issues arise.
Los Angeles has also modified its zoning code to unify a number of entitlement processes that formerly took separate tracks. For example, a major development project that had a restaurant attached to it might require two separate hearings for conditional use permits one before a Planning Commission hearing officer, another in front of a zoning administrator. For the developer, this would be like having two racehorses running in two different races.
Under the new system, a developer can request that the same Planning Commission hearing officer handle both conditional use permits. If this isn’t possible, the case manager can schedule joint hearings, where both the hearing officer and the zoning administrator hear the case simultaneously.
A third significant change in the city’s entitlement process involves the expanded use of what is known as the Mitigated Negative Declaration. An alternative to an Environmental Impact Report, an MND can be used on any project that undergoes changes in order to mitigate or avoid potentially significant environmental impacts before it is released for public review.
The MND process was used to approve the recent transformation of the site of the old General Motors plant in Van Nuys to industrial and retail use. It also figured in the recent approval of a nearly 1 million-square-foot industrial project in East Los Angeles. In each case, it saved the developers involved as much as 18 months in approval time.
The final significant change in the city’s entitlement process involves the entertainment industry specifically, zoning requirements to which entertainment-industry projects are subject. In an effort to stem the flight of entertainment companies, the city of Los Angeles adopted a new ordinance that liberalizes where entertainment facilities are allowed.
Among other things, entertainment-industry developments are no longer restricted to industrial and manufacturing zones. Many are now allowed in commercial zones, where before they required conditional-use permits or were banned outright.
In sum, the entitlement process for developers in the city of Los Angeles has been much improved. That’s not to say that the path toward project completion is suddenly free of all obstacles. Environmental issues, threats of conditional-use actions, challenges to MNDs, exactions, nexus issues, NIMBYism, and old-fashioned politics can still confront and confound any project. Developers must be aware of these potential problems and chart the safest, most expeditious course around them. Still, it’s good to know that rather than adding new hurdles, the city is trying to clear the way for developers.
Peter Weil is chairman of the Los Angeles Planning Commission and a name partner in the law firm of Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro.
