CicLAvia returns, City Council backs new restrictions on encampments, and more

After a long, pandemic-induced absence, CicLAvia will return on Sunday, August 15 with an open streets event in Wilmington.

“We are thrilled to share this news with Los Angeles,” said CicLAvia’s executive director Romel Pascual in a prepared statement. “With the state now open, Angelenos are eager to return to some of the enjoyable and memorable activities and routines we’ve been missing for the past year, while hopefully maintaining slower streets, outdoor dining and cleaner air. Our mission promotes positivity and safety, and we hope to help instill social confidence and restore comfort to the community.”

In addition, CicLAvia will host two additional events during 2021:

• October 10 - Heart of LA - coinciding with CicLAvia's 11th anniversary; and
• December 5 - South LA.

CIM Group has snagged a tenant for one of its new office buildings in West Adams.

Earlier this week, the company announced that journalist Jemele Hill and her agent Evan Dick have leased a two-story building at 5563 W. Adams Boulevard to serve as the new headquarters for the "Unbothered Network," which produces podcasts in partnership with Spotify.  The 3,679-square-foot building is located on the north side of Adams between Marvin and Carmona Avenues.

“My team and I were very intentional in choosing the West Adams area to make our creative home. This is where the black enclave Sugar Hill once thrived, and we hope that we can continue the tradition started by those black creatives whose sweat equity is still embedded into the DNA of this community," said Hill in a news release.

Things to read from the past week:

California still highly segregated by race despite growing diversity, research shows "The Los Angeles metropolitan area has seen only slight improvements, the study found, and remains the sixth-most segregated of the 221 metro areas. Some other regions of the state ranked in the study did even worse. The metropolitan regions of Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, San Jose, Riverside, Sacramento, Oxnard, Vallejo, San Diego, Modesto, Chico, San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield and San Francisco all saw their segregation numbers worsen, the study found." (LA Times)

Pushed Out: How Domestic Violence Became The No. 1 Cause Of Homelessness For Women In LA. "The majority of unhoused women across the nation — 57% according to recent data — say domestic violence is the direct cause of losing their permanent home. In L.A, almost 40% of women who are homeless say they’ve experienced abuse in the last 12 months." (LAist)

The Complex 50-Year Collapse of U.S. Public Transit "Back in 1970, 77 million Americans commuted to work every day, and 9% of them took a bus or a train. By 2019, the number of U.S. workers had nearly doubled, to more than 150 million. But the vast majority of these new workers chose to drive: The number of public transit riders increased by only around 1 million during those years, and their share of the country’s overall commuters collapsed to 5%." (CityLab)

L.A.’s Transit Oriented Communities Program Likely to Benefit from A.B. 1401 "A.B. 1401 would eliminate parking requirements near transit in California, thereby undoing one of the most harmful and longest-running errors in California urban policy. Some observers have worried that eliminating this error might have the unintended consequence of reducing affordable housing production, but our findings related to both the L.A. TOC program and San Diego’s Transit Priority Area parking standards do not support this notion. In neither situation do we see developers using parking as a decisive factor for their participation in mixed-income housing incentive programs." (Streetsblog California)

L.A. backs new camping restrictions amid warnings that homelessness will be criminalized "With some arguing the measure would further criminalize homelessness and others saying the city took too long to act, council members voted 13 to 2 to enact rules regulating sitting, sleeping and storing property near fire hydrants, building entrances, driveways, libraries, parks, elementary schools and several other locations." (LA Times)

New Alvarado bus lanes expected to speed up rush-hour service "Once completed, the Alvarado bus lanes will cover a 1.7-mile stretch from Seventh Street in Westlake to Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. The north end of the bus lane currently terminates at the 101 Freeway." (The Eastsider)

In LA’s Chinatown, New Restaurants Face Sharp Opposition on Social Media From Community Advocates "Like many Chinatowns across the nation, Los Angeles’s historic hub was economically neglected by the city and outside investors for decades via redlining and other restrictive policies, which inevitably led to depressed housing prices, deteriorated infrastructure, and limited public services. This in turn secured the neighborhood’s potential for profit in more recent years with the proliferation of new business and residential developments." (Eater LA)

After Florida collapse, Marina del Rey condos found to be safe but in need of repair "A history of disputes over long-deferred maintenance raised the possibility that the 600-unit Marina City Club could be subject to the same corrosive influences — water and sea air — that may have contributed to the failure of the Champlain Towers South condominiums in Surfside, Fla.  By day’s end Wednesday, the anxiety was put to rest. After poring over the three buildings, a team of Los Angeles County inspectors concluded that the spalled concrete, leaking decks and corroded pipes posed no immediate threat of a catastrophic collapse." (LA Times)