Topic Archive: Planning
City code since 1974 has required helipads on top of tall buildings. (Luckily for the First Interstate Building, circa 1988.) Things could be different, though, if plans move ahead for skyscrapers along Hollywood Boulevard. Empire State Building anyone?
Posted January 17, 2012 12:49 AM
Bill Fulton, a well-known writer on California affairs and the nitty gritty of urban planning before and since he became an elected official in Ventura, is moving away largely because he is losing his eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa.
Posted December 5, 2011 12:35 AM
Here's how the developer foresees the streetscape of Hollywood miraculously changing if approval is forthcoming for high-rise towers around the Capitol Records building on Vine Street.
Posted May 16, 2011 12:18 AM
Architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne makes a civic splash in the L.A. Times by pointing out that the Downtown NFL stadium Tim Leiweke and Casey Wasserman are pushing is another case of Los Angeles going about it all wrong.
Posted December 31, 2010 12:47 AM
Two experienced downtown planners from Michigan and Florida argue on the Times op-ed page that fooitball stadiums tend to be a bad choice for downtowns.
Posted December 12, 2010 9:03 PM
Chase, the author of several books on urbanism and Los Angeles, died Friday of an apparent heart attack. He was the godfather to the daughter of Frances Anderton, host of...
Posted August 15, 2010 7:41 PM
Mark Winogrond, who served Mayor Vilalraigosa as interim planning director and vetted his 2006 selection of Gail Goldberg, strongly rips the selection of Michael LoGrande as city planning director.
Posted July 28, 2010 9:38 PM
Here's the release from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office on Michael LoGrande, his new nominee to take over the city planning department.
Posted July 26, 2010 10:45 AM
Mayor Antontio Villaraigosa today named defeated City Council candidate Christine Essel to be the top executive of the Community Redevelopment Agency.
Posted May 4, 2010 5:26 PM
Josh Stephens is the new editor of California Planning & Development Report, the Ventura-based land-use publication
Posted February 23, 2010 11:37 PM
D.J. Waldie picks up on my post on Jane Ellison Usher's resignation as chair of the city planning commission and runs with it at his KCET blog. He starts with...
Posted December 29, 2008 1:52 AM
City Council president Eric Garcetti, who represents Hollywood, said provisions added to the project will help alleviate concerns that the 16-story residential project next door will affect Capitol Records' underground...
Posted July 11, 2008 4:55 PM
Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, becoming the go-to voice raising questions about the urbanists' rush to let developers densify new areas of Los Angeles, took his cause to Sunday's LAT Opinion section....
Posted April 13, 2008 1:14 PM
City ethics commissioner Bill Boyarsky heard from friends what the scene was like inside the exclusive, closed "VIP reception" before last week's political roast at the Century Plaza. He posts...
Posted April 3, 2008 11:30 PM
Short piece in the U.K. magazine on L.A.'s move toward more density — and how cities around the West want to avoid becoming the next Los Angeles. Excerpt: The original...
Posted March 31, 2008 9:32 AM
CityBeat's L.A. Sniper columnist Alan Mittelstaedt captures Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's persuasive argument that the Times' cutback of local coverage through the years contributes to the city's bad traffic by letting...
Posted March 27, 2008 9:14 AM
The Los Angeles City Council voted 10-5 this morning to stop work on the annexation application of the heavily lobbied Las Lomas project in Newhall Pass. Rick Orlov and Kerry...
Posted March 19, 2008 1:06 PM
With seven residential projects containing 900 units already under construction — and another two dozen projects approved — the most upscale shopping street across the Valley is evolving. But the...
Posted February 24, 2008 12:18 PM
Developer Dan Palmer falsely claimed that his company is the sole owner of the property in Newhall Pass where he wants to build the Las Lomas project with L.A.'s blessing,...
Posted February 14, 2008 2:34 PM
Before a City Council committee voted yesterday to tentatively approve a controversial condo project in Van Nuys Valley Village, a planning staffer for the city called the developer and told...
Posted November 21, 2007 9:07 AM
The L.A. Weekly's David Zahniser is out with a cluster of stories on one of the least talked-about big stories in Los Angeles: the push by planners, pols led by...
Posted May 31, 2007 8:56 AM
Times critic Christopher Hawthorne welcomes the revived interest in tunneling a subway under Wilshire Boulevard all the way to the ocean. He writes today about its possible effect on the...
Posted September 27, 2006 8:20 AM
I just received an email from a local editor-in-chief which reads, "David Zahniser's piece in this week's LA Weekly .. is brilliant. I'm jealous." The subject of the rave is...
Posted August 23, 2006 6:42 PM
© 2003-2011   •  About LA Observed  •  Email the editor
Follow LAO
Kevin Roderick blog
2:25 PM Fri | Martin Gomez, the head librarian for Los Angeles since 2009, will become vice dean in the USC Libraries on April 2.
Sign up for email

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner