AIA|LA UDC Presents...Building Bike-Culture in Los Angeles :: Wednesday, June 19 (6:30 - 8:30pm)

AIA|LA Urban Design Committee Presents...

Building Bike-Culture in Los Angeles

Wednesday, June 19 (6:30pm - 8:30pm)

AIA Los Angeles

3780 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 800

Los Angeles, CA  90010

RSVP to will@aialosangeles.org - Limited Capacity.

Guest Speakers:

Aaron Paley, Executive Director, CicLAvia

Emily Duchon, Senior Designer ALTA Planning + Design

Ryan Johnson, Planner, ALTA Planning + Design

CicLAvia has helped propelled bikes and bike culture into Los Angeles’ mainstream. What started out as an import from Bogota in 2010 was quickly adopted in LA culture. At the same time the City of Los Angeles has adopted a wide-ranging Bicycle Master Plan and is improving bike infrastructure around the city.

Please join us for a presentation and discussion of how bikes are changing how we move and experience Los Angeles and where we go from here.

Speaker Bios:

Aaron Paley is a co-founder and the Executive Director of CicLAvia. He has been producing, consulting and creating events in public spaces for the past 27 years. He is the president of Community Arts Resources.

Emily Duchon is a Senior Designer for Alta Planning + Design, a firm focused on improving active transportation. Emily’s creativity, energy and ten years of experience in ecological design give her the tools to create vibrant active transportation networks in communities. Her work includes complete street design, bicycle facility design, and pedestrian and trail master plans and designs. As a landscape architect, Emily is experienced in taking projects from concept design through construction. 

Ryan Johnson is a Planner in the Los Angeles office of Alta Planning + Design. A 2012 graduate of the UCLA Urban Planning program, Ryan’s experience includes bicycle and pedestrian counts and infrastructure audits, transit station access plans, bikeways planning, and safety education. Locally, he is involved in a Metro station access study, as well as several Safe Routes to School initiatives. Ryan is a board member of the Young Professionals in Transportation Los Angeles chapter, an active volunteer for the LA County Bicycle Coalition, and a certified League Cycling Instructor.

Job Opportunity :: The Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust

LANLT_Project_Manager_Job_Description03-14-13.pdf Download this file

BIG WIN TODAY - LA County Supervisors vote down storm water parcel tax measure

FYI.......

BizFed Leaders,

 

Today we are pleased to report that the LA County Board of Supervisors voted NOT TO PROCEED with the proposed “Clean Water, Clean Beaches” parcel tax measure.  This is a big victory for the business community, and indeed for all of the diverse stakeholders who ultimately concluded that too many problems remained with the proposal.  BizFed’s Water Quality Parcel Tax Working Group, chaired by Mike Lewis, Construction Industry Coalition on Water Quality, has engaged in months of detailed and painstaking work on this issue.  While we appreciate the good-faith efforts of the Department of Public Works to address our various concerns (and they did make some improvements), far too many problems remained.  (A copy of our talking points are attached, which detail the substantive problems that were never resolved.)

THANK YOU to the broad and diverse group of BizFed members and others who joined with our BizFed Coalition to speak out at hearings, in Supervisors’ offices, in writing, in the press, and on the phone to make sure the voice of the business community was heard!

Here is a summary of the joint motion offered by Supervisors Molina and Knabe and seconded by Supervisor Antonovich, which passed by a 4-1 vote:

·         The Board of Supervisors shall close the Protest Hearing and not proceed with the Clean Water, Clean Beaches Measure at this time.

·         Instructs the LA County Chief Executive Officer to send a letter to the Regional Water Quality Control Board requesting that the Board work with DPW and the cities in the County to educate the public about storm water pollution.

·         Instruct the CEO and DPW to continue to work with the business community, school districts, and non-profits to address their concerns.

·         Direct the CEO to report back regarding the necessary steps the County must take should the Board decide to place this item on a general election ballot, and determine potential future election dates, with the goal of either the June 2014 or November 2014 ballot, to ensure transparency to the public.

·         Instruct DPW to provide the Board with quarterly status reports, the first of which being in 90 days, including the status of the Regional Water Quality Control Board's implementation and enforcement of the MS4 permit and a report of all existing revenues that could be used for storm water pollution compliance.

