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City Planning Commission briefed on CHIP, housing ordinances and downtown zoning rewrite; items moving to City Council
Summary
The commission received a staff briefing that six major planning items, including the citywide housing incentive program (CHIP), housing element site ordinance, and a Downtown LA zoning code rewrite, were recommended by the Planning & Management Committee to proceed to City Council in early December. Staff promised follow-up briefings after Council action.
Vice President Mike Lewask opened a special meeting of the City Planning Commission on Nov. 21 and asked Vince Bertone, the city’s director of planning, to brief commissioners on recent Planning & Management Committee actions.
Bertone said six major items the commission had reviewed were recommended by the committee to go to full City Council. Among them, the citywide housing incentive program known as CHIP received prolonged review and was forwarded with a small number of committee-suggested modifications, including narrowing certain incentives for faith-based organizations to low-rise building typologies such as townhomes and neighborhood-scale projects. Bertone said the committee also recommended changes related to street widening, additional incentives, and public lands provisions.
The housing element sites ordinance was recommended to proceed with no changes, Bertone said, and the resident protection ordinance advanced with only minor reporting clarifications requested. He described the Downtown Los Angeles zoning code update as a comprehensive rewrite — noting it will amount to the city’s first major zoning code rebuild since 1946 — and said similar updates are moving forward for Hollywood.
Bertone told commissioners that most of the items are expected to reach City Council in the first week of December and that staff will return to brief the commission after Council action. He also flagged that landscape and site design work was deferred for scheduling and may be presented in December to align with CHIP implementation.
A staff member from the City Attorney’s Office added that the landscape ordinance is calendared for Dec. 3 and reiterated that the Downtown plan update includes substantial supporting documentation.
Commissioner questions focused on the exact wording and scope of the faith-based incentive amendments; Bertone said staff can provide the committee’s revised language and cited the applicable LA Municipal Code provisions referenced by the committee. He offered to bring planning policy staff back for a more detailed briefing after the City Council hearings.
The meeting proceeded without in-person public comment on these items and closed item 1 with the commission moving on to the advance calendar and other procedural business.
