# Episode 10: Knowing Torrance's Plans Maps Torrance planning documents and the places where new housing and development policy are changing. ## Sources and attribution - [The Local Official's Handbook](https://github.com/jstart/podcast-tts/tree/main/local-officials-handbook-audio) by Author unavailable in repository materials; published by Publisher unavailable in repository materials. - [City Government, Plans, Meetings, and Department Resources](https://www.torranceca.gov/government) by City of Torrance; published by City of Torrance. This episode is an independent study production based on the sources listed above. Source attribution does not imply affiliation, approval, sponsorship, or endorsement by any author, publisher, or institution. ## License No source license identified in repository materials; all rights reserved unless the rights holder states otherwise; No broad open license identified; public information summarized with attribution ## Production notes Independent civic study production. Not legal, planning, election, or financial advice. The narration is an original synthesis. Verify current law, guidance, course requirements, and source terms before relying on it. Stable episode ID: `3503f9f9-51ce-523f-8a5c-c77a75847cd2` ## Transcript Torrance's new housing is arriving in two places, and neither is where the 2010 general plan expected it. One is the Housing Corridor Overlay adopted in 2023. The other is the area around Del Amo, where big-box stores and parking lots are turning into apartments. A commissioner who knows the plans can tell at a glance which projects are discretionary and which are not. The general plan sets residential densities from under nine homes per acre in the lowest category up to sixty in the highest. Commercial and industrial land is mostly limited to modest intensities. The plan also names seven study areas where change was expected, from Crenshaw and Amsler to Border Avenue and Western Avenue. The Housing Corridor Overlay covers about ninety-five acres in seven areas. The largest is along Maricopa Street between Maple and Crenshaw, at almost forty-seven acres. Next is Border Avenue near downtown, at about twenty-two acres. The rest are smaller pieces at Lomita and Madison, Western at Plaza Del Amo, Gramercy Place, Spencer Street, and Prairie at 182nd. Housing in the overlay is allowed by right, at heights up to seventy-five feet in the densest areas, stepping down to twenty-seven feet next to single-family homes. Because the underlying industrial zoning remains and housing is optional, this overlay is the structure the Redondo Beach ruling called into question. Meanwhile, the projects actually moving are mostly near Del Amo, built through the state density bonus and the new infill exemption. They include four hundred forty-nine apartments replacing a vacant big-box store on Torrance Boulevard, two hundred sixty for-sale homes on former mall parking, two hundred apartments on Carson Street, and two hundred eighteen apartments replacing a bowling alley on Hawthorne. The Hawthorne Boulevard Corridor Specific Plan, adopted in 1996, covers eight hundred fifty-seven acres in five districts, from North Torrance through the auto dealers of the Promenade to Del Amo, Meadow Park, and Walteria. Its mixed-use rules are strict: a use permit, at least a quarter of the floor area commercial, no homes within one hundred feet of the boulevard outside Walteria, and a two-acre minimum site. The state flagged those as barriers to housing, and the city committed to considering changes. Downtown is different again. The Olmsted Brothers laid out Torrance in 1912, separating land uses, putting utilities in alleys, and lining streets with landscaped medians. The architect Irving Gill designed the early buildings. Today, an overlay covering one hundred nine blocks of the original tract sends most new development there to the Planning Commission, and a 2017 historic preservation ordinance protects local landmarks. Two habits will make you the best-prepared person in the room. First, read the last year of commission minutes and keep a simple log: the item, the address, the type of permit, staff's recommendation, the vote, and any conditions added from the dais. Patterns will appear quickly. Second, design rules. Outside the overlay, Torrance still relies on subjective design findings, such as compatibility with neighborhood character, which cannot be used to deny a compliant housing project. Writing citywide objective design standards, rules that can be measured, like a wall break every fifty feet or a minimum share of street-facing windows, would give the city real design control it lacks today. It is one of the most valuable things a planning commission could start. For more, see the section on knowing Torrance's plans in the Local Official's Handbook.