He Fought City Hall's Planners; Now He Is One

So now what is Gordon Murley supposed to do when he has a beef with the South Valley Regional Planning Commission -- look in a mirror?

Well, yes.

The San Fernando Valley activist, for decades a fierce critic of the Los Angeles Planning Department, recently moved to the other side of the podium as a member of the South Valley Regional Planning Commission, a recent appointee of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

So instead of panning the commissioners' decisions, he will be sitting there as one of them.

Murley said he does not anticipate conflict as a result of his sudden role reversal. If anything, he said, his decades of studying development proposals, zoning variances and building codes, and attending meetings make him uniquely qualified to perform the job.

"I was asked by the mayor to be part of it," said Murley, who attended his first meeting as a commissioner Oct. 27. "Since I think highly of Antonio, I said, 'OK, if you think I can serve.' "

Murley first burst onto the scene in 1983 when he and other residents, upset over extremely large homes being built on tiny lots, formed the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization to lobby for development restrictions.

The group's work led to the passage of Los Angeles' historic "mansionization" law, which limits the size of houses that can be built on residential lots.

He also was a strong advocate for city limits restricting housing density on hillside slopes and for adoption of the city's first specific plan for a neighborhood, a document that sets guidelines for development within a defined area.

He said all this led him to learn firsthand how the city's planning process works.

"I studied and asked people questions and got to know important people in the city," he said. "I bought a city code book so I would know what the heck was coming up. Zoning administrators were willing to discuss things with me. It was like taking a graduate course."

After serving as the first president of the homeowners' association, Murley was elected president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations, an organization of homeowners' groups in the Valley.

One of Murley's longest-running battles was the Warner Ridge project near Warner Center, where a developer sued the city for the right to build a mixed-use complex on the site. Murley expressed concern that the judge would rule in the developer's favor.