12/10/24

Hello EVERYONE!!!  WE DID IT.

This morning’s City Council meeting was not for the faint of heart.

Early on, Councilmember Raman stood up and proposed an amendment to Draft #3 of CHIP to allow apartments in single family neighborhoods.  She spoke for seven minutes ( it seemed endless) on the racist past of single family neighborhoods and that this was the moment LA could rise up above that past with her amendment and how homelessness will never be resolved without opening our neighborhoods.  Then came Eunisses with similar comments. 

The hearing then went to public comment and only two of us ( Tess and me) got a chance to speak before they shut down the inperson comments ( Jeff, Cindy, Sheida, Barbara were shut out) and went to call ins.  Only one of us got through before that was shut down. ( Thank you Tracy).

When it came back to Council for discussion, Nithya Raman spoke again for her amendment.  But, one by one, our council members opposed the amendment saying the CHIP program will add a lot of density to the city and we needed to be careful and strategic on where and how we add more density to single-family neighborhoods.  With that Nithya’s amendment failed with everyone voting no except Nithya, Eunisse, new member Ysabel Jurado, Curren Price.  

Then the full Council passed the CHIP ordinance without options!!! Unanimously

This could not be a bigger victory for all of us.  It has been two years of constant work by all of us to get this to the finish line.  

Thank you all for believing that we could take the City on and win. Together we must keep moving forward.

Next stop are the Community Plans.  Rezoning our single-family neighborhoods can still occur here but at least with Community Plans we are working for our individual communities and with a small Planning team.  Keep in mind that Councilmembers didn’t like the one size fits all plan that Exhibit D options offered.  They want to analyze and discuss changes with their constituents. Be a part of those discussions. We will gladly offer ideas and advice.

We must start working sincerely to get good housing built in the appropriate places.  We have ideas that we are currently discussing with Planning and come early next year we will convene with a zoom meeting to discuss our plans moving forward with all of you.

We thank you all for your advocacy, your letters, your meetings, your willingness to make good things happen.  Yay for us.

Best,
Maria, Cindy, Jeff, Marc