LOS ANGELES | Countywide Project Rundown Megathread

[craigs]

Originally Posted by JSW

Mods? Anybody? This thread is once again infested with politics. I don't see other city topics with this problem, but it keeps happening here.

I second the call for removing the politics from this thread.

[SoCalKid]

Originally Posted by JSW

Mods? Anybody? This thread is once again infested with politics. I don't see other city topics with this problem, but it keeps happening here.

It's not general politics being discussed. It's the city government's policies affecting development (e.g. Measure ULA) being discussed. If discussions of what is preventing development are not allowed here, then this is nothing more than a construction picture forum. I for one think that would be a big mistake.

[caligrad]

LOL a measures that affects the city and its developments are fair game since this page needs to be more than pretty pictures that don't change much year over year thanks to these hindering measures. its a city discussion forum. That being said. We went from averaging 5-7 big proposals a year down to 1-2 if we're lucky? LOL Onni being the undefeated champ of the LA red tape circus.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by ocman_

It's a mutual relationship that props up all of LA county. Any time the LA City council comes up with a massively stupid idea, or the public passes idiocy like measure ULA, I thank god other cities in LA County aren't affected by it so at least their economies can thrive.

Disagreed. ULA was a good idea, but it was written and is implemented improperly. Commercial and multifamily should be exempt, and the law passed by the majority of us Angelenos should be amended accordingly.

Originally Posted by kittyhawk28

SoCal is blessed by the fact LA City only makes up 40% of LA County's population, and < 25% of the broader metro area. Any idiotic laws passed in LA City (Measure ULA, gross receipts tax discouraging business) don't affect the other cities across SoCal. The lack of ULA in all of the region's cities sans LA and Santa Monica, and friendly business environment in places like OC and South Bay for aerospace and advanced manufacturing, allows the region to still thrive even in spite of idiotic LA city laws. It even provides a floor for how low LA proper can go since it can always become a bedroom community while businesses/development concentrate in the rest of the county and region and see indirect economic benefits.

The entire region's homeless population has deliberately been concentrated in the city of Los Angeles, especially--but not exclusively--in Skid Row. If Orange County had Skid Row, you had better believe that they would be passing a law like ULA . . . pushing the homeless into downtown Los Angeles.

Originally Posted by LAsam

I agree that having dozens of independent cities in LA County provides a useful check against bad policy in the City of Los Angeles. If LA adopts taxes, regulations, or land-use policies that make investment less attractive, places like Beverly Hills, Culver City, Pasadena, El Segundo, or the South Bay can benefit at the margin because businesses and capital have nearby alternatives.

Beverly Hills? Wayyyy more restrictive on new development than Los Angeles is. So, too, are Santa Monica and Burbank.

Originally Posted by SoCalKid

It's not general politics being discussed. It's the city government's policies affecting development (e.g. Measure ULA) being discussed. If discussions of what is preventing development are not allowed here, then this is nothing more than a construction picture forum. I for one think that would be a big mistake.

Okay, then, I'm joining the party. Let both sides violate forum rules.

Originally Posted by caligrad

LOL a measures that affects the city and its developments are fair game since this page needs to be more than pretty pictures that don't change much year over year thanks to these hindering measures. its a city discussion forum. That being said. We went from averaging 5-7 big proposals a year down to 1-2 if we're lucky? LOL Onni being the undefeated champ of the LA red tape circus.

The fact that you prefer your political posts over "pretty pictures" of projects and development in the Los Angeles Projects & Construction thread says it all. I don't like Bass, but I'm glad Caruso lost because he is against the city's best interests, and Pratt is a twatt because he is a NIMBY who opposes dense new development anywhere in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Nithya Raman got her urban planning degree from MIT (and attended classes with an ex-forumer's wife), so I think she would be a better choice than Bass--who doesn't seem to understand urban planning at all.

[Illithid Dude]

Santa Monica has a relatively pro housing city council rn that just did something very smart - they detached inclusionary zoning affordable housing from the actual projects. Instead of new projects having to include housing that will be affordable in perpetuity, developers can now pay a finite sum to have that housing built elsewhere. Now, combined with the generally higher rents Santa Monica commands, new housing is sprouting up. That's more than one can say about Los Angeles!

[citywatch]

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re LA city govt, when it was different decades ago, dtla was in decline. Yet certain important changes occurred back then too. The major redevelopment projs of the 1950s or 1960s are unthinkable today. But decades of limited devlpt forced that tactic onto LA...other cities in SoCal too.

