LA considers waiving development reviews for Olympics projects. Critics say priorities are skewed

Los Angeles is set to host the next Olympics in 2028, and some local lawmakers think the city is running out of time to prepare. The City Council is now pursuing a plan that would remove the typical development hurdles for projects related to the games.

But anti-gentrification advocates and urban planning experts want to pump the brakes on Olympics project fast-tracking, saying the developments could harm neighborhoods long after the 2028 games are over.

A proposal put forward by Councilmembers Traci Park and Adrin Nazarian calls for exempting Olympics-related projects from all planning department “approvals, zoning regulations, and conditions” that could “delay or impede the rapid deployment and or use of essential facilities.”

If passed, the exemption could apply to a wide array of developments, including “temporary and permanent venues, training facilities, security perimeters, broadcast and media centers, transit infrastructure, live sites and fan zones and associated structures.”

Council members say deadlines are tight

With the opening ceremony slated for July 14, 2028, some council members believe there isn’t enough time for such projects to go through the city’s typically lengthy review and approval process for new development.

Earlier this month, the proposal was unanimously approved by the Planning and Land Use Committee.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who chairs the committee, said in that meeting, “The ‘28 games are rapidly approaching and for the next three-and-a-half years we’re going to have to make a lot of decisions without perfect information.”

‘What are the priorities?’

But the idea of fast-tracking projects for the Olympics, which L.A. was chosen to host in 2017, has been criticized by anti-gentrification advocates and urban planning experts who say the city’s priorities are out of whack.

“We have a homeless crisis — a housing crisis,” said Maria Patiño Gutierrez, a policy director with the nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. “Now this motion is going to instead streamline certain types of projects that are aimed for the Olympics. What are the priorities of the City Council?”

Patiño Gutierrez said she worries that the proposal’s broad language could end up fast-tracking luxury hotels in neighborhoods of South L.A. close to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the future Olympics venues. The result, she said, could accelerate demographic shifts that have priced out lower-income renters.

UCLA urban planning professor Chris Tilly said L.A.’s program to fast-track 100% affordable housing projects has been revised multiple times to ban streamlined approvals of low-income apartments on most of the city’s land.

“There are some actions the city is taking that has said, yes, affordable housing is a priority — but both in this sort of Olympics fever and in, unfortunately, a lot of the discussion of rebuilding after the fires, I feel like affordable housing needs to be a much bigger part of the discussion,” Tilly said. “It's not getting the attention that it really needs.”

The promise of a ‘no-build games’

L.A. last hosted the Olympics in 1984. Many venues from those games will be used for the 2028 events, and some organizers have pointed to existing infrastructure to say impacts on the city will be minimal.

Janet Evans, the chief athlete officer for the L.A. 2028 organizing committee, told the Associated Press last year that the upcoming L.A. Olympics would be a “no-build games.”

The City Council was scheduled to vote on the proposal to exempt Olympics projects from review on Friday, but the item was delayed one week. LAist reached out to the offices of Park and Nazarian to ask about why the vote was postponed, but did not receive a response.

Helen Campbell, the planning director for Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez’s office, submitted written comments earlier this month urging the committee to request a report back from city officials and delay moving forward on the proposed ordinance.

“We need to first understand the universe of projects that would be expedited under such a provision and the unintended short and long term consequences upon our communities that this might impose,” Campbell wrote. “We also would like clarity on how a project may potentially be reclassified as an Olympics related project seeking to bypass regulations meant to safeguard communities.”