The Brief

Homeowners in some pricey corners of Los Angeles have been urging the city to not allow the fast-tracking of plans for new low-income apartments in historic neighborhoods. Such an exemption would further limit efforts to get much-needed affordable housing built quickly.

Now, some local elected leaders are taking up the call, putting forward a proposal to require longer reviews of affordable housing in areas designated for historic preservation.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavksy introduced a motion last Friday that aims to stop the fast-tracking of affordable housing projects in any part of the city identified as an Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, or HPOZ.

A new motion calls for historic zones to be expempted fromED1, the city's program to fast track affordable housing. Although the 35 zones, shown in blue overlay on the map, make up a small percentage of areas within L.A., together with other exemption would add up to nearly 80% of L.A. ineligible for building under the fast-track program.

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Courtesy City of L.A.

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Gary Gero, Yaroslavsky’s chief of staff, told LAist, “We're not trying to stop affordable housing developments in historic zones. We really just want them to work with the community, the neighbors, with the historic zone board and with our office to make the project fit better within the context of the neighborhood.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass created the city’s fast-tracking program, ED1, during her first week in office with the goal of getting 100% affordable housing projects approved within two months. Since ED1’s launch, developers have proposed more than 16,000 apartments for low- and moderate-income renters. The program allows projects to bypass the sorts of contentious public hearings and lengthy environmental reviews that have delayed new housing in the past.

What sets historic zones apart

A large percentage of the 36 historic designated zones in Los Angeles run along the Wilshire Blvd. corridor.

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Courtesy City of L.A.

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L.A.’s historic zones — deemed by the city to have “distinctive architectural and cultural resources” — represent a small but growing portion of the city. HPOZs cover a combined 8.5 square miles and are home to about 3% of the city’s population, according to a 2020 study commissioned by the Los Angeles Conservancy.

L.A. currently has 36 historic zones, encompassing neighborhoods from mansion-lined Hancock Park to working class Lincoln Heights. Prior to 2000, only eight such zones existed in L.A.

Preservationists say these zones are crucial for protecting L.A.’s living history from hasty development that undermines neighborhoods’ unique characteristics. But some housing advocates say the historic designation process is too often hijacked by NIMBY homeowners aiming to block any new housing affordable to residents with lower incomes.

A case study in Windsor Village

A proposed affordable housing apartment building at 800 S. Lorraine Blvd. in L.A.

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Courtesy L.A. City Planning Dept.

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The current vacant lot where the proposed affordable project would be built.

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Courtesy Google Maps street view

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Yaroslavsky’s motion would ban ED1 projects in historic zones and return new affordable housing projects to the discretion of city council members. Gero said the motion was prompted by one ED1 project in Yaroslavsky’s district at 800 S. Lorraine Blvd, which he called “egregious.”

“It's a refrigerator box,” Gero said. “They did try to gussy it up a little bit to reflect some art deco touches. But it clearly isn't enough.”

Developers behind the project say their plans for a 70-unit building would not remove any historic structures. The current site is a vacant lot. Most apartments would be reserved for renters earning up to 80% of the area’s median income, or $70,650 for a one-person household. The rest would be reserved for renters earning up to 120% of the area’s median income.

“There's just such an enormous benefit to allowing low-income and moderate-income households to move into these areas,” said Gary Benjamin, the project’s land use consultant.

The Lorraine development is located within the Windsor Village HPOZ, an area singled out for preservation due to its concentration of homes built “in the French, English and Spanish Colonial Revival modes” as well as the “Hollywood Regency and Streamline Moderne styles.”

Buying a home in Windsor Village is far out of reach for most Angelenos. One four-bedroom house about a block away from the Lorraine project is currently on the market for $1.75 million.

Benjamin was aware that this project is in an HPOZ. He said the building’s exterior was designed to blend in with the neighborhood. It uses neutral colors and inserts arches into the facade. He said he didn’t expect the neighborhood’s historic designation to become a roadblock under ED1.

“There are other existing multifamily apartment buildings, including several three to four-story apartment buildings in the area,” Benjamin said. “What was so great and promising about ED1 was allowing that certainty — understanding that there are certain objective standards that all projects are required to comply with.”

