Several years ago, the staff at the Mulholland unit of City Planning hung a sign right behind their public counter that read, “Mulholland Madness.” It was a copy of the sign created for the ride at Disney’s California Adventure of the same name.
The Disney ride has changed its name but things haven’t changed at one of the department’s busiest units. In fact, homeowners (and the architects, contractors and other professionals working in the Mulholland Corridor) probably think it’s gotten even crazier.
Projects that once were approved over-the-counter now require an appointment that are months out, and these projects require two appointments to get approved. And projects that once were exempt from the lengthier design review board process are now being thrown into the Mulholland DRB queue, adding several months to their timeline as well.
What happened? First, construction activity has been red-hot in Los Angeles for several years, especially in the high-end residential neighborhoods of the Mulholland corridor. Second, City Planning lost approximately 20% of its staff to early retirement in the first few months of the pandemic and the Mulholland unit has lost staff as Planning spreads its smaller staff around the city.
Third, the department decided pre-pandemic that all but a few Mulholland projects must be reviewed and cleared by the Mulholland unit instead of at the Planning public counter. This despite the fact that the public counters have dozens of planners available daily who don’t require appointments versus the 1-3 planners in the Mulholland unit who can only review a project with an appointment.
And finally, the unit recently made an unwritten change of policy: Any project that requires more than 50 cubic yards of grading must go through the DRB process. Small projects involving pools and/or small retaining walls now must file and wait for a full DRB review.
In summary, there are more projects in the Corridor, more projects that require Mulholland unit sign-offs, more projects that require full DRB reviews, and fewer planners in the Mulholland unit to process the cases. There’s also the matter of a pending lawsuit brought on by the Hillside Federation (see sidebar), which is presumably draining Mulholland unit staff time as well.
How bad has it gotten? As of this writing, the next available Mulholland appointments are in July 2022, eight months from now. An informal survey of the department’s other Specific Plan and overlay units (HPOZ, CPIO, etc.) could not find another unit with a wait time of even half as long.
It should be noted that those who have lived and/or worked in the Mulholland Corridor for 20 years would say this isn’t unprecedented. During the real estate boom of the early 2000s, it was not uncommon for appointments with the Mulholland unit to be up to 10 months out. But those were for appointments to file DRB cases; non-DRB projects could get sign-offs at the Planning public counters.
For homeowners (and their professional teams) planning a new project in the Mulholland corridor now, getting an appointment and a sense of whether the project can be approved administratively or will require a full DRB review is a critical first step. And, of course, hoping that this madness ends soon.
