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Politics Dec 07, 2022
The LA City Council chamber during the meeting on Dec. 7, 2022. | Photo courtesy of the city of Los Angeles
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The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to amend the Local Business Preference Program to provide an additional bid preference for businesses located in the city.
The council decision follows the passage of Measure BB in July by voters, who agreed to amend the city charter to allow the city to give preference to bidders located in Los Angeles on competitive bid contracts.
Businesses that qualify for grants and are located in Los Angeles will receive a 10% bid preference on contracts that exceed $150,000, and qualified Local Small Businesses will receive an additional 2% bid preference.
Businesses located in Los Angeles County but outside city limits will qualify for a 6% bid preference, with an additional 2% bid preference for small businesses.
“At long last, we’re giving businesses in the city the kind of leg up they’ve needed to better compete with out-of-city businesses, which are accustomed to getting the overwhelming majority of the contracts we give,” Councilman Paul Koretz said. “I’ve consistently been hearing from small- and medium-sized businesses that they were undercut by folks from outside the city.”
Livable community initiative for transit-heavy areas
The Livable Communities Initiative is a plan created by a group of advocates, urbanists and architects to address the city’s housing crisis by “combining gentle density and walkable complete streets” along the city’s commercial corridors, according to its website.
The council directed various city departments to report within 180 days with strategies to facilitate mid-scale developments and promote the creation of housing units and enhances commercial, mixed-use character. The council recommended that the city’s planning department consider waiving setbacks, a minimum density requirement and the elimination of parking minimums in transit-rich areas.
Other instructions included providing the council with options to streamline administrative review processes for projects eligible under the Livable Communities Initiative, and possible tools, fees, grants or strategies to fund public improvement projects along corridors identified by the initiative.
“The Livable Communities Initiative envisions a sustainable, equitable & affordable LA — today, Council adopted legislation to draft a plan to advance this vision,” Councilwoman Nithya Raman said on Twitter. “I’m excited to continue working with these dedicated advocates to move this forward.”
Plan to streamline fully affordable housing projects
The plan aims to streamline 100% affordable housing projects in Los Angeles that would lead to 45 new positions across five city departments to help expedite processes and procedures.
According to a motion filed by Councilwoman Nithya Raman last year, just 6% of housing projects approved in the city since 2015 were fully affordable. The timeline to approve such projects can take up to 58 months, according to a report by the city’s planning department.
“Here in LA, we’ve made it so long and so hard for us to get that stuff built,” Raman said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “Through this work, through these additional positions, we can reduce that time by a year or more.”
The council provided instruction to various departments, which included removing site plan review thresholds for affordable housing projects that meet objective standards and prioritizing appeals to the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners on 100% affordable housing projects.
It also sought a report from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on recommendations for how it could streamline the approval and permitting process for fully affordable housing projects.
Truth and Reconciliation Committee
The committee, which is a response to the City Hall racism scandal, would convene regularly over the course of at least a year to “explore and document racialized, ethnic or political violence specific to a Los Angeles context to inform healing and reconciliation.” The committee would present recommendations for council action 30 days after the end of its term.
The council instructed the city’s Civil and Human Rights and Equity Department to report back within 30 days on funding, staffing and resources required to establish the committee. The committee would include representatives from a spectrum of agencies, including the mayor’s office, council districts, the Los Angeles Unified School District, academics from local universities and local community leaders.
The council also voted to reaffirm a 1993 declaration that Los Angeles is a “Racism Free City,” and a 2020 declaration calling racism a public health crisis.
