L.A. Groups View Topping With a Wary Optimism

Mary Jo Martin is something of a rebel in San Bernardino County, the vast territory where a building boom is filling in the map from the edge of Los Angeles County east to Arizona.

Fearful that the growth frenzy was spoiling her high-desert area, Martin and friends organized the recall of a county supervisor in 1981. From a small office in Hesperia, she now keeps watch on the real estate developers who are hungrily dividing up the biggest U.S. county outside of Alaska.

Like any activist, Martin has her list of villains. But she excludes Kenneth C. Topping, the longtime San Bernardino County land official who is scheduled to be confirmed this week as the new Los Angeles city planning director.

Diverse Image

“He has worn both black and white hats as far as we are concerned,� said Martin, whose Desert Citizens for Better Planning has fought several battles against developments that carried Topping’s stamp of approval.

Her lack of animosity, and even grudging respect, could foretell Topping’s reception in Los Angeles, where he is a stranger to the City Council and the homeowner groups that have fought the council’s practice of approving scattered high-rises and other developments.

Homeowner groups in particular are wary since San Bernardino County is known for erratic planning, and Topping is likely to influence the location and style of new buildings--and the traffic and other pains of city life that result--for a decade or more.

However, Topping has managed to build a reputation in the planning field that surpasses the regard held for San Bernardino County. Interviews reveal a record that leaves room for optimism by both pro-growth advocates and the citizens groups that fear Los Angeles is losing its neighborhoods and clogging up the streets to promote new construction.

Remarkable Growth

He was the planning chief in San Bernardino County during nine years of remarkable growth. Since a promotion three years ago, he has served as deputy administrator of the large county agency that oversees all aspects of land use.

In his time the county got the reputation as a place where developers enjoyed their way with the Board of Supervisors at the expense of good planning. The county also failed to solve a nagging problem with illegal subdivisions, which often left unsuspecting investors with land on which they could not lawfully build homes.

“It’s been sort of like the wide-open West,� Martin said.

Voters rebelled this year and replaced two pro-growth incumbents on the Board of Supervisors with new faces who campaigned for a change to more careful planning. Through all this, despite his long record as a county planner under the old regime, Topping has his boosters among the reformers.

“I have a lot of regard for him even though we have sparred over the years,� said Larry Walker, the Chino mayor who was elected to the Board of Supervisors in the June election. “It’s not bad guys in the Planning Department who caused bad decisions to be made. They were just the messengers.�

Professor of Planning

Sherman W. Griselle, a professor of urban and regional planning at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, has also been a critic of San Bernardino County’s land policies, especially in the dairy lands around Chino. But he said Topping was under the gun of the devoutly pro-growth supervisors and made the best of a tough situation.

“He was attempting in a quiet way to institute good planning procedures,� Griselle said.

If anything, Topping’s quiet style should be tested even more in Los Angeles, where he will face politicians perhaps more intractable than his former bosses in San Bernardino County. There are 15 council members, plus a mayor, instead of just five county supervisors, and they all have keen, if varying, interests in the planning arena.

“I don’t think Ken believed in confrontational planning,� Griselle said. “Los Angeles calls for somebody who is going to be assertive.�

Topping’s confirmation is not in doubt. He was appointed with high praise by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, and is scheduled to appear before the council’s Planning and Environment Committee for approval on Tuesday.

He could be confirmed by the full council, which seldom overrides the mayor, as soon as Wednesday. Once approved for the $91,000-a-year job, he would take the reins from Calvin Hamilton, who is retiring after two decades as director of the Planning Department, on July 14.

Veterans of the planning field said Topping is highly regarded by his colleagues, and he was rated the best candidate by interview committees that the city established to help insulate the appointment from political pressures.

Screener Not Worried

“I found myself not worrying about Topping,� said Alan Kreditor, dean of the USC School of Urban and Regional Planning, who was on a panel that screened the candidates. “He won’t do a flashy job, but he’ll earn people’s respect.�

Frank Wein, another panel member, is president of the California chapter of the American Planning Assn. and knows Topping well in the profession. “He is as prominent as any planner can be,� said Wein, an urban planner with Michael Brandman Associates in Costa Mesa.

Among members of the interview committees, some were disappointed that the list of candidates did not include more “best and brightest� city planning experts from around the country.

“It seemed to me there wasn’t anybody with the qualifications it would seem are needed to plan a city like Los Angeles,� said one committee member who asked not to be named.

Kreditor, the USC dean who has served on similar evaluation panels, disagreed, saying that the list included “a handful� of very qualified applicants.

But he said the city’s highly charged planning arena probably drove away more applicants from other states. With so many competing pressures from council members, homeowners and developers to contend with, the Los Angeles planning job is well paid but not necessarily attractive.

“Of those people who are qualified, a lot of them wouldn’t want it,� Kreditor said. “It’s not, obviously, a big plum.�

Wants Break-In Period

When his appointment was announced, Topping said he did not want to get specific about his vision of the city until he has been on the job a while. “I just am not that familiar with different parts of the city in that kind of detail,� Topping said.

He also declined to take a position on the high-rise limit initiative placed on the November ballot by City Councilmen Marvin Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky. Calling for the reduction of most future commercial development by half, the ballot measure will be one of the biggest issues facing Topping when he takes over.

But in his interviews, according to panel members, Topping expressed a desire to take a fresh look at the way the city’s development decisions are made.

He was rated highly, for example, by Ted Watkins, president of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, one of the few groups having success with renewal efforts in the city’s large black areas.

Southern Part of City

“Most of the people on the committee were concerned with the view driving in from the suburbs,� Watkins said. “I look at everything south of City Hall and I don’t see anything new that has been done in the 44 years I’ve lived here. He was very strong on that.�

Laura Lake, a UCLA professor who helped found Not Yet New York, a citizens group supporting the growth-limiting initiative, said homeowners should give Topping the benefit of the doubt until they can assess whether he is friend or foe.

“We’re very hopeful,� Lake said. “It’s starting with a clean slate. We hope that he will take the initiative (in environmental protection) and not take a passive approach.