EXPLORING RESILIENCY

AND SUSTAINABILITY DESIGN

Neal Payton, FAIA, FCNU, leads the Los Angeles-based west coast office of Torti Gallas + Partners, an urban and architectural design firm.

Payton said it is difficult and cost prohibitive for individual property owners to seek rezoning, so more sweeping changes to the existing zoning is necessary for walkable and mixed-use neighborhood centers to emerge.

He said California has a somewhat unique tool to achieve this, called a Specific Plan, which allows a rezoning across multiple properties under disparate ownership.

This approach, used in California or exported to other disaster-struck parts of the country, could prevent bland, uniform, mega developments created by master developers brought in to spur rebuilding.

Payton said a revised Specific Plan can help restitch a community by allowing individual parcel owners to rebuild at slightly higher densities.

“By allowing such rebuilding, the city would provide these small-parcel owners the incentive to hold onto their land and rebuild, thus ensuring the kind of village texture that is such an important part of these neighborhoods, to remain,” he said.