Why nearby homeowners object to the project

Some homeowners in Windsor Village say the planned six-story building is simply too tall.

“There are wonderful craftsman houses and so forth in the neighborhood,” said Barbara Pflaumer, president of the Windsor Village Association.

“This is a big building,” she said. “It looms over all the other houses in the neighborhood. And it doesn't fit architecturally with what we currently enjoy.”

Pflaumer said neighbors also oppose the project’s lack of on-site parking, a common concern about ED1 projects, which have mostly eschewed room for cars. Housing located near transit stops does not need to provide on-site parking under a 2022 state law.

Growing roadblocks for ED1 projects

Single family residential housing zones, shown here in pink, dominate the city of L.A.

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Courtesy Othering & Belonging

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ED1 opponents have called to stop the fast-tracking of affordable housing in more and more of the city since Mayor Bass launched the program. The largest carve-out came last summer when Bass canceled ED1 projects in areas zoned for single-family homes, which make up 74% of the city’s residential land.

Since then, neighborhood groups have called for rescinding the rules in designated ethnic enclaves such as Sawtelle’s Japantown. City counilmembers have voted to stop ED1 projects on lots with existing rent-controlled housing in some neighborhoods, such as Eagle Rock.

Yaroslavsky’s motion to exempt historic districts from ED1 was seconded by Councilmember Heather Hutt. It has not yet been scheduled for a vote. Representatives from Yaroslavsky’s office expect it to be put on the planning and land use committee’s agenda in coming weeks.

How to watchdog local government

For people who live in L.A., the Board of Supervisors and City Council have the most direct impact on housing affordability in your neighborhood.

• Learn more about who influences local housing policy

The best way to keep tabs on your own local government is by attending public meetings for your city council or local boards. Here are a few tips to get you started.

• Find meeting schedules and agendas: City councils usually meet at least twice a month, although larger ones may meet weekly. Committees and boards tend to meet less often, typically once a month. You can find the schedule and meeting agenda on your local government’s website, or posted physically at your local city hall. Find more tips here.

  • Find L.A. City Council agendas and meeting dates
  • Find meetings for L.A. city boards and commissions
  • Find L.A. County agendas and meeting dates
• Learn the jargon: Closed session, consent calendars and more! We have definitions for commonly used terms here.
• How to give public comment: Every public meeting allows community members to give comment, whether or not it’s about something on the agenda. The meeting agenda will have specific instructions for giving public comment. Review more details here.

Federal officers handle security screening at all but a small fraction of U.S. airports, but the Trump administration is hoping to change that. Under the Transportation Security Administration's new program called TSA Gold+, private companies would play a much larger role in airport security than they have in decades.

The TSA is set to host officials from airports and security contractors to an "industry day" at its Springfield, Va., headquarters on Thursday, as it looks to develop TSA Gold+, a public-private program that the agency calls "transformative."

The agency is billing the program as an update to the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, in which 20 U.S. airports currently use private security screeners rather than federal workers.

"TSA Gold+ marks a significant evolution in the agency's approach to aviation security," a TSA spokesperson told NPR via an emailed statement.

The agency says airports that opt into the program would be able to tailor security systems for their facility — and avoid the TSA staffing shortages that became a very public headache at airports during the recent government shutdown over Homeland Security funding.

It also says the program would bring "the latest technology" such as AI tools to airport screening operations, to increase capacity and cut wait times, although the agency did not specify how those gains would be achieved. From the details shared so far, the equipment would be the contractors' responsibility — a departure from the current SPP system, in which TSA controls the equipment and oversees the security contract. The TSA says it would perform the oversight role it currently does.

"Industry partners can manage equipment and introduce innovations, while travelers enjoy a smooth, predictable, and bespoke experience," the TSA said as it unveiled TSA Gold+.

Airports currently using the private Screening Partnership Program range from San Francisco and Kansas City to Sarasota, Fla., and Atlantic City, N.J., along with smaller facilities in Montana, Wyoming and other states.

