Downtown Los Angeles Community Plan Update

Los Angeles City Planning is partnering with the Downtown community to update the Central City and Central City North Community Plans. The Downtown Community Plan will describe a collective vision for Downtown’s future and include policies, plans, and implementation programs that frame the City’s long-term priorities. Downtown will have the first Community Plan in the City to apply new zoning tools developed as part of the comprehensive update to the City of Los Angeles’s Zoning Code.

The update of the Downtown Community Plan takes cues from the City’s General Plan, particularly from its Framework Element, which describes the City’s long-term growth strategy. The Framework Element lays out goals, objectives, and policies for the range of land uses throughout the City, including Downtown, and guides the development of Community Plans. The Framework Element describes Downtown as “the principal government and business center of the region, with a worldwide market,” “the highest-density center of the City,” and a “hub of regional transportation.”

The Plan will build on Downtown’s concentration of transit options. With support from Metro’s Transit Oriented Development Grant Program, the City is promoting Downtown’s role as the convergence point of regional transit lines that connect multiple cities across Los Angeles County.

What is a Community Plan? Why do we need to update it? 

Click the button below to watch a short video about Community Plans.
 

Purpose 

The ambition of the Downtown Community Plan is to create and implement a vision of the future for Downtown Los Angeles. Downtown is the birthplace of Los Angeles and the primary center of urban activity in the region. It remains the City's commercial, entertainment, cultural, and civic heart. Now enjoying a renaissance, Downtown is home to a diverse range of industries and a patchwork of distinct neighborhoods that sit at the center of an expanding regional transportation network. According to regional projections, by the year 2040, Downtown will be adding approximately:

+ 125,000 people

+ 70,000 housing units

+ 55,000 jobs

The Plan will strive to support and sustain the ongoing revitalization of Downtown, while thoughtfully accommodating this projected future growth.

A strong core is important to the health of the City.

The Plan will promote a dynamic, healthy and sustainable Downtown core that is tightly connected to its surroundings and supports the City of Los Angeles and the region.

The following core principles represent the long-term priorities for the Downtown Community Plan:

• Accommodate anticipated growth through 2040 in an inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and healthy manner, while supporting and sustaining Downtown's ongoing revitalization

• Reinforce Downtown's jobs orientation

• Grow and support the residential base

• Strengthen neighborhood character

• Promote a transit-, bicycle-, and pedestrian-friendly environment

• Create linkages between districts

• Create a world-class streets and public realm