Author Archives: Jonathan Pacheco Bell, MAUP, MLIS

Creator of Embedded Planning and @C1TYPLANN3R

Public talk on Embedded Planning, Informal Housing, & the Medina Family ADU Story at UC Irvine School of Social Ecology

A Matter of Necessity-Understanding Informal Housing through Embedded Planning-UCI Urban Planning and Public Policy-25Oct2018
“A Matter of Necessity”: Understanding Informal Housing through Embedded Planning at UCI School of Social Ecology, Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy, 25 October 2018

I’m honored to serve as UCI MURP Planning Visions Guest Speaker delivering my public talk, “A Matter of Necessity:” Understanding Informal Housing through Embedded Planning, at UC Irvine School of Social Ecology, Department of Urban Planning & Public Policy, Thursday, Oct 25th, 11:30a-1:00p. The event is made possible through the initiative of 2nd year MURP candidate Irene Aceituno. She will introduce me as speaker, discuss UCI’s Diversity in Planning Fellows program, & emphasize the value of mentorships in planning. The talk is Free & Open To All. RSVP at Eventbrite.

SUMMARY: This presentation puts a human face on California’s housing crisis. Jonathan Pacheco Bell, a zoning enforcement planner in Los Angeles County, will tell the story of the Medina Family from the South Central L.A. community of Florence-Firestone, who built an informal backyard dwelling for extra income after the sudden passing of their head of household. An anonymous complaint triggered an inspection & eventual demolition of the dwelling for code violations. It was Jonathan himself who ordered its removal. Audience members will understand the emotional roller coaster the family endured while embroiled in this regulatory process, & Jonathan’s inner conflict with the outcome. Key takeaways for planning policy, practice & pedagogy will be offered. This talk demonstrates that the rules we enforce can have unintended consequences, especially in working class communities of color.

BIO: Jonathan Pacheco Bell (@c1typlann3r) is a public sector Urban Planner in Los Angeles County with over 12 years of experience in zoning enforcement. He is a fierce advocate for the unincorporated areas of South Central Los Angeles. On any given day you will find him in the unincorporated community of Florence-Firestone partnering with stakeholders to improve quality of life.

A field-based planner, Bell researches, writes, & speaks about informal housing, unorthodox community outreach, and South Central L.A. history from his unique, on the ground perspective. He calls his praxis Embedded Planning.

A product of the California public school system from kindergarten to graduate school, Bell holds an MAUP from UCLA Luskin & an MLIS from SJSU iSchool.

“We Cannot Plan From Our Desks”, my op-ed on Embedded Planning praxis published in APA’s Planning Magazine, October 2018

Consider this page 1 of my #manifesto nailed to the Planning Department’s door.

Read my op-ed, “We Cannot Plan From Our Desks”, in APA’s Planning Magazine #PlanMag October 2018 issue. Just in time for #PlanningMonth.

In this editorial I outline the tenets and benefits of #EmbeddedPlanning. This is my opening salvo to the planning field arguing for Embedded Planning praxis, what I describe as planning in the streets, over orthodox, desk-bound practice.

I ground Embedded Planning in the real life example of the Medina Family ADU Saga in the South Central Los Angeles community of Florence-Firestone. In my current speaking tour, “A Matter of Necessity:” Understanding Informal Housing through Embedded Planning, I’m sharing the family’s difficult first lesson in Planning and Zoning, and my inner conflict with the outcome. I can tell the Medinas’ story because I earned their trust, at their doorstep.

We Cannot Plan From Our Desks.
“We Cannot Plan From Our Desks.” My op-ed on Embedded Planning praxis published in APA’s Planning Magazine, October 2018.

Embedded Planning Op-Ed Publishes in APA’s Planning Magazine, Oct 2018

We Cannot Plan From Our Desks.

Planning practioners, students, and professors: WE CANNOT PLAN FROM OUR DESKS.

We need to get out there and connect.

#EmbeddedPlanning praxis means planning in streets, not from the comfort of your desk.

My op-ed publishes in APA’s Planning Magazine #PlanMag October 2018, just in time for #PlanningMonth.

