They say that showing up is half the battle, but when it comes to our civic defeats and success, it all comes down to parking. People want to gather en masse, but they want to travel alone or in very small numbers to do so. The Dodgers stomped on the neighborhood when they re-opened the Billy Preston gate (though they did take care to put on soft-heeled boots, in the form of a modified plan, traffic-control officers and limited egress) -- squish! And the Foursquare Church wants to do the same except in a more harmful way. The church wants a big parking structure at Angelus Temple to replace housing; and it wants to put the unsightly lot in view of the neighborhood's most significant historic asset: Echo Park Lake. All so that people from other neighborhoods can get to the Angelus Temple and then tear out of the neighborhood with a minimum of fuss for themselves or the church. And what does the neighborhood get out of the deal? An ugly parking structure it doesn't need and the eviction of numerous residents.

Tuesday there was a special neighborhood council meeting in regard to the Angelus Temple's evasion of a recently enacted interim control ordinance (ICO), the purpose of which was to prevent demolition of buildings in what much of the neighborhood hopes will be an expanded historic zone. Such an ICO is one of a very limited number of "tools" that small players have in standing up to big players -- such as the Dodgers or the Foursquare Church. But the church managed to sidestep it.

Mitch O'Farrell of Council President Garcetti's office, emailed me the following in response to some questions I had about whether Garcetti supported the plan for a parking lot and how the church had managed to get around the ICO.

I think it's accurate to say that the Councilmember has always recognized that the church needs more parking BUT [Chicken Corner's hopeful emphasis] has always urged them to work with the community to come up with an acceptable plan. I attended the NC [neighborhood council] Committee meeting the other night. It is clear that the committee and several others in attendance, and the church are on different pages, even after several conversations and presentations. We have been formally asked to convene a design charette and are looking forward to facilitating that. Stay tuned.

Careful response to a tricky situation. Earlier, Mitch had emailed:

The Councilmember actively supports the ICO and extension of the Echo Park HPOZ. I don't believe Angelus Temple has provided a final plan for a parking structure.

In regard to HOW, technically, the ICO was mocked, Mitch forwarded an explanation from Arthi Varma of the planning Department. This is how Varma says the Angelus Temple got an ICO exemption, i.e., permission to destroy two buildings:

The Angelus Temple began the process for pulling permits for the demolitions in December. When they came to me for clearance on the demolitions, I went through a long process of researching whether or not I would have to clear them. I met and spoke with their plan checkers in Building and Safety on several occasions to confirm that they had met the conditions for the ICO Exemption. So, by law, I had to clear their permits for two of the four lots on which they are demolishing structures."

So...as I understand it, the Temple applied for the permits sometime between the adoption of the ICO and its actual implementation. Otherwise, I don't see an explanation in this explanation.