The Valley Economic Alliance has presented a set of 13 construction permit reform recommendations to the city of Los Angeles in an attempt to streamline the current real estate development process.
A subcommittee of the Sherman Oaks-based alliance – which represents the interests of businesses in San Fernando Valley, Calabasas, Burbank and Glendale – has submitted the recommendations to Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council members John Lee and Paul Krekorian.
“The alliance and its stakeholders are concerned that the current development process in the city of Los Angeles is dramatically inhibiting commercial and residential real estate development, costing the city jobs and tax revenues,” the subcommittee said in a statement.
The changes the alliance would like to see include a case manager assigned to each project from beginning to end, an online tracking process and project representatives for medium to larger projects, all to ensure consistency of service. The system would apply to both permits for new buildings or change of use permits.
The subcommittee also made recommendations in smoothing out the signoff process, including the unification and standardization of a review system among all departments into one citywide program; the use of commercial off-the-shelf computer programs with more user-friendly interface rather than developing proprietary software; the provision of deadlines and specific due dates over a roughly three- to six-week window; and a streamlining of reviews within the L.A. City Planning Department.
Other suggestions include the acceleration of electronic stamping of approved plans to avoid the need for visits to multiple departments for re-stamps; and an overall standardization of plan change requirements for inspections to remove arbitrary judgment calls from the process.
The alliance also addressed the California Environmental Quality Act and would like to see collaborations with organizations that are actively lobbying for changes to CEQA “to reduce the crippling impact of Nimbyism to stop, hold up or extort the state of California.”
Bureaucracy at work
Among Valley permit-seekers navigating the process with the city of Los Angeles, there are plenty of anecdotes and much consternation about how unwieldy the system is and how difficult it is to coordinate at every step of the way.
Steve Demsher with Demsher Civil Engineering in Van Nuys said there has been a steady decline in the process of applying for permits with the city of Los Angeles.
“Over the years, there has been an effort by the city saying they’re streamlining, but it has become (worse),” Demsher said. “COVID has made it infinitely more difficult because everything is done remotely. It takes weeks before it gets to their desk. It was very difficult to get continuity.”
Demsher has a small 75-foot street improvement on an apartment building that he’s trying to complete.
“We’re trying to get it through and it has been over a year,” he said. He still hasn’t heard back from the city agency.
“The building has been virtually complete for over a year and we can’t get it completed,” Demsher said. “(The owner’s) losing tens of thousands in lost revenue waiting. We’re still trying to get this simple little improvement done.”
The problems with dealing with the Department of Building and Safety or the Department of Public Works preceded the pandemic, Demsher said.
Sample project
As then-chair of the school board, Scott Silverstein had to obtain a conditional use permit for the Shoup Campus at El Camino Real Charter School in Woodland Hills.
The project, which began in 2017 and ended last year, was an overhaul of a 15,000-square-foot building, which required new work on the electrical system, plumbing and the roof. The building also needed a conditional use permit.
“We turned that campus into an independent study where the students would go to school one time a week to meet with teachers and majority of their work done online,” Silverstein said.
It became an issue to get the conditional use permit.
“The problem is when you undertake something like this with the city, if you have to get permits, you’re not sure what the next step will be,” Silverstein explained. “It’s random. It’s difficult to budget, it’s difficult to plan when one department throws you to another department.”
Silverstein has also seen a lack of organization among city inspectors.
“You can have one or two inspectors show up at different times for the same thing,” Silverstein said, and they each bring up different requirements.
“There’s no black and white, everything is in gray, he said. “There was a series of instances where we were caught off-guard by the requirements by the inspectors.”
One inspector demanded that five separate pairs of emergency lights be installed in a room that was about 15 by 25 feet wide. … It’s brighter with the emergency lights than with the LED lights.
Ultimately, the bureaucracy added a year to the project because of delays in the permitting process.
Frustration lobbying
David Honda of Woodland Hills-based David Honda Construction, served as project manager on the El Camino site.
