Our cool Neighborhood Integrity Initiative “sticky ad” seen on today’s front page of the Los Angeles Times directly refutes an L.A. Times editorial simultaneously published just a few pages away from our ad. The back of our sticky ad explains the truth of things in Los Angeles:
Luxury housing hurts poor and middle-income people, forcing them out of L.A. Each $3,000/month building creates a domino effect — rents nearby go crazy, too. It takes 25 years for luxury housing to “trickle down.” Contact us at [email protected]
The Los Angeles Times still doesn’t get this. But they’re smart and they may figure it out eventually. Meanwhile, we are really pleased that the L.A. Times Editorial Board got one really big thing very right today:
Yes, we agree, the City Council is corrupt in its backroom deals, where individual council members reward developers special exemptions so they can ignore local zoning, erecting buildings as big and ugly as they wish. Our City Council members have taken millions of dollars from developers since 2000.
Disgusting.
No surprise that these closed-door favors our City Council members grant to developers instantly turn a piece of land worth perhaps $1 million into a piece of land with $10 million or $20 million — overnight.
It’s a recipe for corruption.
Our broken system is no different than bags of cash changing hands, but the sheer scale of the instant wealth being handed to developers in L.A. is far, far bigger. As the Los Angeles Times editorial points out today, Mayor Eric Garcetti is utterly failing to fight this 1960s-style sleaze in his weak “reforms” proposed this week.
In the 1966-69 Los Angeles zoning scandals that ripped through City Hall, people went to prison: a city council member and a developer. In that era, Los Angeles City Council members routinely handed out big zoning-change favors so developers could ignore community character, zoning height limits and zoning density and size limits.
So the citizens of Los Angeles in 1969 stepped in and created a key law against this sleazy system. Today, that key law has been suppressed by our elected City Council. The Neighborhood Integrity Initiative reinstates these crucial safeguards.
The mayor needs to accept the fact that we’re back to 1966. It’s not hard to see that wonderful livable Los Angeles neighborhoods are being ruined by hideous glass boxes free of green belts or areas for children.
Los Angeles is a city of many small downtowns, gardens, bungalows and historic streets. That’s why people move here, because it’s not Chicago or San Francisco. Most L.A. residents want their laid-back town, not Seoul, Singapore or Toronto. Please email us at [email protected]
