Business View Civil and Municipal | Volume 2, Issue 10

21 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 10 L.A.’s Zoning Code The City has grown and changed significantly since Los Angeles adopted its current Zoning Code in 1946. The tools and structure of the 1946 Zoning Code no longer address the City’s present-day challenges. In the current context, the Code’s zones are blunt instruments, since they are broad and mainly focus on separating uses, rather than reflecting the nuances of today’s diverse neighborhoods and policy priorities. Los Angeles City Planning has spent much of the last decade developing a new Zoning Code composed of innovative zoning tools in order to make the City’s future planning efforts more responsive to the evolving needs of 21st century Angelenos. This marks the first comprehensive update of the City’s Zoning Code since 1946. The new Zoning Code introduces a modular zoning system that regulates a building’s form and frontage separately from its use, allowing zoning to be applied in a more predictable manner through objective standards. The new Zoning Code will be applied to properties community by community through the Community Plan Update program over the next several years. The Downtown Community Plan area (one of the 35 Community Plan areas into which the City is subdivided) will be the first to take advantage of these new zoning tools. Thoughtful Growth, Sustainability, and Employment Opportunity As the City takes on racial inequities, climate change, and the housing shortage, the new modular zoning tools will play a key role in directing thoughtful growth over the coming decades. The City projects Downtown will gain 176,000 new residents and 86,000 new jobs by 2040. The proposed Plan would accommodate this growth through new equitable and sustainable land use strategies DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES , CAL I FORNI A