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| HOLLYWOOD COMMUNITY PLAN UPDATE | ||||||||
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In a long-anticipated project, the Los Angeles Department of City Planning is creating or updating a number of community plans to guide future planning and development efforts in specific areas. The first of these plans to undergo public review is the Hollywood Community Plan Update. As the first updated community plan to be implemented, the Hollywood Community Plan will effectively set the standard for others to follow. The Conservancy, Hollywood Heritage, and others have been working to make sure this plan allows for future growth while maintaining Hollywood’s iconic and unique historic character.
The Proposed Plan area alone includes more than 150 Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments (HCMs), representing about 15 percent of all HCMs in the city. The Proposed Plan area also includes several historic districts designated at the local, state, and national levels, including the nationally recognized Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District. Hollywood has lost many historic resources to development pressures in recent years. As initially drafted, the Proposed Plan lacked a coherent, user-friendly approach for determining how development will affect specific historic resources, and for mitigating those impacts.
In June 2011, the Conservancy commented on the draft environmental impact report (DEIR) for the Hollywood Community Plan Update. We urged the City to more clearly articulate current and eligible historic resources, potential negative impacts on these resources, preservation alternatives, appropriate mitigation measures, and incentives. We emphasized that the final EIR should include at least one preservation alternative and mitigation measures that minimize or avoid adverse impacts on historic resources in Hollywood. Our comments on the draft EIR suggested possible mitigation measures, including the transfer of development rights and a provision to prevent preemptive demolition. We also suggested incentive programs to link goals of the Proposed Plan to the appropriate reuse of existing historic resources.
On December 8, the Conservancy spoke before the City Planning Commission regarding the latest version of the Proposed Plan. We commended the City for moving ahead with this important initiative, and we appreciate that the Proposed Plan recognizes the need to protect historic and cultural resources. While the plan acknowledges the need to protect historic resources and potentially negative impacts on historic resources, we believe it needs to include and refine additional mitigation measures to reduce or avoid these impacts. We suggested five possible ways to accomplish this, including: 1) Review demolition permits for any property that is at least forty-five years old. The current plan doesn’t identify any way to effectively address the potential loss of Hollywood’s already fragile historic and cultural resources, which are continually being chipped away through ongoing development pressures. 2) Establish Community Plan Implementation Overlay (CPIO) Subareas. This tool could guide appropriate new development within areas with a high concentration of historic and cultural resources including historic districts. 3) Adjust zone areas to reflect and promote existing historic character. Areas within the plan reflect land use measures established from the 1988 plan as a baseline. In some cases, the proposed zoning is too intensive and directs inappropriate development to concentrations of historic and cultural resources. 4) Actively apply the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. While the current plan promotes the use of the Standards, it should actively incorporate them to help guide future development efforts. 5) Promote preservation incentives. Incentives such as the Mills Act property tax relief program and federal historic tax credits would encourage the preservation and reuse of Hollywood’s historic and cultural resources. If you’d like to stay informed and participate in the public review process, please check this page for updates and/or join our Preservation Action Alert e-mail list.
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