Calls for privatizing airport security screening have come from President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, echoing a recommendation in the conservatives' Project 2025 handbook for a second Trump term. But there are also signs of bipartisan interest in some level of private control over airport security, as seen in Atlanta, where city leaders recently voted to explore joining the Screening Partnership Program.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, touted that bipartisan interest on Wednesday during a hearing on TSA Modernization. But Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees union, which represents TSA officers, said he opposes further privatization — including the TSA Gold+ program, warning that it would hamper accountability and transparency.

Under the new program, Kelley said, contract workers would earn less than TSA officers. He added that while many transportation security officers hold security clearances, under the new plan, the government "would be ceding direct operational control of the most sensitive technology in the aviation security enterprise to private vendors."

The White House budget released last month promises to save some $52 million by privatizing airport screeners and requiring small airports to enroll in the SPP.

But officials at the hearing urged lawmakers to preserve airports' ability to choose.

Chris McLaughlin, CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, noted that the SPP has been in place since aviation security underwent drastic changes following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to the creation of the TSA and the SPP system.

"We've had federalized screening for 25 years, almost," McLaughlin said. "Large airports like San Francisco have had an SPP program for 25 years."

Both airports' arrangements work well for them, he told Garbarino.

"The system has been safe for 25 years," he said. "It's important that airports have options."

The new "Gold+" program echoes the Trump administration's promise to bring a "golden age of travel" to the American public. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy touted those plans earlier this week, as he unveiled $970 million in funding to improve passengers' experiences at airports, from adding family-friendly security screening lanes to improving restrooms and children's play areas.

The money for those projects comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a Biden-era law aiming to update airports' aging infrastructure.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A marine layer will cover mostly the coastal areas today, lowering temperatures a degree or two. Otherwise expect a sunny afternoon elsewhere across SoCal.

L.A. County beaches will see temperatures in the lower 70s today, whereas Orange County could reach up to 79 degrees along the coast.

More inland, the valleys will see highs in the mid 80s. The Inland Empire will see highs from 83 to 91 degrees. In Coachella Valley, temperatures are expected to reach up to 100 degrees.

Happy long weekend! The Late Show with Stephen Colbert plays the funnyman’s swan song tonight, so my calendar is booked to stay up past my bedtime. Closer to home, the Yoko Ono exhibit (which comes to us straight from the Tate Modern in London) opens just in time for Memorial Day weekend, so watch this space for more on that.

There’s music for lovers of every genre this week, according to our friends at Licorice Pizza. On Friday, Yungblud and special guests Warning rock the Greek, and Dethklok plays the Palladium; jazz trumpeter Chris Botti begins his residency at the Blue Note.

Saturday, Bright Eyes performs I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn in their entirety at the Hollywood Bowl with openers the Moldy Peaches; American Football is at the Wiltern; Belgium’s Ultra Sunn plays the Belasco; Italy’s Mina is at the Echoplex; DJ KSHMR plays the Palladium; and then, for a different sort of “Kashmir,” Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening takes over the Greek.

On Sunday, brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack for the millennial dance party of the week at the Forum with Kesha, Chromeo and Sizzy Rocket. There’s also the big Day Trip afternoon concert at L.A. State Historic Park with Joseph Capriati, Toman and Cole Terrazas. For a more mellow Sunday, singer-songwriter Katelyn Tarver is at the Echoplex, R&B singer-songwriter Eric Bellinger plays the Novo, or classic crooner Paul Anka is doing it his way at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can check out four new food halls, wander around a favorite new Sundays-only bookstore, and yes, I’ll remind you again — make your upcoming Election Day picks with the help of our Voter Game Plan.

Events

L.A. Fleet Week

Through Monday, May 25
Pacific Battleship Center
250 S. Harbor Blvd., San Pedro 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy L.A. Fleet Week

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Tour the U.S.S. Iowa and check out the three visiting battleships at San Pedro’s Pacific Battleship Center during L.A.’s annual Memorial Day weekend Fleet Week on the waterfront. Plus, there are exhibits to walk through, food stands to try and music for the whole family. Not to mention those cute sailors in their whites.

