The West Hollywood Planning Commission welcomed two new appointees at the Thursday night meeting: Tushar R. Dutta and Michael A. Lombardi.
Dutta is a Senior Program Manager at Partner Energy, according to his LinkedIn profile, with “9+ years of experience in the energy and water efficiency sector with emphasis on sustainability financing programs.”
Lombardi, a Lighting Certified and LEED Accredited Professional and a member of the Illuminating Engineering Society, studied architectural engineering with a minor in architecture at Penn State, according to his website. He was named among Architectural Lighting Magazine’s 40 Under 40 in 2019.
Acting Chairperson Lynn Hoopingarner, who was passed over for the Vice Chairperson position last summer, was elected new Chairperson. Stacey E. Jones was elected Vice Chairperson.
Following some relatively prickly public comments — in which one speaker was chastised for suggesting the commission was accepting payoffs from developers — the commission tabled a request to convert an existing three-story, 21-unit rental residential building into a common interest development (condominium), located at 8815 Cynthia Street, West Hollywood, California.
They also received an update on the Housing Element from staff and consultants, with specific discussion on the draft framework of housing policies, constraints to housing production, a toolkit of policy options, and an Adequate Sites Inventory.
Welcome to the Planning Commission! Singularly important as many think about by-passing “normal” and moving on to a better future. WEHO residents who have solar roofs might want to have the Planning Comm.’s view of AB1139, a move by power companies to make having solar more expensive – by far – and hindering the wider use of that power generating system for residential users. Edison’s lobbyists are very powerful in Sacramento – but so are the people when they get their wind up..
Most qualified to sit on the planning commission with…”experience in the energy and water efficiency sector with emphasis on sustainability financing programs”? 🙄 And we have another member with a “fine arts degree” and another that has a construction background (not design background). In a city full of designers and architects we have people evaluating projects with little to no experience in the field. That’s why we get what we get.
Wow the hilarious sarcasm has some validity I must admit and got a laugh from your accurate assessment. I wish people too were qualified in certain areas but as the saying goes “politics is politics is politics”! Great observation and comment though. Furthermore I have lived in this city and signed my lease in June just shy of 3 weeks from now almost 10 years ago, yet people who moved here a year or a few years ago and live outside of Weho, get selected to serve and yield tremendous input. I just wish the council reached out and made… Read more »
Better deliver “Cliffs Notes” to these new commissioners stat lest they be forever enshrined as seat warmers. It’s not a bad thing to be uninformed but hopefully it will be motivation to break out the books. The Planning Commission is exponentially pivotal to what happens in Weho.