InSIDE ThIS ISSuE

Message From the Director

Page 2

The Mural Ordinance Continuing Los Angeles'

Rich Mural Tradition Page 2

The Proposed Sign Ordinance

Billboards and the Visual Landscape

Page 3

Staff highlight

Simon Pastucha City Planner

Page 3

Metro Public Counter201 N. Figueroa St., 4th FloorLos Angeles, CA 90012(213) 482-7077

Valley Public Counter6262 Van Nuys Blvd., 2nd FloorVan Nuys, CA 91401(818) 374-5050

Summer

2014

www.planning.lacity.org

pLAnningA quarterly newsletter providing news and information regarding the City of Los Angeles Planning Department

Volume 4 • Issue 3

DeVelOPMeNt SerVICe CeNterS:

Mayor Eric Garcetti

Shaping the Visual Environment:Citywide Design Guidelines and Small Lot Design Guidelinesby Simon Pastucha - City Planner

The Department of City Planning has created a series of design guidelines for new multi-family, commercial, mixed use, and industrial projects, and a new type of housing referred to as “Small Lots.” The design guidelines are triggered by discretionary entitlements, modifications, or exterior alterations, and provide the opportunity to help projects become more attractive and more functional promoting a better quality of life. These guidelines are intended for developers and architects as well as for advisory and decision-making bodies when evaluating a project.

Citywide Design Guidelines

The Citywide Design Guidelines include design objectives that maintain neighborhood form and character while promoting high-quality infill development. The Design Guidelines provide greater direction for new projects, illustrating options, solutions, and techniques to achieve the goal of excellence in new design. It is important to remember that the guidelines are performance goals, not zoning regulations or development standards, and therefore do not supersede regulations in the Municipal Code. (continued on p.4)

The Cullen Street Art District Homes is one of the first projects approved through the Small Lot Ordinance.

A Message From the Director

Dear Stakeholder,

What is the built environment? It’s what you see and interact with every day, the streets, buildings, sidewalks, plazas and signs that make up a neighborhood. The built environment is always changing, and what often determines whether those changes are positive is a planning policy. This issue of pLAnning focuses on the City’s visual landscape, specifically highlighting recent policy initiatives that will shape the built environment in positive ways over the years to come.

Since it was adopted a year ago, the Mural Ordinance legalized existing murals and permitted new commissions. It will help continue the City’s tradition of painted public expression. The citywide Sign Ordinance went before the Council this summer after five years of public meetings and, if adopted, will provide better rules for sign districts.

Other tools that influence the visual landscape include the new Small Lot and Citywide Design Guidelines, both of which were developed with the help of Simon Pastucha, head of the Department’s Urban Design Studio, who is featured in our staff spotlight.

Sincerely,

Michael J. loGrande Director of Planning

2'The Day the Music Died' by muralist Levi Ponce in Pacoima.

Mural by Eduardo Kobra on Highland Avenue.

The Mural Ordinance: Continuing Los Angeles’ Rich Mural Traditionby Tom Rothmann - Senior City Planner

Los Angeles is famous for its contributions to global art and culture. Despite this strong reputation, it was illegal to commission murals between 2002 and 2013 because the City did not legally distinguish murals from signs when it enacted the 2002 billboard ban.

The recently adopted Mural Ordinance, written by the Department of City Planning, resolves this problem by clearly distinguishing artistic murals from advertising. Under the ordinance, standard hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind murals are referred to as “original art murals.” To be considered an “original art mural,” works must be painted, tiled, or printed on the exterior wall of a building, and must lack any form of commercial message. For the purpose of the ordinance, commercial messages are those that advertise a business, product, or service.

The ordinance also provides a definition for a “public art installation.” Unlike original art murals, “public art installations” are works that can take practically any shape or form, ranging from lighting displays to public gardens. Like murals, they must be free of commercial messages.

With the Mural Ordinance now in effect, artwork that complies with the requirements can receive mural permits after an artist submits an application and pays a minor fee to the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA). If the DCA determines that a proposed mural includes commercial content, the mural then falls under the purview of the City’s sign regulations.

