A neighborhood group that advocates for the preservation of open space in the city’s hillside areas has thrown its support behind a March ballot measure that would temporarily halt some development projects in the city.
The Hillside Federation’s endorsement marks the latest by an “environmental” group for Measure S, according to a release by the campaign supporting the measure.
The campaign also lists the Los Angeles Audubon Society and the board of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority as supporters of the measure.
The Hillside Federation represents 45 homeowners and residents groups along the Santa Monica Mountains, the Hollywood Hills and other hillside areas, and boasts about “250,000 constituents,” according to the Measure S campaign.
Charley Mims, president of the Hillside Federation board, said a “strong majority of the delegates” from about half of the neighborhood groups voted to endorse Measure S. Many of the members were “fed up” with the city’s planning process, he said.
“The planning process seems not to be a priority in the city,” he said. “Updating the community and general plan has not been an important priority,” with some plans not being updated in more than a decade.
Measure S calls for updating the general plan every five years, and would bar project-specific amendments to the plan, sometimes known as “spot-zoning.”
The measure would also halt construction for two years on certain projects, including those that call for lifting restrictions on building height and density.
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Groups listed as members of the federations typically advocate for homeowners and residents of hillside neighborhoods on the Westside, near Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley.
Mims said that the pace of planning department updates on the general plan as well as traffic congestion, which is often attributed to projects with greater density, prompted the federation’s support for Measure S.
“A lot of people are seeing these types of things accumulate over the years, and developed frustration over the planning process,” he said.
The Hillside Federation has been active in influencing some city policies, particularly in getting limitations on mansionization activity and hillside developments.
The group is concerned with “maintaining the biodiversity of the wildlife areas,” Mims explained.
“We’re residents of the mountains,” he said. “We regularly hike in the areas that are undeveloped in Griffith Park, all the way out to the Malibu area and we see the value of having natural systems within the urban area.”
“In that sense, part of our mission would be environmental, and part of it is community preservation and enhancement,” he said.
Josh Kamensky, a spokesman for a campaign opposing Measure S, shot back at this endorsement announcement, saying that the Hillside Federation’s support “shows just how deceptive and confusing Measure S is.”
“Measure S doesn’t protect these neighborhoods, it threatens them by limiting the planning tools that place new housing near jobs and transit,” he said. “It threatens open space and it drives development into the neighborhoods.”
He said that the measure would actually lead to “more tear-downs and mansionizations as Measure S boxes L.A. in to congested, by-right development.”
Other environmental groups and some that advocate for creating more open space have come out against Measure S, including the L.A. League of Conservation Voters, according to Kamensky.
The group Climate Resolve is among the groups that have come out against Measure S.
Its executive director, Jonathan Parfrey, called the measure “awful for the environment” and says it “does not save neighborhoods.”
“On the contrary, it’d increase traffic, encourage sprawl, add smog and greenhouse gas to our already polluted skies,” Parfrey said. “It would discourage sustainable communities, stymie the construction of public transportation and hobble efforts to build affordable housing, all of which our city desperately needs.”
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