This past weekend’s Save Your Zip Code workshops on state Sen. Scott Wiener’s disastrous Senate Bill 827, which is poised to destroy neighborhoods across Los Angeles, and SB 743, its close cousin, galvanized a packed room of renters, homeowners and shop owners ready to fight back.
Tim Redmond, founder of the famed San Francisco investigative news site 48Hills.org, taught the ins and outs of SB 743 and explained how SB 827 would allow construction of luxury housing towers across 96% of San Francisco and more than 40% of Los Angeles — any neighborhood that has regular bus service in the general vicinity would be up for grabs by luxury developers.
This ugly rich vs. poor law, backed by Silicon Valley titans, is expected to displace tens of thousands of working-class people if approved by the developer-enriched California state legislature.
Former L.A. city planner Dick Platkin, a fierce critic of the influence of big money in land-use politics, honed in on SB 827’s nefarious aspects. Platkin highlighted how it would create chaos and non-planning in which Metro, by choosing where bus transit stops are placed, would be granted the power to dictate gentrification and displacement in L.A.’s neighborhoods.
To understand what’s unfolding, review the PowerPoints from last weekend’s Coalition to Preserve LA workshops. Please click on the highlighted links below:
Tim Redmond’s Senate Bill 827 and Senate Bill 743 Workshop for Coalition to Preserve LA
Dick Platkin’s What is Senate Bill 827 Workshop for Coalition to Preserve LA
Both of these anti-neighborhood laws push public participation and environmental protection to the brink.
SB 743, a sleeper law already being implemented in Los Angeles, eliminates developers’ parking-space requirements in large housing complexes sitting as far as 1/2 mile from a transit stop, ends California Environmental Quality Act protections against visual blight such as digital billboards, and — for the first time in the U.S. — allows developers to ignore all environmental impacts of the traffic congestion their buildings create.
Yet state Sen. Wiener’s proposed SB 827, called WienerWorld by some, is far more radical.
SB 827 would substantially “upzone” Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and other cities, wiping out local building height limits, single-family and low-rise zoning, and historic zones. SB 827 would halt all public hearings and environmental review of any luxury housing tower proposed in the general vicinity of a bus stop or transit station.
Sound utterly crazy? It is. Now that you’re done reading, please do review the highlighted links below:
Tim Redmond’s Senate Bill 827 and Senate Bill 743 Workshop for Coalition to Preserve LA
Dick Platkin’s What is Senate Bill 827 Workshop for Coalition to Preserve LA