Topanga Days

Saturday to Monday, May 23 to 25, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga
COST: ADULTS $31.80; MORE INFO

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Topanga Days

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Topanga Days is the easiest way to time-travel back to a simpler time when folk musicians roamed the hills, winning a yodeling contest was the biggest bragging right and you spent all year coming up with your parade costume. Those days are here once a year at Topanga Days, headlined on Saturday by New Orleans icon Cyril Neville and peppered with cherry-seed-spitting and bubble-gum-blowing contests, tons of other music, food, and, of course, the parade.

Exit the King

Through Sunday, May 31
A Noise Within
3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena
COST: FROM $49.75; MORE INFO 

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Craig Schwartz

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Lucy PR

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The name of this Eugène Ionesco classic alone — Exit the King — should give you some sense of where the always-on-point folks at A Noise Within were going when they chose it at this moment. The political satire borders on the absurd, with the L.A. Times likening the vibrant characters to “those in a deck of wild cards designed by Salvador Dalí.”

K-Expo

Saturday and Sunday, May 23 to 24
L.A. Live 
1005 Chick Hearn Court, Downtown L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy BLND PR

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K-Pop fans will flock to the K-Expo at L.A. Live, where you can see free exhibitions and events featuring 100 Korean brands and companies across content, beauty, food and technology all weekend long. Stick around Saturday night and grab a ticket (from $47) to the mega K-Pop concert at the Peacock Theater, featuring Jay Park and P1Harmony.

MAINopoly 

Sunday, May 24, 1 p.m. 
Main Street, Santa Monica 
COST: FROM $28.01; MORE INFO

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Courtesy MAINopoly Santa Monica

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Eat your way down Main Street in Santa Monica at the annual Monopoly-themed food festival, which this year will allow drinks while you walk and eat thanks to a new city permit. The popular food-and-bar stretch near the beach is experiencing a little revival with the reopening of dive bar favorite Circle Bar, plus newish hot spots like Triple Beam Pizza and June Shine. I also heard a rumor that something new is finally coming into the old World Cafe space (!!).

Arroyo Secodelic Festival

Friday to Monday, May 22 to 25
Various locations, Highland Park
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO

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As LAist's Robert Garrova reports, a new four-day music festival takes over Figueroa Street in Highland Park this weekend. The Arroyo Secodelic Festival will feature 65 bands, with acts hailing from Los Angeles, Mexico and as far as France and Holland. Highlights include Flamin' Groovies, Fear and Adolescents.

Angel City Chorale Spring Concert 

Sunday, May 24, 4 p.m.
Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center 
1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Redondo Beach 
COST: FROM $17; MORE INFO 

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Mel Stave Photography

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Angel City Chorale

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Enjoy the healing sounds of Angel City Chorale as they perform a new show with the theme "The Red Thread" as “a tribute to the beloved age-old parable and celebration of the invisible threads that connect as humans, our hopes, joys, resilience in the face of adversity, connection to nature and a shared planet Earth.”

Kevin Morby

Friday, May 22, 8 p.m.
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
COST: $50-$60; MORE INFO 

Kevin Morby plays the Wiltern on Friday.

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Jim Bennett

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The nouveau bard of Kansas City returns to his once-adopted hometown of Los Angeles on the heels of his newest release, Little Wide Open. Morby's latest effort might be his most realized, fully embracing the Technicolor sweep of his indie-Americana sound — striking the sonic equivalent between a Terrence Malick film and Robert Frank's roadside photographs, seen through a passenger car window of a cross-country train. This time, Morby tapped Aaron Dessner of The National to serve as producer — who has most recently done the same for Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams and Sharon Van Etten — alongside a constellation of collaborators, including Justin Vernon, Lucinda Williams, Katie Gavin, Mat Davidson and Meg Duffy. Brooklyn-based Liam Kazar opens. –Gab Chabrán

UCLA JazzReggae Festival

Monday, May 25, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
UCLA Wilson Plaza
COST: $26.14; MORE INFO 

Three little birds told me to get down to the UCLA JazzReggae Festival on Memorial Day. The yearly music fest draws students and neighbors alike for a full day of sunshine, food, music and jammin’. The fest is fully organized and run by student volunteers, and has been since its founding 40 years ago.

Forest Lawn Memorial Day remembrances

Monday, May 25 
Various locations 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Forest Lawn in Glendale is one of several locations hosting Memorial Day events.

