Disqus - Latest Comments for dennishathaway

Re: McMansions Still Proliferate In Los Angeles, Driving Up Housing Costs, Homelessness, and Climate Change

dennishathaway — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 20:36:18 -0000

Thanks for pointing out these many adverse affects of mansionization. In my neighborhood, which used to be middle class but is now skewing wealthy, two and three bedroom houses for sale are openly marketed as teardowns to make way for new houses more than double the size. The other phenomenon here is the building of designer ADUs that are only affordable to upper class renters, and are typically occupied by one and two people, not by families that desperately need affordable housing. All of the YIMBY arguments that upzoning, streamlining (getting rid of) regulations, and ADUs will be a boon to affordable housing are completely hollow and a little more than a gift to development interests.

Re: California Apartment Association and Corporate Landlords Are Public Enemies No. 1

dennishathaway — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 18:06:02 -0000

Rent control, vacancy taxes, and other proposed remedies for the housing affordability crisis are band-aids that will only obscure the systemic change needed in the way housing is provided. Until housing is treated as a necessary public service rather than a commodity to be bought and sold and otherwise manipulated on the open market, we will face these problems. If anyone thinks this is a "pie-in-the-sky" concept, just take a look at housing in a large city like Vienna, Austria, where eighty percent of the population are renters but enjoy affordable, decent places to live without the fear of eviction and other disruptions.

Re: LA’s Lobbying Laws: It’s Your Turn To Speak Up

dennishathaway — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 13:43:08 -0000

As someone involved in the 2016 public hearings on reform, the council's inaction was deeply disappointing, although not surprising. The latest reforms are important, but don't go nearly far enough. One, lobbyist fundraising should be prohibited. Two, reporting should include much more detail on lobbyist contact with public officials. Where they met, who was there, what was sought, what was the outcome. Third, lobbyist reports should be more frequent than quarterly, because considerable time can pass after a council action and report of lobbyist expenditure on behalf of that action. The public is kept in the dark when it should have this information.

Re: Justice Gorsuch Must Resign

dennishathaway — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 13:22:17 -0000

Another scenario could be brewing. If the GOP wins control of the senate in the upcoming elections, and a Supreme court vacancy arises, through unforeseen but always possible circumstances, expect Mitch McConnell to block any Biden appointment until after the 2024 election, whether that vacancy is among the six conservatives or the three liberals.

Re: ‘Some Men Rob You with a Six-Gun, and Some with a Fountain Pen.’ – Woodie Guthrie

dennishathaway — Thu, 13 May 2021 19:18:43 -0000

Excellent article. I'd put a lot of blame for these "robberies" on the atrophy of the Los Angeles news media, especially the print realm. The Times has become so thin that you hardly ever see any in-depth investigative pieces on city issues, the LA Weekly is a shadow of its former self, TV newspeople like Paul Moyer who used to do some actual investigative reporting have long ago left the scene. Corruption and other forms of chicanery flourish in the darkness.

Re: New Lessons from LA’s McMansion Wars

dennishathaway — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 19:10:56 -0000

I know a local real estate agent who's sold several new McMansions. He said the buyers all paid cash. And he said that appears to be the rule, not the exception.

Re: New Lessons from LA’s McMansion Wars

dennishathaway — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 19:30:39 -0000

Within 1,000 feet of my home in Venice, there are six new McMansions, plus three 1940's bungalows either recently sold or currently marketed as "development opportunities." All the new houses sold in the $3.5-$4 million range. At the end of the block where there were five courtyard-style apartments under rent control, there are now three new houses on the market for $3.4 million. We had godawful fights with LADBS over enforcing front yard setbacks on two new houses, and were plagued by an unsold party house. All examples of what you're talking about. But perhaps the most fundamental problem for me is the change this represents in the character of the neighborhood. When I moved here it was a mixed area economically, ethnically, and age-wise. But mansionization is turning it into a homogeneous enclave of the upper class.

Re: Is It Safe Yet to End the "Big Lie" that the Violence Came from the Right?

dennishathaway — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 19:28:00 -0000

I appreciate the fact that CityWatch offers a variety of views, and I welcome a reasoned discussion of issues, even if the writer's perspective is widely different than my own. But this is just an unhinged rant that might have come from the mouths of Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones. It's hard to know where to start with all the fact-free claims and accusations, but suffice to say that the "fact" that 70 per cent of Republicans believe the election was stolen by massive Democratic fraud in the absence of any credible evidence is evidence itself only of mass delusion.