·         Instruct DPW to designate a staff person within the department to act as the Unincorporated Storm Water Manager, who will report quarterly on storm water compliance in the unincorporated areas.

(Note: Supervisor Antonovich ultimately voted against the motion because he believes storm water cleanup is a federal and state, and not a county, responsibility.)

One key problem with the “Clean Water, Clean Beaches” proposal was the insistence that it be pursued as a Proposition 218 fee, which blocked the County’s ability to develop a more fair, effective, efficient approach.  (For example, existing regulated permit holders, property owners already paying for 100% mitigation, and other categories of property cannot legally be exempted from fees under a Prop 218 process.)  The motion passed today makes it crystal clear that, should anything move forward at a future date, it must go to a general election ballot, which opens the door to more fair, effective, win-win solutions to address storm water pollution.

Please take a moment to thank the LA County Board of Supervisors for their leadership.  Send them each a quick note like this: “I join BizFed in thanking you for stopping the ‘Clean Water, Clean Beaches’ parcel tax from moving forward.  Your show of leadership today protects us from paying for a flawed plan and paves the way for a future, collaborative process to develop a fair and effective solution that could earn the broad support necessary to actually solve the problem.”  Here are their email addresses:

• Supervisor Gloria Molina, molina@bos.lacounty.gov
• Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, MarkRidley-Thomas@bos.lacounty.gov
• Supervisor Zev Yaroslakvy, zev@bos.lacounty.gov
• Supervisor Don Knabe, don@bos.lacounty.gov
• Supervisor Michael Antonovich, fifthdistrict@lacbos.org

The challenge of complying with regional, state, and federal storm water requirements isn’t going away, and the Board clearly expects continued dialogue seeking to address the problem, so BizFed will continue to stay engaged.  Today’s victory demonstrates the effective voice we can have when the business community stands together.  Congratulations!

 

Warm Regards,

 

Tracy

 

Tracy Rafter, CEO

BizFed, Los Angeles County Business Federation

818.429.0862 ~ tracy.rafter@bizfed.org

bizfed.org

A Grass Roots Alliance of 100 Top LA County Business Groups

Mobilizing Over 185,000 Businesses

LA County _Clean Water, Clean Beaches_ Measure Talking Points - March 12....docx Download this file

REDUCING CRIME BY SHAPING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT WITH ZONING: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF LOS ANGELES

Synopsis From Andrew Wolfberg (Member Pacific Palisades Community Council and Land Use Committee).

Land-use zoning may be able to reduce crime in urban areas, study finds

Using zoning laws to shape the type of development and activity that occur in a neighborhood may be one way to reduce crime in urban areas, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Studying high-crime areas in the city of Los Angeles, researchers found that city blocks that included both residential and commercial zoning purposes experienced less crime than nearby blocks zoned primarily for commercial purposes. Crime was lowest in blocks zoned for residential-only uses, even in relatively high crime neighborhoods.

The study found that single-use commercially zoned blocks in Los Angeles have crime rates that are 45 percent higher than similar blocks that include residential uses.

"At least in the case of a city like Los Angeles, zoning matters -- an important fraction of reported crime is associated with the kind of zoning on a city block," said James M. Anderson, the study's lead author and a behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "These results suggest both researchers and policymakers should pay more attention to the ways in which zoning and other land-use policies can affect crime."

Policymakers have long debated the effect that city planning and zoning can have on crime. Some experts have urged diverse uses of land in order to create an urban environment that encourages "eyes on the street" to deter crime.

But there has been relatively little objective research designed to test these theories and most of the studies that have occurred have focused on older cities in the eastern United States.

The study by Anderson, co-principal investigator John MacDonald of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues uses stronger scientific methods than previous studies and focuses on a younger city -- Los Angeles-- that has land-use patterns that are more typical of where urban growth is occurring today. The results are published in the February edition of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

Researchers examined the relationship between land-use law, the built environment and crime using detailed block-level crime information from July 2010 to January 2011 and detailed observations about 205 blocks in eight relatively high-crime areas in Los Angeles. In addition, researchers conducted a separate analysis of the relationship between changes in land-use zoning and crime in all neighborhoods in Los Angeles from 1994 to 2010.

