LA neighborhood initiative put off to 2017

Backers of the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative to slow development and City Hall's use of planning exceptions announced today they are no longer targeting the November ballot. They are going instead for Los Angles' March 2017 ballot, when the mayor, the other citywide offices and eight City Council seats will be voted on. Typically, the number of LA voters plummets between a presidential election and the following spring's city election, but there could also be more debate across the city on local planning and development issues.

Sponsors of the measure billed it as a way to get more voters interested. "A March election will ensure that the initiative plan to reform the city's rigged and broken building approval system is not overshadowed by 20 or more other statewide measures on the Nov. 8, 2016, ballot," said the Coalition to Preserve L.A., promoters of the measure.

Labor, business and affordable housing activists oppose the neighborhood measure, and a group on the opposition side said it was a tactic to avoid sure defeat in November. "They want to move it from an election where virtually everyone votes to an election where virtually no one votes," said a statement from the Coalition to Protect LA Neighborhoods. "That's because they lose when people who vote hear about their extremist plans for Los Angeles."