SKID ROW NOW AND 2040 AND FIREHOUSE 23
Raquel Rolnik, professor of Urban Planning at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the author of URBAN WARFARE: Housing Under the Empire of Finance. From 2008 to 2014, she was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing.
She talks about money as ten percent public and ninety percent private. The ninety percent private is a massive cloud moving about the world looking for places to touch down and create The Perfect City. Dubai is a good example. One of the places the cloud has been touching down is Downtown Los Angeles.
And with that……Skid Row Now and 2040 and Firehouse 23.
The City of Los Angeles is updating her 35 Community Plans. Community Plans set Land Use policy with the zoning tools to implement the policy. DTLA 2040 (what will Downtown Los Angeles be in 2040) is the name the Department of City Planning gave to their process of updating the Community Plan for Downtown Los Angeles. DTLA 2040 began in 2014.
Firehouse 23, a working firehouse in the early 1900’s and headquarters of the Los Angeles Fire Department from 1910 to 1920, is in the Western section of Skid Row. Controversial because of the cost (nicknamed the Taj Mahal of firehouses), Firehouse 23 is now designated a historic building. It’s where the 1984 movie Ghostbusters was filmed. In the late 1990’s, Firehouse 23 was on a list of City buildings dedicated through Prop K to be renovated into a Youth Arts Center with millions of dollars set aside to do the work.
In the summer of 2017, Skid Row began a coalition called Skid Row Now and 2040 to engage City Planning in the Community Plan update process. Skid Row is twenty percent of the land mass for Downtown and so Land Use and Zoning could become tools of gentrification/displacement. Thousands of people people live in Skid Row in government subsidized housing. The land of Skid Row, 50 blocks, is worth billions of dollars.
After working on several buildings in the City to become Youth Arts Centers, the Prop K process came to Firehouse 23 and Skid Row in September 2017 with the creation of a Local Volunteer Neighborhood Oversight Committee (LVNOC) to help the City gather Community Input for design and programming. A major issue quickly became will Skid Row Artists and Residents get major access to the renovated firehouse?
A year ago Skid Row Now and 2040 released a five page policy document as recommendations for the updated Community Plan. DTLA 2040 released in July an 80 page preliminary Policy draft and announced they will release a preliminary Zoning draft this Fall followed by a multi-day public gathering Downtown followed by a draft Environmental Impact Review in December/January followed by 45 days or so of official Public Comment.
The City with the LVNOC held a November 2018 public meeting in Skid Row. The point people for the City are Neil Drucker and Richard Campbell from the Bureau of Engineering. I didn’t request one, but someone in City Hall sent me an unreleased transcript from the meeting. Here is an excerpt:
Neil Drucker — We will need to set up these meetings fairly soon because we really want to keep our architect moving. So, I’d like to make this happen as quickly as possible.
John-Great. I think everyone would.
Vijay-I think an immediate doodle poll that has a look at January would be wonderful.
Neil Drucker-Richard Campbell is back. He is our project manager and Richard will send out a doodle poll for, you think mid-January? Early January? What are you guys thinking?
Speaker 9-Probably mid is more realistic.
Neil Drucker-Okay, mid-January, Richard.
The doodle poll never went out and no additional public LVNOC meetings have taken place yet in 2019.
So….Firehouse 23, now I’m wondering if the City is sabotaging its own process. Why would they do that? Well, the Prop K millions have a deadline and so if that money to renovate you disappears and you remain boarded up, then down the road can be a five hundred million dollar development deal for the Western section of Skid Row and that can easily include ten million in private money to make up for the lost public money.
Coming up October 26–27 is the Tenth Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists in Gladys Park.
So….what do YOU think about all of this?