By Mary O’KEEFE

An open house community meeting is planned for May 30 regarding the proposed updates for the CSD (Community Standards District). It will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the La Crescenta Library community room.

The meeting will address the updates to the CSD that affect the commercial properties along the Foothill corridor. The updates have been in the works since 2015. The Land Use subcommittee has worked on the updates with Los Angeles County Regional Planning, Land Use Committee and Crescenta Valley Town Council.

The review was needed to clarify some of the requirements for local commercial buildings. After reviewing CSDs of other unincorporated areas of LA County, which included graphic diagrams as well as written descriptions, it was determined that clarification of signage and architecture was needed for the La Crescenta area.

It was found the exisiting CSD was not enforceable and plans were considered more of a subjective interpretation with regional planning. It was difficult for the planning commission to determine the CSD intention when plans were presented. Many times these plans were not presented by architects, so the new diagrams should help.

The original intent of the CSD along Foothill Boulevard was to make it more pedestrian friendly.

Regional planning has also worked to complete a technical update ensuring that all 20 county CSDs will be in the same format.
The open house on Wednesday will have several stations set up with information on the updates. The community is encouraged to share comments and options and to ask questions concerning the CSD. This open house is part of the outreach process for the CSD. On June 21, the final updated plan will be presented to the CVTC for approval. If approved, it goes to the Regional Planning Commission in downtown LA for a public hearing sometime in July or August. Then, if approved, it will go in front of the LA County Board of Supervisors for the final app
roval in August or September. Then in November or December the CSD update will be adopted.