A routine check of city permits has revealed that the City of Los Angeles has granted the Angelus Temple permits to destroy apartment units it owns across the street from Echo Park Lake -- this despite an interim control ordinance (ICO) that was enacted specifically in order to prevent such permits from being issued until the neighborhood of Echo Park has had a chance to make a bid for protection of its historic features.

Christine Peters of the neighborhood council wrote to Arthi Varma of the planning department this morning:

Is our ICO for nothing? Or did the City cut a deal with the Temple? ... Our community plan is a mockery, our ICO worthless. We may as well give it all to Geoff Parmer and be the "new" Little Italy/Machiavelli Parking Towers? Di Medici Lofts? Mussolini Square? Unbelievable. ... My greatest concern is the clear disconnect between City/Neighborhood Council/Community. One of the reasons we pushed so strong for this ICO was the clear threat the Four Square [Angelus Temple] poses on the community, as a large landowner.

So high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it: the church maybe, not the ICO.