I love that West Hollywood is known as “the Creative City.”

My hope is that we “raise the bar” on design of new projects.

My Solution:

Most Planning Commissioners are not experts in the areas of design or architecture. We need to have an Architectural / Design Review Commission comprised of people who are professionals in those areas. 

Also, establishing a separate commission for architectural and design review will help lessen the potential for bias. Planning Commission design review subcommittee members have direct interaction with an applicant prior to a public hearing at design review, and may become too vested in the project.   (It should be noted that the City of Beverly Hills has both an Architectural Commission for design review of commercial projects and a Design Review Commission for design review of residential projects. This allows their Planning Commission to be focused on issues related to planning.)

Thank you for reading and if you’d like to discuss further with me, let’s schedule a coffee!