Beyond encouraging new mural commissions, the ordinance establishes protections for murals once they are complete. Finished murals must remain in place for at least two years, and artists may not modify their completed works. These measures not only protect artistic investment, but also discourage renegade advertising. Murals that pre-date the ordinance are grandfathered into legal nonconforming status so long as they lack commercial content.

Recently, the City Council set aside $750,000 for the promotion of new murals and for the restoration of existing works. Among the treasured murals that may benefit from restoration funds are Judy Baca’s The Great Wall of Los Angeles (in Valley Glen) and George Yepe’s Mujer del Este de Los Angeles (in Boyle Heights). It will be exciting to see how this program, as well as the broader Mural Ordinance policies, will succeed in enhancing our City’s visual landscape in the years ahead.C

Simon Pastucha City Planner

Head of the Department of City Planning’s Urban Design Studio, Simon Pastucha has reviewed and improved the design of major planning, transportation, and neighborhood projects.

Simon graduated from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a degree in Landscape Architecture with an emphasis on Ecosystematic Design and Sustainability, and began his career with the City in 1989. Simon has worked in several Planning sections including Subdivisions, Environmental, and Code Studies, and also served as Chief Planning Deputy for Councilmember Michael Feuer in 1998.

In 2007, Simon was recruited to bring better urban design to the City through its newly created Urban Design Studio. Simon was part of the core team that developed the Downtown Design Guidelines, which resulted in the adoption and implementation of the first context sensitive street solutions for the City. Simon’s approach to urban design has helped ensure that the visual landscape, pedestrian character, and connectivity are priorities on major projects. Most recently, Simon helped create the Small Lot Design Guidelines, which received the Best Practices Award from both the local and state chapters of the American Planning Association (APA). Thanks to the recently approved City budget, the Studio will grow to include a total of three dedicated staff persons, reaffirming that improving the visual landscape is a priority for the City.

In his free time, Simon serves as a Commissioner of the Marina Del Rey Design Control Board and lectures at several major U.S. universities. Simon has been published in periodicals and books on the subject of urban design, streets and code reform.C

3

The Proposed Sign Ordinance: Billboards and the Visual Landscape by Daisy Mo - City Planning Associate

Los Angeles may soon have its long-awaited update to the sign code. The City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee is now considering the City Attorney's draft of the proposed citywide Sign Ordinance, as well as Planning staff ’s recommendations on several outstanding issues. Once the City Council approves the ordinance, the new sign regulations will become effective after more than five years of public debate.

The proposed ordinance would have a marked effect on the role of billboards in the City’s visual landscape. With its vast network of heavily trafficked roadways, Los Angeles has one of the largest and most lucrative billboard markets in the country. At the last reported count, there were about 6,000 billboard structures throughout the City and 9,000 signs. However, many local residents have voiced concerns about the effects of billboard clutter on the City’s neighborhoods and natural beauty, as well as the effects of billboards on driver distraction and safety.

In response to those concerns, the City Council banned new billboards in 2002, but also allowed a variety of exceptions to the ban. After the City was sued, those exceptions were ruled to be too permissive. Following the court’s direction to enact more objective and specific limitations on exceptions to the ban, Planning staff drafted the proposed ordinance.

The proposed ordinance would limit new billboards to Sign Districts, and enact stricter criteria for the establishment of such districts – for example, limiting them primarily to locations planned for Regional Centers, and restricting them in single family zones and along the L.A. River. The visual impacts of new billboards would be offset by the removal of existing billboards in the Sign District or the surrounding area. Finally, streetscape improvements and other community benefits could substitute for a portion of the required billboard removal.

The ordinance would further improve the visual environment by limiting the brightness of digital billboards, and shrinking the allowable size of “supergraphics” to that of wall signs. The new regulations would be supported by a new system of increased penalties for billboards found to be non-compliant.