Re: Supply-Siders Chase their Last Mirage: Developers Making a Bundle On Middle Class Housing

dennishathaway — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 16:46:00 -0000

This excellent article makes a number of salient points, but the fundamental one is that upzoning increases land value. You don't have to have an advanced degree in economics to know that this fuels speculation and the building of more expensive housing. Where I live in Venice, two and three-bedroom houses on 6,000 sq. ft. R-l lots are selling for $l.5 million and more, and the only buyers are developers who put up McMansions selling for up to $4 million. If those lots are rezoned for two and four unit buildings, how much more will the houses sell for? And what will developers build in order to get the return they want on their investment? A fourplex with affordable rents? Not likely. ADU's were sold under the same premise in my community--they would create more affordable housing. You can guess whether or not that's happened. And then there's small lot subdivision, touted as a way to make home ownership affordable to those who otherwise couldn't buy a house. It wasn't long before developers sprang into action to use that as a means to build even more luxury houses, again because it increased land value.

Re: Rick Chavez Zbur raises $254,000 for 2022 LA City Attorney race

dennishathaway — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 20:21:19 -0000

He would not be the first Latino city attorney in Los Angeles history. That would be Rocky Delgadillo, who served from 2001-2009.

Re: Did Huizar’s Council Cronies Really Not See Corruption Hiding in Plain Sight?

dennishathaway — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:20:05 -0000

I wonder if there's a way to have a kind of independent counsel investigation of City Hall corruption, maybe under the auspices of the Attorney General. As this morning's Times article implies, things are rotten in the building department. And the planning department certainly needs to be investigated for its role in some of these projects. None of this could have happened without at least the passive complicity of both elected officials and city employees.

Re: Desperate Efforts to Keep the Housing Bubble Inflated by “Building More Housing”

dennishathaway — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 20:09:11 -0000

The idea that ADU's will solve the housing crisis, or even make a discernible dent in it, is a pipe dream. Most homeowners don't have the financial wherewithal to build them, and most who do are going to rent the units at whatever the market will bear in order to justify the investment. So you just get more housing that people who most need it can't afford, and single family neighborhoods get more congestion, traffic and parking problems. And to provide an anecdotal view, most of the ADU's in my neighborhood are being used as short term rentals. But I suspect it's common in other areas as well. While that may run afoul of the new city ordinance, I think the idea that the city will be able to diligently enforce the home sharing regulations is another pipe dream.

Re: Why so Many DWP Power Outages in Los Angeles? Hint: Real Estate Speculation has Consequences

dennishathaway — Sat, 27 Jul 2019 12:47:53 -0000

I agree with you that it's not fundamentally about incompetence, although there's certainly incompetence at City Hall. I see the fundamental problem as the development/real estate industry's power over politicians. Back in the early 2000's I worked on the Clean Money campaign, including an initiative brought forth by the City Ethics Commission for full public funding of city election campaigns. I had high hopes, but then the Supreme Court shot down any restrictions on private funding, which made the whole effort pretty meaningless. And it's questionable whether politicians used to feeding at the private money trough would have supported it anyway. A good example came with the new R-1 zoning regs a couple of years ago. We fought hard for building limits in our area, and managed to get the City Planning Commission to approve what were fairly modest limits in terms of FAR, height, setbacks, etc. However, a group organized by a local realtor/developer lobbied behind the scenes with Bonin's office and when it came before the PLUM committee, the councilman asked for changes that would raise those limits. All without any public notice. Tough to have any faith in a system that operates like that.

Re: Why so Many DWP Power Outages in Los Angeles? Hint: Real Estate Speculation has Consequences

dennishathaway — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 13:41:56 -0000

As one of the lonely voices crying in the wilderness for the city to consider the infrastructure consequences of development decisions, I hope this article is read and seriously considered by our decision-makers. Here in Venice, which is another of the city's ground zeros for development and McMansion attacks the constant traffic jams, potholed streets, broken sidewalks and other degradations to our quality of life stand in glaring contrast to projects that increase density, destroy affordable housing, and drive away the middle class in favor of the rich.