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We Cannot Plan From Our Desks! at the 2018 APA National Planning Conference New Orleans #NPC18 via Jonathan Pacheco Bell @c1typlann3r
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We Cannot Plan From Our Desks! at the Free School of Architecture closing night 2018 WUHO Gallery in Hollywood, CA via Jonathan Pacheco Bell @c1typlann3r
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We Cannot Plan From Our Desks! at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs “The Informal City” seminar May 2018 via Jonathan Pacheco Bell @c1typlann3r
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#EmbeddedPlanning and Embedded Librarianship come together in taking housing justice information to the streets! at the CLA 2018 Adult Services Symposium, Sacramento Public Library via Jonathan Pacheco Bell @c1typlann3r

Eureka moment for Embedded Planning

Medina Family ADU talk at UCLA Luskin, May 2018
Delivering the Medina Family ADU talk in the “Informal Cities” seminar at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, May 2018. Photo courtesy of Joshua Baum, MURP ’18

I’m writing an invited op-ed on Embedded Planning. It’s a challenging but rewarding exercise. This has been an amorphous idea swirling in my head for years. I knew what it was intuitively, but I hadn’t defined it. This op-ed is pushing me to define, outline, & explain the benefits of my #EmbeddedPlanning praxis. 

The piece draws on my ideas developed over 12 years doing urban planning on-the-ground, from my #MLIS experience in which I regularly wrote about librarians breaking free from the reference desk to do LIS work out in the neighborhood, & from my speaking tour on the Medina Family #ADU saga.

My most fruitful thinking on this op-ed has been away from a desk. On Thursday morning, stuck in #LosAngeles traffic, I had a eureka! moment about the title of my public talk, “A Matter of Necessity”: Understanding Informal Housing through Storytelling. The reason I can tell the Medina Family story is because I earned their trust, at their doorstep, through my Embedded Planning praxis.

Thus far I’ve delivered the Medina Family ADU talk at CSUN, Woodbury University, Cal Poly Pomona, UCLA Luskin, & the American Planning Association #NPC18 Conference in New Orleans under the “Storytelling” title. It’s high time for an update. It’s time to revise my title to underscore that the lessons learned result from Embedded Planning.

Henceforth the title of my talk on the Medina Family ADU story is:

“A Matter of Necessity”: Understanding Informal Housing through Embedded Planning

Only through Embedded Planning do we arrive at my thesis: “Behind every informal unit there’s a story to tell, a human dimension that needs light.”

Selected 1990 Census data on comparable demographics for the City of Compton and unincorporated East Compton—now called East Rancho Dominguez

The present post serves as a hyperlinked footnote (“comparable demographics”) from this paragraph in my article titled, “My Afternoon Doing Urban Planning on the Ground in South Central Los Angeles,” to be published shortly in UrbDeZine:

Yet despite familiar appearances, ERD’s renaming was less a matter of “Compton stigma” and more about autonomy. Unlike the five cities who’d whitewashed Compton Boulevard from their maps, ERD reflected comparable demographics for African-American and Latino residents as the City of Compton. ERD wasn’t dissociating from the local populations; rather, it embraced them under a new, shared ethos within its borders. And while some stakeholders saw better economic development potential with the new name, backers argued that the rebrand would establish the autonomous identity rightly owed to this community. “I think we deserve it,” declared ERD leader Margaret Comer. These days, any definitive motivation for the name change remains up for debate – but what’s irrefutable is that this episode in local politics rendered publicly the fiercely independent spirit that defines East Rancho Dominguez.

The below chart includes selected 1990 Census data on those comparable demographics for the City of Compton and unincorporated East Compton—now called East Rancho Dominguez. The data are drawn from social, economic, population, and housing characteristics with the base geographic area of Place and County subdivision, 2,500 person or more.

Comparable 1990 Census Data for City of Compton and unincorporated East Compton

Sources:

U.S. Census Bureau. 1990 Census of Housing. Detailed Housing Characteristics. California. Retrieved from: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1990/ch-2/ch-2-6-1.pdf

U.S. Census Bureau. 1990 Census of Population. Social and Economic Characteristics. California. Retrieved from: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1990/cp-2/cp-2-6-1.pdf

 

MUTUAL AID AT LUNCHTIME

Mutual Aid at Lunchtime

Read my latest piece, “Mutual Aid at Lunchtime,” published Dec. 6, 2017 in Cultural Weekly.