There is still debate over the amount of billboard removal to be required and the location restrictions on new Sign Districts. The direction that the City Council chooses to take could have a pronounced impact on the City’s visual landscape for decades to come.C

The proposed ordinance would permit new billboards only in designated Sign Districts.

On June 12th, the Los Angeles Section of the American Planning Association (APA) presented the Department of City Planning with a total of six awards. The awards included the following:

• Warner Center 2035 Plan (Implementation Award, Large Jurisdiction)

• Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan (Comprehensive Plan, Large Jurisdiction)

• Small lot Design Guidelines (Planning Best Practice)

• Mural Ordinance (Hard Won Victory)

• los Angeles Centers Concept (Planning Landmark)

• Health Atlas and Neighborhood Health Profiles (Innovative Use of Technology)

The Cornfield Arroyo Seco Specific Plan and Small Lot Design Guidelines also received 2014 Awards of Excellence from the California Chapter of the APA.C

Urban Design Studio staff with APA LA Section Director and Awards Chair.

our MISSIONTo create and implement plans, policies and programs that realize a vision of Los Angeles as a collection of healthy and sustainable neighborhoods, each with a distinct sense of place, based on a foundation of mobility, economic vitality and improved quality of life for all residents.

Edited by: Priya Mehendale & Shannon Ryan Designed by: Los Angeles Department of City Planning Graphic Services Section, September 2014

The Artist Project is a 15 home small lot subdivision in Echo Park.

The above projects successfully execute urban design principles in residential, commercial, and industrial developments.

Shaping the Visual Environment (continued from p.1)

Many neighborhoods in Los Angeles have adopted other design guidelines, whether as part of an Urban Design Chapter of a Community Plan or special zoning designations such as Specific Plans, Community Design Overlay Districts, redevelopment plans, designated historic properties, and Historic Preservation Overlay Zones. The Citywide Design Guidelines apply to all areas, but are particularly applicable to those areas within the City that do not currently have adopted design guidelines. In cases where the Citywide Design Guidelines conflict with a provision in a Community Plan's Urban Design Chapter or a special zoning designation, the community-specific requirements shall prevail.

The guidelines are divided into three typologies: Residential Multi-Family, Commercial, and Industrial. The Department created an easy to follow checklist for each typology. The checklist is required to be submitted with discretionary permit applications.

Small Lot Design Guidelines

Enacted in 2005, the Small Lot Ordinance permits the construction of fee-simple, infill housing on lots in multi-family and commercial zones. Unlike purchasing a condo, fee-simple housing includes ownership of the land as well as the home. While home ownership options have traditionally been limited to a single-family home on a minimum 5,000 square foot lot or to condominiums, the passage of the Small Lot Ordinance extends these options to include townhomes, row houses, and other types of infill housing typically only available for rent.

While the ordinance provides a smart-growth alternative to the suburban single-family home, and creates new options for home ownership, it also brings a new set of spatial complexities. For instance, challenges brought on by neighborhood context and the proximity of adjacent structures require thoughtful consideration about site planning, walkways, massing, height, and transitional areas from adjacent properties.

The Small Lot Design Guidelines were issued by the Director of Planning to address these complexities while also promoting the creation of small lot housing with neighborhood compatibility and consistency with applicable General and Specific Plans. The guidelines outline recommendations for site organization and urban form, setbacks and building transitions, parking and driveways, building design and materials, and landscaping and access. The recommendations help to guide decision-makers to ensure that a project is well designed for future residents and compatible with its surroundings.

During the spring and summer of last year, the Department provided training on the Citywide Design Guidelines for City staff, developers, designers, and advisory and decision-making bodies. The Department recently hosted a multi-hour training session on the Small Lot Guidelines with over 100 developers in attendance. The Citywide Design Guidelines and Small Lot Guidelines are available online at urbandesignla.com/resources.C

As a covered entity under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the City of Los Angeles does not discriminate on the basis of disability and, upon request, will provide reasonable accommodation to ensure equal access to its programs, services and activities.