The central finding of the study is that blocks in the study area that include both residential and commercial zoning uses experienced less crime than blocks that are zoned for primarily commercial purposes.

Overall, crime was lowest on blocks zoned for residential-only uses, even in relatively high crime neighborhoods. Researchers say the finding suggests that efforts to reduce crime by introducing commercial activities in residential areas are probably misguided.

The study also found that when neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles undergo some change in zoning, mostly toward residential uses, crime drops more than it does in neighborhoods with comparable crime trends before the zoning change. In these cases, crime dropped by about 7 percent on average, mostly as a result of fewer automobile-related property crimes.

This finding is consistent with the apparent crime-reducing effects of residential development that was found in the first study, researchers say.

"Our findings suggest that strategic decisions about zoning could be part of the overall crime prevention strategy in urban areas," MacDonald said. "However, our findings are based on one city and should be replicated by additional studies."

Researchers suggest it would be good to test the study's conclusions with a small-scale experiment in which a limited set of proposed zoning changes could be permitted randomly to see if the benefits of zoning changes reduce crime in neighborhoods.

The city blocks examined in the study were drawn from the communities of Boyle Heights, Highland Park, Hollywood, San Pedro, South Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles, West Adams and Westlake.

###

Support for the study was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Public Health Law Research program. Other authors of the study are Ricky Bluthenthal of the University of Southern California and J. Scott Ashwood of RAND.

The project was conducted within the RAND Safety and Justice Program, which conducts public policy research on corrections, policing, public safety and occupational safety.

Best Regards,
George

Full Text:  

AndersonMacdonaldBluthenthalAshwood161U.Pa.L.Rev.699(2013).pdf Download this file

Engage Your Local Government Officials on CEQA Reform

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Recruit your local government officials to sign on to letter in support of CEQA modernization _________________________________________________________________________ CEQA Working Group Coalition:    The road to accomplishing meaningful CEQA modernization this year will be tough and engaging support from local government officials will be critical. Today we are asking for your help in this regard.    We have put together an open letter to the Governor and Legislature in support of CEQA modernization and are in the process of gathering endorsements from local government officials from all over the state.    Please reach out city council members, mayors, county supervisors and other local officials in your area today and encourage them to sign on to the letter.    We have dedicated a page on our website to make this easy.    Read the letter here and share this link:  http://bit.ly/Z6p1Yr   Thanks for your continued partnership and support.

Forward email This email was sent to will@aialosangeles.org by afrew@bcfpublicaffairs.com |   Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. CEQA Working Group | 1121 L Street, #803 | Sacramento | CA | 95814

AIA|LA Breakfast Reception w/ MARTIN CAVERLY - Friday, March 15 (8am - 9:30am)

We have a few extra seats available for our upcoming breakfast reception w/ Martin Caverly.  

The 2013 AIA|LA City Leaders Breakfast Series ::

the tenth annual AIA|LA Breakfast Series
Presented by YOUR FIRM NAME HERE!
MARTIN CAVERLY

Chief Executive Officer, EVOQ PROPERTIES 

WHEN: 

Friday, March 15 (8:00 - 9:30am)
WHERE: 

Alston & Bird LLP

333 South Hope Street, 16th Floor

Los Angeles, CA  90071

TO REGISTER TO ATTEND, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

The 2013 AIA|LA City Leaders Breakfast Series ::

The 2013 AIA|LA CITY LEADERS BREAKFAST SERIES serves as an opportunity for architects & designers and other community stakeholders to meet directly with key individuals transforming Los Angeles in a roundtable setting to discuss innovative ideas that will ensure a healthy, sustainable and economically competitive future.  

MARTIN CAVERLY  Chief Executive Officer, EVOQ PROPERTIES 

Mr. Caverly is a seasoned real estate private equity investor with over 20 years of direct and platform real estate investing experience. Prior to joining EVOQ Properties, Mr. Caverly founded a real estate consulting, advisory, and principal investing firm, 2120 Partners, focused on fundraising, operational and investing strategies for existing real estate platforms and institutional and high net worth investors. Mr. Caverly was previously a Principal at O’Connor Capital Partners where he opened and headed all West Coast operations for the firm. Mr. Caverly also held senior positions with Security Capital Group in Chicago and Tishman Speyer in London where he was the head of European acquisitions for Tishman’s core and opportunistic funds. While in London, Mr. Caverly cofounded Centric Telecom, a real estate technology company sponsored by Goldman Sachs and Providence Equity Partners. Mr. Caverly began his career at Citigroup Real Estate in New York. Mr. Caverly holds a BA from Harvard University and received his MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Mr. Caverly is a frequent panel speaker and an active member of numerous real estate organizations.

