The West Hollywood City Council voted unanimously on Monday to adopt the “WeHo 40” Strategic Plan which frames the city’s short-term needs, mid-term ambitions, and long-term goals for 2040.

Councilmembers John Heilman and Lauren Meister initially voiced some questions and concerns regarding the implementation of past and future goals, as well as current homeless policies before voting to pass the motion.

The plan establishes six focus areas and goals, 24 objectives, and more than 150 distinct actions.

The six strategic focus areas and goals reflect the needs and aspirations of the community and identify concrete steps the City of West Hollywood will take to support those goals, either by building upon existing initiatives and services or studying and pursuing new actions or approaches where there are gaps.

The six proposed focus areas and corresponding goals in the Plan are:

• Community Safety & Well-Being – Invest in equitable public safety and human service initiatives that enable all community members to thrive.
• Attainable Housing – Create housing opportunities for people of wide-ranging income levels and backgrounds.
• Economic Development – Advance just and inclusive economic opportunities that allow everyone to prosper.
• Transparency & Engagement – Ensure all constituents feel welcome and empowered to participate in local governance and civic life.
• Community Connection – Strong social bonds and connections within the community
• Climate Action & Sustainability – Adapt to the impacts of climate change while improving equity and quality of life.

“The WeHo 40 Strategic Plan is designed to be a living document that guides the work of City staff and elected and appointed officials over the next fifteen years,” the plan says. “It will undergo regular review to reflect progress towards the achievement of the City’s goals as well as adaptation to ensure it remains relevant and effective in meeting our diverse community needs. During the development of WeHo 40, the community repeatedly expressed a desire to engage further with the City as it implements the goals, objectives, and actions of the plan through regular reporting and ongoing community involvement.”

City staff held meetings for residents, one in-person and one virtual, to help get a wide range of feedback on a variety of topics.

Homelessness, cost of living, particularly housing, and property crime were voiced by residents to be the most serious problems, with homelessness being the most serious, followed by the cost of housing. According to the 2024 Los Angeles Homeless Count for West Hollywood, there are currently 67 individuals experiencing homelessness in the city. The median price of a home in the city is $1.1 million for a two-bedroom.

Increasing access to mental health services to reduce homelessness/homeless encampments is also a top priority for city staff.

Councilmember Heilman said the current homeless policies are a big concern and aren’t working.

“It’s working in some respects, but it’s certainly not working when you see the same individuals on the street repeatedly, day after day. You call repeatedly, and they’re still there and they’re not receiving services, they’re not accepting services, and there doesn’t seem to be a strategy to deal with that,” he said. “So that is an area that, as I read this, felt fairly weak in terms of what the next steps are.”

He added, “I think overall, the document does provide us with a great deal of information. I think we need to have a conversation about how this ongoing advisory board is going to work, and this is an advisory board that wasn’t chosen by the council, as I recall, how do we make sure that it remains representative?”

Heilman also had concerns about previous policies not being implemented.

“It seems like we have a lot of these aspirational things that we have talked about before that we’ve actually given direction on before, and they haven’t been implemented. So that’s one of the concerns I have here – how do we make sure that previous directions get implemented?” he asked.

Paolo Kespradit, City Management Analyst, said the goals and objectives will be tracked into an online implementation tool and progress can be seen over time. He added prior Council initiatives or directives will also be incorporated into the tool.

Councilmember Lauren Meister agreed with Council Member Heilman’s comments on preserving long-standing neighborhood businesses and suggested revisiting a legacy business initiative that wasn’t implemented.

“We also had an initiative several years ago that then council member Horvath and I put forward about solar power, and we’ve actually kind of gone in the opposite direction. We keep looking for rooftop uses. So I guess we need to talk about that, because if we are serious about some of these action plans, and maybe to look back and see what initiatives had been put forward that weren’t implemented,” she said.

She added, “I think it’s really important that we do that, not just once every 40 years, or, once every five years. We need to do the community surveys of this type alone, more often, and make sure that we’re constantly checking in with residents because we have residents come for our council meetings and our commission and board meetings.”

But there were also positive, more optimistic comments as well.

“I think as people are sort of shaking off the pandemic still reacclimating to public life, getting back to things that matter deeply to them, the way this tool and plan weaves together all existing tools and plans is extremely valuable and seeing all these different goals and priorities laid out as they are with these action steps,” said Councilmember Sepi Shyne. “This sort of list of ideas, things that have already been put into motion and maybe need reflection and some further work now, things that are new ideas, and things that are rooted back into existing work that has a deeper history to it as well. So that’s really meaningful.”

“I know there are community members feeling unseen and unheard, and I think in this guide we find our place,” said Vice-Mayor Chelsea Byers. She added, “I don’t have any specific comments, I just feel a lot of eagerness and excitement to get to work. This feels like a really strong declaration from our community about the future they want to see and we have 15 years to get moving on it.”

Image by Yuri Tkach on iStockphoto.com