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David McNew

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Getty Images

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Honor veterans across Los Angeles as Forest Lawn hosts Memorial Day remembrances at each of its six Southern California locations: Cathedral City, Covina Hills, Cypress, Glendale, Hollywood Hills and Long Beach. The parkwide events will celebrate the lives of those who served, with patriotic music, wreath layings, presentations and retirings of the flag, keynote addresses, presidential proclamations, invocations, giveaways, coffee and sweet treats. All events will include American Sign Language interpreters.

You could call it a fulfillment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous promise from the first Terminator movie in 1984: “I’ll be back.”

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the bigger budget, multi-award winning follow-up to that first film is coming back to theaters in Los Angeles starting this weekend, in celebration of the film’s 35th anniversary.

Considered one of the best action films and best sequels of all time, it’s also celebrated among film experts for its groundbreaking use of CGI visual effects — most notably for the T-1000 character, a liquid metal cyborg masquerading as an LAPD officer, played by Robert Patrick.

Where to watch ‘T2’ on the big screen

While the American Cinematheque’s first two 35th anniversary screenings of Terminator 2 are already sold out, as of this article’s publishing time, tickets to screenings on May 29 (at Los Feliz 3) and May 30 (at Aero Theatre in Santa Monica) are still available.

Tickets for screenings on May 22 at The Ojai Playhouse and June 6 and 7 at The Vista in Los Feliz are also still available, and Rialto Pictures also lists screenings on July 2-5 at The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana.

And while the screening at The Academy Museum on May 27 (with the film’s Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Dennis Muren in person) is sold out, we have you covered with some highlights from Muren’s interview with LAist below.

Making the impossible possible with CGI

Terminator 2, director James Cameron’s follow up to his surprise 1984 hit, The Terminator, was the first (and still only) movie in what would become the six-film Terminator franchise to earn an Oscar win or nomination.

Ultimately, the film took home four Oscars — for visual effects (for Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren, Jr. and Robert Skotak), makeup, sound, and sound effects editing — and also earned nominations for cinematography and film editing.

The visual effects studio responsible for the T-1000 character’s CGI effects was Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), founded in 1975 by Star Wars creator George Lucas. Dennis Muren headed up their Terminator 2 team, which consisted of about 35 artists.

Muren remembers first being taken with visual effects at the age of 6 or 7, watching The War of the Worlds (1953) in Los Angeles. He made his first film — a “creature feature” called Equinox — the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Pasadena City College, and would go on to work for ILM on visual effects for movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, and (fittingly) the 2005 version of War of the Worlds.

A scene from 'Terminator 2' (1991).

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ILM and Muren began development on the CGI techniques that would be needed to pull off Terminator 2’s T-1000 character in movies like 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes and 1989’s The Abyss, which was also directed by James Cameron.

“ILM has been so good at being able to really do the impossible,” Muren said. “And we kind of joke about that, but we've got many different ways of doing things.”

When the opportunity for Terminator 2 came up, Muren had also just returned from a year-long sabbatical he spent studying computer graphics, and said he was confident ILM had the tools needed to make the T-1000 character a reality.

“We were ready to input the film digitally,” Muren explained. “[To] do all the manipulation in a computer instead of with optical film running through printers and going to labs for processing.”

And when ILM got that digital system for “compositing” — combining live-action images, practical and CGI effects — working seamlessly, Muren says, “That was an incredible tool.”

But that didn’t mean that pulling off a shiny, shape-shifting, liquid metal character successfully would be easy.

“It's just complicated,” Muren explained. “You've just got this reflective material [and] how are we supposed to be able to see depth or shape when it's deforming?” But at the same time, Muren said, “that's what was exciting about it.”

Muren says the trickiest scene for the team to figure out is when the T-1000 walks through a cell door made of metal bars. While it happens in a matter of seconds on screen, it amounted to 14 to 16 weeks of work for the visual effects team.

“I always said that shot, even as we were doing it, and we got close to finishing, I said, ‘This is an absolutely impossible shot,’” Muren explained. So when they got it right, he said, “It was like a new world.”

Today, while he says Jurassic Park (1993) is the film he’s now asked about most often, he always reminds people: “T2 was really the breakthrough film.”