Honda also sits on the Valley Economic Alliance subcommittee trying to reform the permit rules. He said that years ago, it was much more efficient to apply for permits. One would drop off the materials for a plan check at government offices in downtown L.A. or Van Nuys and it would circulate to all the agencies – fire department, public works, bureau of sanitation, health department – and return to city planning with the clearances.
“Now it’s much more difficult,” Honda said. “You drop it off, it sits two days in the bin (as a COVID protocol), you get an email that the plan has been received, wait a week, drive out, pick it up, take it to next department.”
“Instead of a day, now it takes months,” Honda said. “It’s horrible.”
Honda wants to see the public counters re-open. He also notes that unlike with Los Angeles, Santa Clarita Building Department runs very smoothly and allows for the receipt of plans electronically.
“There should be a thorough review of ancient, outdated clearances, which should be disposed of,” Honda said.
His meticulous work seeking out the permits is often met with a frustrating bureaucracy.
“I have all rough inspections of the trades, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, framing, and final inspections with a signed-off permit card by respective inspectors, but because one inspector has not pressed the ‘cleared’ button on the city computer, it means no issuance of a certificate of occupancy,” Honda said.
Honda cites the El Camino Real job as emblematic of the problems.
“Now, this organization has been extremely patient but there is so much one can take until ‘heads will roll’… meaning my head,” Honda said. “Some of the donors are requesting back their donations because of not obtaining a certificate of occupancy. This is written in their donation contract.”
Real consequences
The same process that didn’t function for El Camino Real Charter School applies to small businesses, Silverstein noted.
“The small commercial owner who wants to do a modification, it leaves them in the lurch,” he said. “It’s a free-for-all out there, depending on which inspectors you get.”
“There is a disconnect,” Demsher, the civil engineer, said. “The agencies don’t work very well between themselves or (each) agency doesn’t work well internally.”
With so many unknown variables, it becomes difficult for Demsher to plan or budget.
“We’re doing an apartment that’s 120 units,” Demsher said. “The budget at beginning is $100 million. It ends up being $125 million because of all the fees.”
“The Valley business community continues to be disappointed that the city of Los Angeles’ offices remain completely closed for any in-person services,” Fred Gaines, said land-use attorney at Gaines & Stacey in Encino and chairman of the alliance. “This has made even routine matters difficult and caused significant delays.”
Gaines said it’s especially important for retail and offices to reopen as soon as possible that tenant improvements are expedited quickly.
Via Zoom, Honda’s Valley Economic Alliance subcommittee met Dec. 6 with L.A. Building and Safety officials Osama Younan, general manager; Binh Phan, bureau chief; and John Weight, inspections, to discuss the matter.
“They recognize there’s a problem and they’re trying to resolve it,” Honda said.
“It’s time to give (the process) a second look,” said Younan, who agreed that the meeting was productive. “Each department that requires the clearance will have to look into (its online efficiency).”
Younan said many of the departments are already online and plan check, which has been in development since 2018, should be online soon.
“Because it requires multiple agency clearance, that takes longer. Hopefully by next year, it will be developed and online,” he said.
Ultimately, Honda hopes something positive will come out of the discussions.
“It would be very helpful to be electronically submitted and have the whole thing internally circulated for clearance within the building of City Planning (instead of resubmitting to every department),” Honda said.
Reform Strategies
Assigned Case Manager: A person assigned to each project from beginning to end to ensure consistency of online tracking for permits or change of use permits.
Improved Signoff Process: Modifications made to clearances and standardization of the review system among all departments into one citywide program.
Improved Computer Programs: An improvement over the online interface to make processing easier and user-friendly.
Deadlines: Commitment to specific due dates over a roughly three- to six-week window.
Streamlining of Reviews: Improved review system within the L.A. City Planning Department.
Acceleration of Electronic Stamping: Process for approved plans to avoid the need for visits to multiple departments for re-stamps.
Consistency in Inspection Process: Standardization of plan change requirements for inspections to remove arbitrary judgment calls from the process.