It’s a concise but expository look at my unorthodox urban planning outreach tactics. I cover planning in plain language, burritos, and the anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin in less than 1000 words!

https://www.culturalweekly.com/mutual-aid-lunchtime/

A Street-Level View of Informal Housing in the Context of California’s Housing Crisis: Considerations for Policy & Planning

A Street-Level View of Informal Housing in the Context of California's Housing Crisis: Considerations for Policy & Planning, Cal Poly Pomona, Jonathan P. Bell, Nov 14, 2017
A Street-Level View of Informal Housing in the Context of California’s Housing Crisis: Considerations for Policy & Planning, Cal Poly Pomona, Jonathan P. Bell, Nov 14, 2017

I’m delivering the talk “A Street-Level View of Informal Housing in the Context of California’s Housing Crisis: Considerations for Policy & Planning” in Dr. Alvaro Huerta’s class Nov. 14 at .

Alvaro and I were MAUP classmates at ! 

PLACEMAKING THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS IN FLORENCE-FIRESTONE

Placemaking through Partnerships in Florence-Fireston (for social media)

I am delivering the talk “Placemaking Through Partnerships in Florence-Firestone” at the California Library Association 2017 Conference *New Worlds Emerge*, Nov. 3, 2017 at 3:30 p.m. We will celebrate the history, meaning and future of the unincorporated community of Florence-Firestone in South Central Los Angeles! The talk is sponsored by our friends at the CLA Special Libraries Interest Group. Much love.

OVERVIEW:
South Central Los Angeles evokes many images, associations, and assumptions. For too long, negative portrayals in the media have influenced these notions. The presenter will tell the story of a unique partnership that challenged these stereotypes in the unincorporated community of Florence-Firestone in South Central. Through a creative placemaking project called the Some Place Chronicles, community leaders, artists, and employees from the County of Los Angeles Public Library, Department of Regional Planning, and Arts Commission collaborated to write A Paseo Through Time in Florence-Firestone, the first-ever published history book on this rich and diverse neighborhood. Attendees will learn how the partnership tapped into archival materials, community memory, and lived experience to produce an uplifting representation of Florence-Firestone and South Central L.A. The session will be instructive to librarians, archivists, and other information professionals engaged in local history and neighborhood empowerment initiatives, especially in underserved communities of color.

SESSION URL:
https://www.eventscribe.com/2017/cla/fsPopup.asp?Mode=presInfo&PresentationID=295583

Pasadena’s ADU Ordinance Remains Broken. Here’s How to Fix it.

Pasadena ADU Ordinance Update Community Meeting

I was unable to attend tonight’s ADU ordinance community meeting hosted by Pasadena Planning Department. In lieu of in-person commentary, I emailed this public comment letter to staff.

My position hasn’t changed from June 19, 2017, when Pasadena City Council voted against a comprehensive ADU ordinance update advanced by our housing coalition. 

As it stands today, Pasadena’s ADU ordinance remains broken. But we can fix it. The Pasadena City Council must drop its excessively-cautious, comfy-centrist, shortsighted, nostalgic, legally dubious, “I only wanna maintain votes in my SFR zones” mentality, and instead adopt a comprehensive ADU ordinance update that provides a safe and legal pathway for ADUs for working folks. 

Designing Housing Solutions workshop @ #APACA2017

California’s housing crisis is at a breaking point. We need new ideas and strategies — now! Planners, urbanists, policymakers, designers, students: you’re invited to this innovative workshop where we’ll tap into your memories and experiences to design new housing solutions.

Designing Housing Solutions

2017 APA CA Conference Sacramento

Tuesday, Sept 26, 2017

8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/311978272598475

OVERVIEW: The workshop will tap into the diverse experience and expertise of attending planners to collaborate and design comprehensive housing solutions. The facilitated exercise will bring together a diversity of perspectives to explore new housing typologies that expand choice, encourage affordability, and specifically address the risk of informal dwelling units.

ABSTRACT: The lack of affordable housing in California has reached crisis levels. Among the many consequences is the rash of hazardous incidents happening in unpermitted dwellings. As the tragic warehouse fire in Oakland recently illustrated, unpermitted housing happens across the State at various scales. With no sign of housing demand softening, there is an urgent need to investigate housing supply. While Los Angeles’ recent Proposition JJJ creates a de facto inclusionary zoning policy, no blanket approach exists to address the regulatory, cultural, design, and financing issues associated with housing policy.

The Designing Housing Solutions workshop will facilitate two interactive engagement activities where professionals design and prototype new and diverse housing typologies (co-housing, farm worker housing, artist housing, garage conversions, senior housing, ADUs, etc). The workshop creates a safe space for attending planners to nurture ideas, communicate through storytelling and collaborate. Participants will engage through memory, art and play to better understand themselves and the State’s housing assets, needs and challenges.
This input will launch a conversation that will inform future research, as well as generate ideas that address spatial values impacting housing’s urban design, zoning and planning. The workshop will consider how shared ideas can help create more inclusive spaces.

