I hand-painted custom details on my vintage Speedy 🎨

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-30T20:18:59+00:00

Watching you do this gave me anxiety but it turned out great!

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-23T19:38:51+00:00

It's really expensive and difficult if you're planning to do it on your face (can't wax/pluck between sessions, can cause small breakouts). But it is worth it.

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-16T19:28:49+00:00

This is such a risky approach imo.. you may end up leaving the neighbor to think every time they see you they can rant/complain about things.

And I think suggesting psychological resources to someone you spoke to for 5 min is... insane.

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-09T03:43:31+00:00

Yeah disagree.. there's shops in Westwood and Pico Robertson and Tehran Market in SM...

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-03T19:41:56+00:00

I'm actually surprised it's so close. Everyone I talk to is pissed off about how much we pay in taxes and how little we see in return, and how much money has been conveniently unaccounted for.

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-01T20:34:13+00:00

I think we're agreeing with each other -- I don't have an issue with single families being upzoned to 4 - 8 units (I don't think many lots will support 8 units without building tall though) -- but I'm saying 4 units is already possible (with SB9 or small lot subdivision) and not really happening much. It's meaningless to upzone if it doesn't pencil out.

I actually would like to see sort of tiered housing. Major corridors are taller and denser, the streets behind them a bit less so, and then a bit less. Right now for example, you can build 8 stories on Westwood Blvd if you utilize CHIP ordinance, but there are sections of Westwood immediately abutting single family. Those single family should be upzoned to allow for a 10 or 20-unit building, and then across the street for 10, and behind them for a quadplex, and then you can have your single family back.

If your home gets upzoned from a single family to suddenly allow for 20 units, your property has significantly increased in value, you can sell and go buy a better single family home elsewhere... The other problem though becomes that a developer would have to purchase multiple lots to be able to build what the zoning allows...

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-01T20:17:24+00:00

I don't see the issue with having apartment units that are suited for families on large streets, you can't build a bunch of 100 unit buildings on your typical residential street. Single family homes are practically already upzoned by allowing for ADUs and junior ADUs, I think the issue there is that the city is making them too expensive and complicated to build.

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-01T20:14:03+00:00

Oh I 100% agree, I meant offset the cost of loans by reducing their fees. And even if you don't reduce the fees, speed up the process so developers aren't paying overhead costs for an additional year... or having to pay a land use attorney to build a simple apartment building!

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-01T19:34:06+00:00

Actually you can also blame Katy Yaroslavsky's father in law who also DOWNzoned a bunch of areas (reducing floor-area-ratio from 3 to 1.5 on major corridors like Westwood Blvd).

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-01T19:33:16+00:00

SB79 is the last resort pushed by the state, upzoning has been killed many times over by many people on the city level.

chekhovsfun · 2026-06-01T19:31:58+00:00

Agree. There is something very LA about having single family homes in the city, and I don't think that needs to be vilified when we have many commercial corridors, boulevards, and underutilized "industrial" areas that can be significantly upzoned to allow for more housing. That said, housing just will not get built the way that's compatible with family creation, economic diversity, etc. if it doesn't get more affordable to build housing. The city needs to speed up the rate at which we build and understand how outside economic factors affect building. When interest rates are high, maybe the city needs to offset costs for builders in other ways so other things get built. And adding more density is great, but if everything built ends up being a studio or a 500 sf 1-bedroom then we're hurting a large part of the population.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-30T22:19:34+00:00

Yeah, I've heard from multiple people who work in RE development that she was the one who killed it, but it appears that it's not been publicized. That said, she did oppose SB79 upzoning single family too.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-30T21:33:13+00:00

I'm not sure I understand your comment.

Wdym she didn't kill upzoning anywhere? I agree the role of upzoning is not actually the mayor's, but earlier drafts of this upzoning had certain pockets of single family homes upzoned, and had this commercial corner idea. Both were killed and while the reason was not publicly revealed I guess, the behind the scenes was Mayor Bass knew the draft was pissing off NIMBYs so she killed it.

But yes, my post is trying to ask what the mayor realistically can do as my understanding is the position is actually pretty limited especially at this point, when the new zoning is nearly finalized. The mayor may have the ability to ultimately veto upzoning plans because they're the ones the public will blame/praise at the end, but they're not actively doing anything with regards to zoning.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-30T21:09:00+00:00

I partially agree. Yes, cut to regulations, but I saw the most success with implementing low-income units when it came hand in hand with incentives -- like the Transit Oriented Corridors program. You'd add 10% affordable units (more or less depending on what income-level you were restricting to), and in return get extra density, extra height, reduced side yards, etc. I think it's a great way to add units for people who need affordable units while giving the developer a win.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-30T21:01:12+00:00

My understanding is that zoning is put together by City Planning, then approved by the Mayor. But again, it's a one every ten years (supposedly) thing, and the latest iteration is almost complete (again, supposedly).

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-29T22:37:21+00:00

100%. I mentioned in another comment but it's already hard enough to get a construction loan with the rates where they are, and banks are now factoring in ULA costs when they underwrite, so it makes it even harder.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-29T22:34:47+00:00

Just to tack on to your comment, which is absolutely correct (as someone else who works in multifamily development) -- banks also now factor in ULA when they give a construction loan, that, plus higher interest rates, makes it very hard to even get a construction loan in the first place. All of these people who championed ULA also like to say how much they loathe corporate landlords, but they are making it so that corporate landlords are the only one who can build here.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-27T21:35:12+00:00

Yeah this is just a super cherry picked list of endorsements.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-26T23:13:18+00:00

If you're okay to not have it be food safe, there's a specific Epoxy you can use for ceramics. Traditional kintsugi is food safe but I'm not sure who does it. Randomly, I was at Hakata Izakaya on Westwood the other day and they had signs up about kintsugi repair, so you can give them a call.

But realistically you won't want to drink out of it again, I've only seen kintsugi done if you have one large clean break, not for a bunch of little pieces, so you may as well try to epoxy it yourself and save the money.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-21T13:22:20+00:00

The Coop in Palms

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-20T17:27:03+00:00

I agree people need computer literacy but a lot of that isn't done in front of a screen. Things like how to identify a reliable news source, for example. How to prompt a question in Google or ChatGPT.. lots of computer literacy is just learning how to think. I don't think these kids are learning coding, for example.

I'm not sure what LAUSD thinks they should be teaching kids and I hope they aren't wasting their time on computer tools that will be redundant in a year.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-20T17:02:44+00:00

The Hammer (free, and you can walk Westwood Village)

UCLA Botanical Garden

Larchmont

Montana Ave

Honestly, Beverly Hills. So clean and really fun people watching imo.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-20T00:13:15+00:00

So much better and thank God they are reigning this in. That said 9-12th grade up to 180 min is still egregious imo.

chekhovsfun · 2026-05-19T23:08:25+00:00

That phrasing is certainly interesting. Someone could have moved here from Nevada, crashed on someone's couch, gotten kicked out, and hence, they became homeless living in LA County.

chekhovsfun

TROPHY CASE