Thoughts on Simplifying LA's Planning Code

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The Planning Code for the City of Los Angeles is based on words yet it dictates the physical form in which the City grows.  Everything is described in words but not in illustrations, the few illustrations it contains highlight minuscule details such as retaining walls or parking angles.  This is a picture of the four pages that dictates the form for LA's most common development:  the single-family R1 zone.

Another point can be made here:  these four pages need to be used with the Code's 700 plus pages in order to add to or build a new single-family.  Also, there are six other single family zones and five subsets.  And if the property is in an historic, coastal, hillside, design, specific plan, or other overlay zone, an additional set of documents need to be followed.

Los Angeles is undergoing a 5 year multi-million dollar effort to change this.  Since childhood I have been fascinated with City form so when this project was announced I was immensely intrigued.  But after decades of working with LA's word-based Code I was slow to understand how a form-based code can be created for a City built with words.  I decided to try it.

Using the LA's existing regulations, for the R1 zone, I started with a simple form:

               Will people understand the drawing enough to know what can be built on their street?  

               Does this accurately illustrate the R1 zone?

It is hard to answer the first question but comparing it to the the four pages illustrated above, I think the drawing is easier to understand.  This argues for the creation of a form-based code.

But the drawing does not capture the many exceptions that can be built on an R1 zoned street, there are way too many.  

I am coming to the conclusion that an R1 form-based zone, and all the other residential zones, needs to be created and applied to every block.  Further, the number of existing zones is not going to be enough to encompass the variety of existing single-family residential development.

                              ADD DRAWING HERE of a Zone overlaid on existing block.

Other Thoughts

--code simplification won't be achieved until every block has an overlay and the existing Code
   is dismissed
--simplification won't be achieved unless the entire code is replaced;  replacing it partially will be
   confusing
--a form-based code is likely to be inherently simpler and smaller but requires the user to have some        
   kind of spatial perception as opposed to a written perception;  the latter is more common
--for blocks and properties that are not rectangles, the same form can be imposed but existing
  overlays applied (i.e. specific plans), or if none, the exceptions applied
--currently the Building Department administers the Code, transitioning to a form-based code begs
   the question of whether this can or should continue.  Either way the transition will have a major
   impact on the Building and maybe the Planning Department.  Resources need to be allocated.