An ordinance to rescind the Hollywood Community Plan update went into effect on Tuesday, and city officials are now looking to recommence the approval process for the update.
In December, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Allan Goodman said the update was “fatally-flawed” for several reasons, such as the city’s use of Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) population figures when Census data was available.
Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, 13th District, said the next step will be to work closely with the city’s Planning Department to ensure that the deficiencies cited in the ruling are addressed.
“We will approach those once we have the budget for that in place,” he said, adding that he has notified Mayor Eric Garcetti that the city may need additional funding to redo the update.
O’Farrell said the plan from 1988 is in effect, and that the city is operating as if the update was never approved in 2012. He said it became apparent that the city should comply with the ruling as opposed to beginning a possibly unsuccessful fight to appeal it.
“We just wanted to get both jobs and development back on track, and that’s what we’ve done,” O’Farrell said.
The councilman said the new update will undergo a “several month-long process” before being approved.
“It will be something that we initiate at the beginning of the summer, realistically,” O’Farrell said. “It’ll be very, very specifically focused to address the deficiencies that were outlined.”
He said the city does not have to start from scratch, which means the process will take months, not years.
Attorney Robert P. Silverstein, who is representing one of the groups that sued the city over the plan, said his clients are grateful that the city is following the court order and rescinding the plan.
“However, it is regrettable that it took three years of litigation to force the city council to comply with the law,” he said. “It should not be too much to ask that the city officials use correct population data and conduct a legitimate study before introducing such dramatic and damaging proposed changes to the environment. Had the city used the correct data and followed the law in the first place, we believe that the ill conceived and environmentally damaging community plan update would never have been approved in the first place.”
Silverstein said he is hopeful that the process going forward will be inclusive, transparent and environmentally responsible. O’Farrell assured that it would be.
“I always do things in a transparent manner, and that’s what this will be as well,” he said.
3 Comments
The City has no intention of complying with everything Judge Goodman ordered. They have already decided that the new Hywd Plan will be the same as the old Hywd Plan. All Garcetti plans to do is juggle the figures again.
BTW, the litigation was from July 18, 2012 until January 14, 2014 — which looks 18 months and not 3 years.
O’Farrell..’said it became apparent that the city should comply with the ruling as opposed to beginning a possibly unsuccessful fight to appeal it.’
Had Garcetti not been so arrogant..had the cowards on City Council listened and heeded all the warnings instead of voting the way Garcetti wanted them to, as usual, they could have saved the city a ton of money. Garcetti will run L.A into the ground with his irresponsible leadership, votes, and decisions which started when he was President of City Council… And he can’t afford to fix our streets. Vote ‘NO’ on any new taxes this group of Clowns tries to get on the ballot. Let THEM fork over their mega income, that we pay for them for NOT representing US, only following Garcetti and their developer boss’s wills.. Let them pay to fix the streets… starting with Garcetti.
And O’Farrell does not know what the word transparency means. Who is he kidding?Especially since he got into bed with Garcetti, who only knows how to operate in secret, behind closed doors. Another Garcetti-oid no brain no heart corrupted by Millennium money politician, who has drunk the Garcetti kool aid.