Neighborhood activists in the northeast San Fernando Valley thought they scored a major victory in 1995, when they persuaded Los Angeles officials to approve zoning rules to keep new buildings on Foothill Boulevard from blocking their hillside views.
But under a proposal headed to the City Council today, those height restrictions -- limiting some buildings to 45 feet and others to 33 -- could be rolled back for real estate developers who promise to build condominiums or apartments with at least a few units of low-income housing.
The concept infuriates Cindy Cleghorn, president of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council, who said her neighborhood spent years fighting for passage of the zoning plan, which applies to Foothill and several surrounding streets.
"We have a plan with limits and guidelines . . . that was developed by people who are active in the community," Cleghorn said. "They put a lot of work and effort into it. And now something comes along that knocks a hole in it."
The proposal is the latest bid by the city's Planning Department to fuel the construction of affordable housing in the wake of a housing boom that caused thousands of rent-controlled apartments to be demolished or converted to condominiums. Yet it also threatens to undermine confidence in zoning plans produced by that same department.
If the council approves the proposal, developers of subsidized housing would qualify for new, more generous "density bonuses" -- permission to build projects with up to 35% more homes than zoning allows.
They would also get the chance to weaken other established planning rules governing building height, the number of new parking spaces required and the amount of open space that must accompany a new development project.
That puts the city's politicians and planners on a collision course with neighborhood groups across the city who thought they had finally gotten the ear of City Hall.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top appointee on development issues, Planning Director Gail Goldberg, swept into her post two years ago with a promise to update a dozen "community plans," documents that spell out the zoning and height limits for one or more neighborhoods.
Goldberg invited residents of San Pedro, Sylmar, South Los Angeles, West Los Angeles, Granada Hills and half a dozen other communities to get involved in rewriting the community plans, saying the three-year effort would give them the opportunity to decide how their neighborhoods should grow -- and make the planning process less unpredictable.
