MAJOR UPDATE!
Based upon feedback from the industrial and business community, the County has temporarily put the industrial downzoning on hold, with a hearing scheduled in Fall 2023. While this is positive news, the battle is delayed, not won. It is now even more important for the affected business and property owners to make their voices heard. And the first step is signing the petition linked below.
register FOR UPDATES & SIGN THE PETITION OF OPPOSITION TO LA COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DOWNZONING
register FOR UPDATES & SIGN THE PETITION OF OPPOSITION TO LA COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DOWNZONING
register FOR UPDATES & SIGN THE PETITION OF OPPOSITION TO LA COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DOWNZONING
EMAIL LA COUNTY planning COMMISSIONERS & SUPERVISORS
register FOR UPDATES & SIGN THE PETITION OF OPPOSITION TO LA COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DOWNZONING
register FOR UPDATES & SIGN THE PETITION OF OPPOSITION TO LA COUNTY INDUSTRIAL DOWNZONING
“This one-two punch by the County will result in a massive loss of well-paying jobs held by nearby community members, vacant buildings that can’t be leased, neighborhood blight, and plummeting property values.”
About Us
The LA County Industrial Business & Property Coalition (“IBPC”) is an alliance of industrial business owners and industrial property owners in Unincorporated Los Angeles County fighting to stop the harmful & reckless industrial downzoning proposed in the Los Angeles County Metro Area Plan(the “MAP”)
Harmful Effects of Industrial Downzoning to Industrial Businesses & Property Owners
The MAP seeks to downzone hundreds of industrial properties in Unincorporated LA County.
This downzoning will force many small businesses to choose between a costly relocation, which may be all-but-impossible, or permanent closure. Other warehousing & industrial businesses will be required to obtain a Conditional Use Permit (“CUP”) to operate, a process which takes many months and costs thousands of dollars to obtain.
Rather than facing the cost, time and uncertainty of leasing in Unincorporated LA County, prospective warehousing and industrial tenants will simply lease in other nearby industrial areas that do not require a CUP.
Astonishingly, the County did NO economic analysis regarding:
- The anticipated loss of jobs by employees in the industrial sector.
- The economic effects resulting of the displacement or closure of industrial businesses currently located in the MAP.
- The impact of a CUP requirement in leasing industrial properties to warehousing and light manufacturing uses. The County CUP process can take months to complete. Prospective tenants (especially small business owners) cannot wait months to find out if they will be permitted to lease a property and will instead choose to move to areas where they can occupy a property shortly after they sign a lease.
- The effect of the MAP on property values.
- The extent to which the loss of jobs, businesses and property values would decrease County tax revenue.
"We call on the County to undertake a thorough analysis of the economic impact of this proposal on area employment, industrial small businesses, property values, property vacancies (and potential area blight), and lease rates before taking ANY further steps."
The County Planners must immediately schedule a series of meetings with small business owners and industrial property owners prior to moving forward with the Plan.
County-Targeted “Clean” Industries are a Fantasy-Wishlist, not Fact-Based or Data-Based
The County plan anticipates that life-science, biomedical, tech, software engineering and artisanal uses will flock to these industrial areas to lease the space vacated by industrial users. Once again, the County did NO economic analysis regarding:
- The demand for aging industrial buildings from these industries, and how that demand stacks up against the millions of square feet of vacant industrial space that would result from the MAP.
- Property characteristics and improvements that are required by these “target” industries, and to what extent those characteristics and improvements are present or lacking in the existing inventory of industrial buildings in the MAP. Most of these older industrial properties do not even have the required parking to convert to the Plan's preferred uses.
- The average capital expenditures required by a tenant or property owner to convert a typical, older industrial property in the MAP into property that is usable and desirable by these “target” industries, and whether such a capital expenditure is economically viable in today’s market given the competing property types and lease rates available in nearby areas.
- The designated areas experience building vacancies on a regular basis, and none of the Plan’s preferred property uses are leasing these vacancies. This proves that there is currently little to no demand for the downzoned uses in the affected areas.
Nor did the County allocate any money or enact any policy, other than the downzoning, to advance this policy goal.
“If you downzone, they will come” is a fantasy, an experiment, and an astonishingly bad gamble being made by the County with the jobs of area workers, the survival of small businesses, and the retirement income of mom & pop property owners on the line.
This one-two punch by the County will in turn result in a massive loss of well-paying jobs held by nearby community members, vacant buildings that can’t be leased, neighborhood blight, and plummeting property values.
" We call on the County to undertake a thorough economic feasibility analysis to determine the viability, or lack thereof, of attracting the target industries to the affected areas before taking ANY further steps. "
County Outreach Excluded Input from Impacted Industrial Business & Property Owners
The County of Los Angeles has purposefully excluded affected small business and mom & pop property owners from having a seat at the table in evaluating the proposed zoning changes. The County began extensive and ongoing outreach efforts to local residents in 2021, but then waited until February 2023 to notify industrial property owners of the existence of the MAP and that their properties were slated for downzoning. Affected industrial tenants have still not been notified by the County.
With small businesses and mom & pop landlords struggling to get back on their feet after the Covid-19 pandemic, the County could not have chosen a worse time for implementation of such a harmful, job-killing proposal.
The Plan treats vacant land and buildings over 200,000 square feet the same as small 10,000 square foot and multi-tenant properties. The Plan needs to be modified to adapt to these different land use situations. As other municipalities have discovered, a one size plan will not fit all.
" We call on the County to conduct the same level of community outreach, and seek the same level of input, from affected small businesses and mom & pop property owners as it did with area residents before taking ANY further steps. "
Contact Us
email: ibpc.lacounty@gmail.com
contact #: 213.338.8432
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