Real estate devlpt over 50 yrs ago throughout the LA region in certain ways was so weak, govnt assistance was needed to get things done.

Today's LA city govt is very different & dtla again is in decline. More local city officials are apathetic about devlpt...a lot of their voters are NIMBY or anti-gentrification.

LA's movie & TV industry yrs ago had a monopoly on production....that's now just the opposite. When the signature business of LA was booming, other aspects of LA were kind of weak. Now certain things that were weak decades ago are better, but Hollywood...meaning the place, LA...Socal...is falling.

NYC is losing some of its banking, investment industry, but it's grabbing onto a lot of LA's movie & TV production. LA isn't grabbing the businesses once in NYC that are instead moving to Florida, Tennessee or Texas, but it's also losing a lot of its movie & TV industry. But some new aerospace companies have set up shop in Long beach or the south bay, but dtla is out of that loop.

Teeter totter. But right now dtla is again going through a decline...so it's taking a trip back to the future.

[JSW]

This is a great way to kill the LA megathread, mods, good job. And you'd better leave craigs' post if you're gonna let everything else stay.

Personally, I'm out. There are much better actual dev news aggregators out there like Urbanize. citywatch is easy to block, but if we are just letting everyone pile on this place is done.

[citywatch]

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btw, ppl who never add posts to this thread about the subj of dtla...& now of LA & SoCal in general....& instead spend time complaining about other users don't really seem interested in the point of this forum.

But lots of the internet, particularly youtube or instagram, will get millions of users posting under threads where already 500, 1,000 or 5,000 other comments have been added. Never sure what's the point of that.....it comes off like a lonely hearts club.

Personally, I'm not interested in this page as a social forum....opinions that don't come with inside scoops or direct experience generally don't interest me. I also try avoiding replies to other posts unless I can add some info or angle that hasn't already been raised.

And if my posts aren't read or interesting to others, that's fine with me. This thread through the yrs has helped me mull things over, if only for myself & to myself.

[Build_SD_Maxwell]

Originally Posted by JSW

This is a great way to kill the LA megathread, mods, good job. And you'd better leave craigs' post if you're gonna let everything else stay.

Personally, I'm out. There are much better actual dev news aggregators out there like Urbanize. citywatch is easy to block, but if we are just letting everyone pile on this place is done.

Seconding this, like can yall be like normal here.
Skyscraper page is a great place to be, we already have enough politics to deal with in our personal lives, no need to have these circular conversations here as well. While politics can affect development, not everything yall are talking about is development related, and the conversations certainly dont seem respectful.
Citywatch is a whole other issue but if we want this forum to keep going and be a great place to be, drop some of these pointless conversations.

[citywatch]

Patrick Price, architecturaldigest.com

“George and Mellody’s idea was to bring people, especially young people, together in a democratic, nonexclusionary way, to make them eager to see what’s inside this building,” Ma says of his early inspiration. “My design tries to engage those people through atmosphere and emotions, not architecture.” Spanning 300,000 square feet, his five-story scheme is a tour de force of biomorphic engineering, utilizing more than 1,500 individually crafted panels of curved fiberglass-reinforced polymer. Dramatic cantilevers allow the building to meet the ground delicately, as if the structure were floating above the site.

The extraordinary level of detail within the building, from the gift shop kiosks to the radiused elevator cabs, testifies to the care and cost that Lucas, Hobson, and their designers lavished on the project. “These are not the kind of details you find in a shopping mall, but we didn’t want them to be too obtrusive,” Ma says.

Incidentally, nothing stranger than seeing users who rarely post to this thread suddenly popping out of the woodwork to discuss not about topics like what's being built in LA or socal, but about other users. I don't think the purpose of this thread...at least for me...is for socializing or psychoanalyzing....or to be like student cliques sitting at different tables of the high school cafeteria & gossiping about the other groups.

Even this is more relevant to this thread...& a new museum in LA may influence what's going on in orange county, & vice versa.


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[caligrad]

Originally Posted by craigs

Disagreed. ULA was a good idea, but it was written and is implemented improperly. Commercial and multifamily should be exempt, and the law passed by the majority of us Angelenos should be amended accordingly.