The 2013 AIA|LA City Leaders Breakfast Series ::

What?

The 2013 AIA|LA CITY LEADERS BREAKFAST SERIES serves as an opportunity for architects & designers and other community stakeholders to meet directly with key individuals transforming Los Angeles in a roundtable setting to discuss innovative ideas that will ensure a healthy, sustainable and economically competitive future.  

When? 

On various Thursday or Friday mornings (8am - 9:30am) in 2013.  

Where?

Locations vary, depending on when and who the specific speaker is.  Typically, we host these breakfast receptions at various architecture firms around town.  We've also hosted specific receptions at the City Club or the California Club, as well.

Why?

The monthly breakfast receptions serve as a leadership forum to discuss issues relevant to improving the built and natural environment of the city in areas relating to economic development, energy and water conservation, open space, architecture, urban design and land-use policy. 

Who?

Past speakers have included Los Angeles Council Members, California State Senators, Assembly Members, General Managers, Deputy Mayors, School Superintendents and leading Developers among many notable others.  

The 2013 AIA|LA City Leaders Breakfast Series

a.     Jim Jacobsen – Founding Partner, Industry Partners

      March 8 (8am) :: Clive Wilkinson Architects 

b.     Martin Caverly – CEO, EVOQ Properties

      March 15 (8am) :: Alston & Bird LLP

c.     Randy Johnson – Executive Vice President, Brookfield Residential

Friday, May 10 (8am) :: Location TBD

d.     Janet Marie Smith – Sr. VP, Planning & Development, Los Angeles Dodgers

      Thursday, May 16 (8am) :: Dodger Stadium

e.     Christopher Rising – President & COO, Rising Realty Partners

                        Thursday, May 23 (8am) :: Johnson Fain

f.      Jim Cowell, PE – Vice President, Facilities, CalTech

                        June 7 (8am) :: Rios Clementi Hale Studios

g.     Martha Welborne, FAIA – Executive Director, Countywide Planning, METRO

      November 1 (8am) :: Location TBD

h.     Wayne Ratkovich - President & CEO, The Ratkovich Company

                        November 15 (8am) :: Location TBD

i.      Michael Govan – Director, LACMA

      date tbd

Limited Capacity.  Register Early! - TO REGISTER TO ATTEND, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Very truly yours,

Will Wright, Hon. AIA|LA

Director, Government and Public Affairs

The American Institute of Architects // Los Angeles

3780 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 800

Los Angeles, CA 90010

213.639.0764  phone

213.639.0767  fax

will

@aialosangeles.org

www.aialosangeles.org

LA City Billboard and Visual Landscape Visioning Group

Visioning Group members,

We're looking forward to seeing you for our third and final meeting on Thursday! Attached are the notes from our most recent meeting, along with other input we received during and after the meeting. The attached PDF includes:

- Notes on your input from the three discussion rounds

- Notes on public comments at the close of the meeting

- Compilation of Post-It Notes posted in the Rotunda lobby

- E-mails and letters we received after the meeting

- A study, forwarded by Jacqueline Kerr, on digital signs and traffic safety

The PDF is bookmarked to help you navigate through it. 

The meeting this Thursday will be from 9 am - 11 am in the same place, City Hall room 525, Rotunda Conference Room. Since the meeting will be during regular business hours, we unfortunately won't have free refreshments for you, but there is a cafe on the 2nd floor where you can get coffee, pastries, etc. If you need parking and have not already sent me your car information, please do so by noon tomorrow (Wednesday). 

Thanks very much, and see you Thursday!

Daisy

Daisy Mo

City Planning Associate

City of Los Angeles Department of City Planning

200 N. Spring St.

Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 978-1338

Meeting 2 Notes and Other Input.pdf Download this file