Results tagged “landuse”

On Tuesday, the State Assembly passed Senate Bill 679, meant to protect the state park system and ensure that lands used as state parks cannot be used for non-park purposes without providing substitute lands. "The least we can do is not dismantle the system," explained Traci Verardo-Torres with the California State Parks Foundation, a sponsor of the bill.

Although President Bush visited the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 2003, he never gave funding for land acquisition during his presidency. Now President Obama "has proposed spending $420 million next year to buy land for national parks, forests and wildlife refuges, and to help states fund parks and recreation projects," reports the LA Times.

In yesterday's LAist interview with Hillary Clinton, we had to ask about public transportation. Clinton said she would increase federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion per year, link funding to local land use policies that encourage mixed-use and transit-oriented development (discouraging sprawl) and invest $1 billion into intercity passenger rail (think high speed rail from Los Angeles to San Francisco, or more locally, the MagLev concept from Orange County to Las Vegas).

On Monday, not many people in Los Angeles knew the name Jack Chiang, a city planner overseeing a project in Valley Village. Then on Tuesday, The Daily News published the Department of Planning staffer's name. Come Wednesday, the LA Times caught on. Why all the sudden popularity? Sometimes when you pick up the phone and dial a number, you call the wrong person and leave a message.A Los Angeles City Council panel voted Tuesday...

Today's Daily News discusses yesterday morning's Congress of Neighborhoods where city's 89 neighborhood councils met in a convention style environment to learn skills such as media relations and working with city departments. Throughout the day, one major focus of chatter surrounded how to "wield their increasing influence." The Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council recently succeeded in a community effort in halting a Home Depot from coming to their neighborhood. The Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council is...

CityWatch is reporting that today is quite a busy day at 200 N. Main St. Here are some highlights for the mayor and city council: "The Mayor and the Governor open the action with the announcement at a 9:30 media conference that LA will receive $150 million to pay for synchronizing every traffic light in the city. The funding is LA’s share of the $250 billion transportation bond passed by voters in 2006." "With time...

What happens when you take a jazz influenced visual artist and team him up with a group that transforms unoccupied storefronts and spaces into temporary art galleries and give them a large empty, ground-floor lobby of a former bank building in Beverly Hills? You get another amazing experience under the umbrella of Farmlab, which is a think tank, art production studio, and cultural performance venue doing multi-disciplinary investigations of land use issues that are...

The Belmont Yard, aka the Belmont Tunnel, aka the Belmont Art Park has been threatened with destruction by a developer with 276 units of apartments up its corporate nose. Located off the west edge of downtown, the park has served as rare greenspace for a soccer-like game called Tarasca and as a canvas for some breathtakingly talented graffiti artists. While the rains held the bulldozers back for a short interval, the yard and its surrounding graffiti-coated walls have now been plowed into foundation-ready ground for the approved apartments. On February 9, the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee approved designation of the tunnel and substation (pictured) as landmarks, but exactly how anyone will see them after the new construction takes place is beyond us. For now, the best vantage point is from the 1st street bridge as it crosses second. Either that or follow the stray dogs through the gap in fence off Lucas and get a closer-up view.

Back in April, things looked promising for the proposed 555-acre, mixed-use development known as Las Lomas when a judge blocked the City of Santa Clarita’s attempt to annex unincorporated land in its effort to thwart the controversial development.

Local political junkies are slowly turning their attention from last week’s election to the upcoming City Hall races. The Mayor’s race is attracting the most attention due to the high-profile challengers to Mayor Jim Hahn, though both of Hahn’s fellow City-wide elected officials—City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and City Controller Laura Chick—are up for re-election. The seven eight odd-numbered Council districts will also hold elections, with six seven incumbents seeking re-election and Councilmember Cindy Miscikowski of the 11th Council District leaving office due to term limits.

With the redesign and reconstruction of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood still a fresh memory, West LA residents, commuters, businesses, and a handful of pedestrians are bravely tolerating another major improvement project now taking place along a westerly swath of the Boulevard.

Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design presents the "On the Map" lecture series again this summer. According to the Forum, "On the Map" “intends to build a critical map of Los Angeles’s architectural milieu and will provide access to some works that might otherwise remain inaccessible to the general public.” Events are held at locations of architectural note that have been recently completed, so we think it’s a cool opportunity to check out new buildings that are off limits to LAist and other lay people.