The fact that you prefer your political posts over "pretty pictures" of projects and development in the Los Angeles Projects & Construction thread says it all. I don't like Bass, but I'm glad Caruso lost because he is against the city's best interests, and Pratt is a twatt because he is a NIMBY who opposes dense new development anywhere in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Nithya Raman got her urban planning degree from MIT (and attended classes with an ex-forumer's wife), so I think she would be a better choice than Bass--who doesn't seem to understand urban planning at all.

So if we were to speak highly of ULA ( as others have) you wouldn't have complained, it happened on the old thread where you chimed in to cosign on your agreement. But. Because people don't like it and the outright cratering in proposals that it has caused, NOW its political and CALL THE MODS! lol that's my point.

of course i love pretty pictures, development news, new proposals, new parks, new city planning ideas and rainbows and sunshine But, talking about measures and ordinances that affect these things AREN'T political. Ranting about Bass, Raman, Caruso and that whole paragraph you wrote ironically IS political . We must understand the difference. Cant scream for mods just because people dont like the same ideas you do.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by caligrad

So if we were to speak highly of ULA ( as others have) you wouldn't have complained, it happened on the old thread where you chimed in to cosign on your agreement. But. Because people don't like it and the outright cratering in proposals that it has caused, NOW its political and CALL THE MODS! lol that's my point.

of course i love pretty pictures, development news, new proposals, new parks, new city planning ideas and rainbows and sunshine But, talking about measures and ordinances that affect these things AREN'T political. Ranting about Bass, Raman, Caruso and that whole paragraph you wrote ironically IS political . We must understand the difference. Cant scream for mods just because people dont like the same ideas you do.

And you agree with other forumers who posted against ULA, which is why you did not respond to them like you did to me. That is the inherent nature of these political discussions that you guys insist we be having in this thread. Plus, I connected all of my points to how they impact the city, especially the part about Raman being an MIT-trained urban planner. A former forumer's wife was in the same MUP program and speaks highly of her. It would be awesome to have an urban planner as mayor.

[SoCalKid]

Are you seriously trying to argue that ULA is not directly a development issue. Talk to literally any for-profit developer in Los Angeles and they will tell you ULA is far and above the number 1 issue in development in Los Angeles.

Source: I'm a developer and am ingrained in the development circles in LA.

[citywatch]

this is old news, but I like the way the questioner didn't sugar coat what's going on in dtla...

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Now 3 months later, however, at least the graffiti towers are being worked on. But dealing with the problems of LA are easier said than done, & talk is cheap.

this was just enacted by LA city govt. Not sure how this will affect areas of LA & their residents & visitors. Devlprs & investors follow what city officials are or aren't doing...


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[craigs]

Originally Posted by SoCalKid

Are you seriously trying to argue that ULA is not directly a development issue. Talk to literally any for-profit developer in Los Angeles and they will tell you ULA is far and above the number 1 issue in development in Los Angeles.

Source: I'm a developer and am ingrained in the development circles in LA.

If you're talking to me, then you must have missed this:

Originally Posted by craigs

ULA was a good idea, but it was written and is implemented improperly. Commercial and multifamily should be exempt, and the law passed by the majority of us Angelenos should be amended accordingly.

[Illithid Dude]

By the way if you want to see good governance Santa Monica is currently building out a fairly substantial network of concrete protected bike lanes. Right now they go down Broadway, Ocean Ave, 17th Street, and about a quarter of 26th. There may be even more, but this is just what I have personally seen. According to this video that for some reason I can't embed, they are planning a very substantial build out. LA should take some notes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVSAzNTcF9s

[scania]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

Santa Monica has a relatively pro housing city council rn that just did something very smart - they detached inclusionary zoning affordable housing from the actual projects. Instead of new projects having to include housing that will be affordable in perpetuity, developers can now pay a finite sum to have that housing built elsewhere. Now, combined with the generally higher rents Santa Monica commands, new housing is sprouting up. That's more than one can say about Los Angeles!

You are so Pro SM and Anti DTLA, it's not even funny.

[longtimecommuter]

I've had enough of the political posts and commentary here. This is not the forum for it.

[Illithid Dude]

Originally Posted by scania

You are so Pro SM and Anti DTLA, it's not even funny.

Man, I'm just talking about bikelanes and smart policy. I would be just as happy if LA did the same.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Illithid Dude

Man, I'm just talking about bikelanes and smart policy. I would be just as happy if LA did the same.

Per this LA Times article, Karen Bass stopped protected bike lanes from being added to Forest Lawn Drive, but Nithya Raman is in favor of them.