ARB Gives Initial Thumbs Down to Controversial Planning Proposal

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

March 23 -- Calling it “dangerous,” “frightening” and “draconian,” an alarmed Architectural Review Board Monday night rejected a controversial staff proposal to speed up the City’s notoriously lengthy review process by eliminating the board’s oversight of projects in the Downtown.

The proposal would reduce by six to eight weeks the long public review process -- stretching anywhere from nine months to two years -- by replacing the ARB’s function with a new set of design guidelines.

If projects under 30,000 square feet (and in most cases 60,000 with housing bonuses) meet the guidelines, they would be approved by staff with no public process.

The guidelines formulated by City staff and the Roma Design consulting firm envisions a Downtown populated with European-style open courtyard complexes rising to six-story heights (a floor above the current limit).

But ARB members worried that the guidelines amounted to prototypes destined to encourage more cookie-cutter architecture, while Craig Jones, Downtown’s biggest developer, cautioned that they would “end up crushing all development.”

The board’s concerns echoed those of the Planning Commission, which for the sake of expediency, only hears such projects on appeal. Last week, the commission refused to recommend both proposals to the City Council, which is scheduled to review them next month.

Appearing flabbergasted, board vice-chair Joan Charles called the proposal a “draconian approach to the problem. It’s a very frightening direction to go in,” she said.

“I think it is very dangerous to remove public input from the process,” said board member Iris Oliveras. “The danger is that you are making the public process private.” She added that the process already seems to be in the hands of “developers, (City) staff and attorneys.”

Oliveras worried that members of the public would not be able to share information about problems with existing buildings that could help a developer avoid repeating those same mistakes.

Board member Howard Laks seemed to echo those concerns. “So members of the public would not have any opportunity to comment on the proposed project if it is deemed to comply with the guidelines?”

“That’s correct,” replied Stephanie Reich, the City’s urban designer.

Laks calculated that the number of projects falling under the proposal amounts to 40 percent of the board’s workload. “That’s a lot of projects to lose the opportunity of review by the public,” Laks said.

City staff contended the proposal -- which reverses a 2002 policy developed for stricter public oversight of Downtown projects -- would create predictability in the process and free up the board “to really focus on broader policy issues.”

“I didn’t know it was our job to review policy,” Charles responded. “We’re the reviewers of (design) details.”

City Councilman Ken Genser, acting as the board’s liaison, agreed. “I don’t think that’s why the ARB was formed. It seems like staff is recommending a sea change… asking for predictability at the cost of public input.”

Board member William Adams had “mixed feelings.” While he understood the advantages of introducing speed and predictability into the process, Adams said, “I feel like a gear rat trying to preserve his job.”

The public, consisting of two people present at the meeting, was squarely split over the issue.

Allen Freeman, a “smart-growth” advocate, thought the proposals would help keep the City “progressive.”

“We have a great downtown, one of the best downtowns in California,” said Freeman, who works for Craig Jones. “These standards will help us remain a progressive city.”

But Ellen Brennan, who heads the South Beach Neighborhood Association, said the proposal was a “power grab that takes your breath away.”

“The design guidelines before you silence your voice, silence the voice of the Planning Commission and silence the voice of the public,” Brennan said. “Maybe that would be neater for staff and for the developer, but it flies in the face of the fact that this is our city.”

The proposal to transfer approval power is a reversal of a November 2002 interim ordinance that lowered the Planning Commission’s oversight threshold to projects over 7,500 square feet as a response to increasing concerns over the design quality of Downtown buildings. The new proposal and the new guidelines were developed to replace the ordinance due to expire on June 24.

Most board members seemed equally critical of the new design guidelines, which consultants contend simply update and add creativity and flexibility to the old design guidelines, which overemphasized the commercialization of the Downtown atmosphere at the expense of livability.

The criteria for the new prototypes are “based on real human values… to avoid the warehousing of people moving in and out” of the area encompassing 5th and 7th Streets, and Colorado and Wilshire Boulevards, said Boris Dramov of Roma Design.

Open courtyards would increase solar access by 30 percent and provide visual breaks, while creating a sense of neighborhood and community, Dramov said. Furthermore, the courtyards not only wouldn’t significantly encroach into retail space, they would in fact provide the opportunity for unique outdoor retail spaces.

The courtyards would also challenge architects to be creative with spacing, while the elimination of “wedding-cake” setback regulations would add design flexibility and encourage creativity in massing, Dramov said.

To further increase a sense of community, Dramov proposed widening the sidewalks, and narrowing the streets to two lanes by eliminating “the middle suicide lane,” which would calm the traffic and create a residential environment.

“What we’re talking about is not cheap, and it’s not easy, but it is pushing the envelope to the benefit of the community,” Dramov said. “If you do this, you will be one of the unique downtowns in California and in the country.”

But Craig Jones, who has built more than 500 units Downtown, called the proposed guidelines “ominous,” while most ARB members rejected the idea that they would encourage creativity.

Courtyards and 65-foot-high buildings require “type 2 construction,” Jones said, which is “prohibitively expensive,” and would prevent developers from capitalizing on the extra floor allowance. So while the standards are “beautiful in concept,” Jones said, they would end up “crushing all development just because of the cost.”

“It’s a beautiful set of guidelines that can produce some magnificent buildings, but they’re scary from a marketplace standpoint,” Jones said.

Jones also contended that the one-shoe-fits-all mentality of mandating courtyards in every building is unrealistic, and would undermine the advantages of the new approval process by forcing upon developers standards they couldn’t possibly satisfy -- sending them right back to the ARB.

“The reality is that we will probably be coming before you many, many times, and it’s unrealistic to presume every building is going to be a courtyard building, and that every building is going to escape the discretionary review of the ARB,” said Jones.

At the same time, Jones enthusiastically favored eliminating the ARB from the process, which he said is more cumbersome than the City cares to admit.

For example, Jones said, he went five rounds with the board to get an approval, which was appealed to the Planning Commission by the public for a $100 fee, sending the project through another five rounds of review.

“It’s a waste of your time, it’s a waste of staff time, and you don’t get better buildings,” Jones said.

Board member Oliveras said the new prototype has brought the board “full circle” to November 2002, when the ARB took action to prevent cookie-cutter designs.

“We now have cookie-cutter design being prescribed,” she said. “I’m concerned by the lack of freedom and lack of creativity” inherent in the guidelines.

Other board members concurred.

“I don’t think that replacing one type of building with another promotes flexibility,” said Charles, while Laks worried the new guidelines would result in “a lot of buildings looking the same.”