FACILITATORS:
◦ Gunnar Hand, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, LLP

◦ Jonathan P. Bell, County of Los Angeles, Dept. of Regional Planning

◦ James Rojas, Place It! & Latino Urban Forum

◦ Fay Darmawi, Affordable Housing Finance and Consulting

◦ Connie Chung, County of Los Angeles, Dept. of Regional Planning

◦ Cathy E. Creswell, Creswell Consulting

#APACA2017

How to fix Pasadena’s Accessory Dwelling Unit ordinance 

ADU ordinance - Pasadena
My opening argument supporting a more equitable ADU ordinance in Pasadena

Read my latest public comment letter to Pasadena City Council on the proposed amendments to the ADU ordinance.

The Council caved to NIMBY pressure and rejected the Pasadena Planning Department’s proposal for a more equitable ordinance.

More to come.

ADU Ordinance Update-Public Comment 19 June 2017-Jonathan P Bell

The 1992 Los Angeles Uprising began 25 years ago today

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising.

I urge everyone to experience the immersive exhibits “No Justice, No Peace: LA 1992” and “Trouble Every Day: LA 1965/1992” at the California African American Museum.

The exhibits took me back to 1992, seeing the smoke plumes and ash from mom’s house in Montebello, thinking NWA had warned us this was coming again.

Today, some things are better in South Central L.A. Our SCLA unincorporated communities are rising through strong partnerships and civic engagement. But far too many structural inequalities throughout South Central remain.

Will history repeat a third time in L.A.?

Rivers of blood, years of darkness

The invisibility of code enforcement in planning praxis: The case of informal housing in Southern California

FOCUS article.JPG

Pretty cool to be published old school style: in print!

Read the latest from me and Jake Wegmann on #InformalHousing in Los Angeles: “The Invisibility of Code Enforcement in Planning Praxis: The Case of Informal Housing in Southern California,” (2016) FOCUS Journal, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Dept of City & Regional Planning

Abstract: More and better engagement with working class neighborhoods and communities of color are urgent imperatives for the planning profession as the United States transitions to a “majority minority” population. Code enforcement personnel are already doing much of this work, normally in a much more collaborative and less heavy-handed manner than the name of their profession would suggest. However, at present the planning profession largely holds code enforcement at arms’ length. Using the example of the informal housing market in Southern California—managed on a daily basis by code enforcement officers, yet largely unaddressed by planners—we draw on survey and interview data and our own professional experiences to make four propositions about code enforcement work. These are that code enforcement work is unusually cumbersome; it is chronically understaffed; its personnel cope by working reactively rather than proactively; and the profession suffers low prestige as a result. We argue that ending the estrangement between code enforcement and planning would offer numerous benefits to the latter, including inculcating cultural competence in planners through “learning by doing” and working at street level, and injecting sorely needed “community data” into efforts to address vexing issues such as housing unaffordability.

The Dingbat is Dead. Long Live the Dingbat!

dingbat-2-0-cover

You know the Dingbat apartment building even if you don’t know its history. Architecture historian Reyner Banham coined the Dingbat phrase in the 1970s. It’s that clunky stucco box with a quirky facade perched precariously above parking spaces. Maligned by some, revered by many, studied ad infinitum: the Dingbat is distinctively “L.A.” 

The newest scholarship on this typology is the delightful Dingbat 2.0: The Iconic Los Angeles Apartment as Projection of a Metropolis. This book is a meticulous and exhaustive analysis of one of the most misunderstood building types in Los Angeles. I recommend it highly.

The book’s many essays illuminate the Dingbat’s origins, meaning(s), and (possible) future(s). Pictures are plentiful. Diagrams and photo simulations abound. A newly developed Dingbat taxonomy provides a handy guidebook for spotting them in the environment. And whereas prior studies focus almost exclusively on the Dingbat’s unmistakable facade, Dingbat 2.0 ventures to step inside. Residents share what it’s like to live in this particular form of multifamily housing. This new dimension brings us closer to a “complete comprehension” of the Dingbat.

Dingbat 2.0 is a must-read for urbanists, architects, historians, housing advocates, and everyday Angelenos.

Shout out to Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design and DoppelHouse Press for bringing this to life. The book is helping me finish my own ‘little polemic’ on a Dingbat near me.