Zev tours growth areas in a fury

Ordinarily I don't get carsick, but Zev Yaroslavsky was behind the wheel, and the L.A. County supervisor was in a lather as he zoomed from one neighborhood to another.

Hollywood, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Mid-City all went by in a flash.

"Look at this," he said, turning off Wilshire Boulevard and shooting up La Brea. The one-story buildings are likely to become four- or five-story buildings if City Hall planners keep giving developers everything they want, Yaroslavsky griped.

"What is the reason?" he asked incredulously, pointing out a view of the Hollywood Hills that would be obliterated. "What is the reason?"

He'd already told me the reason earlier, when he gave me a quick primer in his living room.

"The planners in this city are bamboozling people, including some of the members of City Council," he said, tossing one cluster bomb after another on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning.

He drew diagrams on my note pad, explained how protections against overdevelopment are being plundered, charged that claims of new affordable housing are bogus and predicted that quiet neighborhoods of single-family homes will be thrown into permanent shadows by towering behemoths.

It's an apocalyptic view, but is he right that city officials have handed over control to developers?

Zev is an ambitious guy, after all. Might this criticism be the start of a run for mayor as the crowd-pleasing populist who speaks up for beleaguered citizens?

City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who represents a part of the San Fernando Valley that Zev pointed to as ripe for abuse by developers, thinks some of Yaroslavsky's concerns are valid, but she disagreed with the notion that city officials are not listening to residents and trying to protect their interests.

Don't worry, she said, trying to reassure me that Zev and the rest of us don't have to worry about developers pulling the strings at City Hall.

Don't worry? With all their talk of "infill" and creating a denser core, city officials have done little to allay the fears of those who believe, as Yaroslavsky does, that developers are enjoying one heck of an orgy these days and that it's now easier than ever to get approval for larger buildings and fewer parking spaces.

Hundreds of residents showed up three weeks ago at a meeting to register complaints about seven proposed mega-projects in the North Hollywood/Universal City area. And even city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher has warned that the density-promoting housing rules approved by the city in February are "ripe for litigation."