Re: West Hollywood's Digital Billboard Design Competition

dennishathaway — Fri, 28 Oct 2016 17:24:27 -0000

There is something fundamentally flawed about the idea of creating a "public space" around a structure that is designed to sell commercial products and services. A truly public space is democratic, welcoming a wide diversity of people and their expressions, whether those be as conversation, polemic, music, art, and so forth. The presence of commercial advertising, to the contrary, not only defines the space as a kind of salesroom, but presents an artificial world of idealized figures whose well-being depends upon acquiring a Gucci handbag or a new BMW. You are invited into this space to be manipulated, not to have an experience independent of the consumerist forces that dominate our culture, which is the experience a truly public space ought to offer.

Re: California gives L.A. control over freeway-facing billboards: What's next?

dennishathaway — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:30:01 -0000

This statement is completely disingenuous. The focus of the PLUM committee chaired by Councilman Huizar has been to find ways to allow new digital billboards, which are currently banned by city law. The major billboard companies--Clear Channel, Outfront Media, and Lamar Advertising--have offered to share some of the revenue from these signs with the city, and only incidentally, to remove an unspecified number of existing billboards. Whether or not this is a good deal for citizens of Los Angeles in any area cannot be intelligently discussed without knowing revenue amounts, takedown ratios, locations of new billboards, and so on. It should be noted that the City Planning Commission came up with a compromise measure allowing new digital billboards in a limited number of high-intensity commercial areas in exchange for the takedown of a significant nuimber of existing billboards, but Councilman Huizar and some other members of the PLUM committee have been vocally dismissive of the commission's efforts.

Re: L.A. says ‘bye bye’ to billboard ban

dennishathaway — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:02:50 -0000

Ray, for the record there isn't a single study that has "proven" that digital billboards aren't a distraction. The studies that purport to show that there hasn't been an increase in accidents in the proximity of billboards were all sponsored by the outdoor advertising industry. And the FHWA study showing that the average glance at a digital billboard was only a little more than .6 seconds has been called seriously flawed by peer reviewers. In fact, if people only glanced at a billboard for that amount of time no advertiser would bother paying for space on it. On the other side, independent studies in Sweden and Israel have shown digital signs to be a serious driver distraction and just recently a Paramedics organization in Canada called for a halt to a plan for digital billboards due to concerns about distraction and potential accidents.

The 45 locations where Lamar wants to put up new digital billboards include Ventura Blvd., Sunset Blvd., Venice Blvd., and other heavily trafficked streets. Two of these sites are directly across the street from public parks. These are inappropriate locations. As you know, we have supported the compromise in the new citywide sign ordinance that would allow new off-site signs, including digital, in sign districts restricted to 23 high-intensity commercial areas like L.A. Live, Universal City, and the Warner Center. And the new billboards could only be put up in exchange for taking down a certain number of existing billboards in the surrounding community. That's a reasonable compromise between absolutely banning billboards and allowing them anywhere. But instead of helping get the ordinance passed, Lamar has chosen to use its deep pockets to sue the city and put a financial burden on all its citizens in its quest for greater profits.

Re: Future of Los Angeles' digital billboards remains in limbo

dennishathaway — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 23:23:18 -0000

The statement that one of the goals of this proposal is to reduce the number of static and digital billboards in the city is untrue. The billboard companies actually want to increase the number of digital billboards beyond the 100 now in operation, and have offered to remove an unspecified number of static billboards as part of an exchange. The only digital billboard reduction apparently discussed in behind-the-scenes meetings between billboard company lobbyists and some councilmembers is in the total number of digital billboards allowed by the 2006 settlement agreement with Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor, which is 840.

Re: LED signs grow in popularity, but safety may be an issue

dennishathaway — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:07:35 -0000

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials commissioned a study just released this past spring which completely debunked the Tantala study, as well as raised serious concerns about both off-site and on-site digital signage and traffic safety. Here in Los Angeles approximately 100 full-size digital billboards have been put up, most in high-traffic, congested intersections, and the contrast with conventional billboards are striking, in terms of light intensity, and the effect of the images that change every eight seconds. Anecdotal reports of driver distraction have been pouring in, and governments should not be allowing any of these signs until their safety is conclusively proven .

Dennis Hathaway
Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight
www.banbillboardblight.org