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Capital Improvement Plan / Capital Planning Steering Committee / Public Right-of-Way Projects

Council File 25-0752

Under review — the city's plan to overhaul how it picks and funds capital projects is in the Public Works Committee, where council members are evaluating a new intake process, scoring system, and governance structure before voting on the underlying code changes.

Introduced
2025-07-02
Last changed
2026-09-18
CFMS file status
File open See note on file status
Expires
2028-09-18
Committee
Public Works Committee
Mover
KATY YAROSLAVSKY
Second
EUNISSES HERNANDEZ
References
Related Council Files: 21-0039; 23-0919

This is the City Clerk's status for the council file itself, not the outcome of the measure. A file often stays open after the Council has already adopted an item. The summary above reflects the latest recorded action.

Brief

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky moved a motion to establish a Capital Planning Steering Committee focused on public right-of-way improvement projects. Council adopted the motion 13-0-2 in September 2025. The Bureau of Engineering submitted implementation documents in July 2026, and the Public Works Committee has been reviewing the specifics since then. The file remains pending as the committee works through operational details.

Full summary

This motion, introduced by Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky and co-signed by Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, and Nithya Raman, directed the City to overhaul how it plans, selects, and delivers capital infrastructure projects. The core vehicle is a Capital Planning Steering Committee (CPSC) created under Mayor Bass's Executive Directive 9, which called for centralized, strategic management of public infrastructure investment. The motion set in motion three specific reforms: establishing a formal project intake process, adopting a scoring and prioritization system for selecting projects, and revising the Los Angeles Administrative Code to institutionalize a five-year Capital Improvement Program outside the annual budget cycle. After clearing both the Government Operations Committee and Public Works Committee in early September 2025, the full Council adopted the motion 13-0-2 on September 30, 2025. In July 2026, the Bureau of Engineering submitted a detailed implementation report outlining how each of those three reforms would work in practice. On project intake, the report proposes a standardized process through which city departments submit capital project ideas to BOE via the Universal Project Reporting System. Projects would move through an initiation phase, an engineering investigation phase producing a cost estimate and feasibility review, and two oversight gates where a new staff-level Capital Planning Oversight Group screens projects before they are added to the formal CIP. On project scoring, the report recommends that council adopt seven guiding principles — health and safety, connectivity, accessibility, equity, preservation, sustainability and resiliency, and economic investment — as the basis for ranking projects, with a refined scoring rubric still to be vetted by the CPSC before coming back to council. On governance, the report recommends that the City Attorney draft an ordinance replacing existing Administrative Code sections 5.43 and 5.44, effectively decommissioning the current CAO-led Capital and Technology Improvement Expenditure Program in favor of a five-year CIP led by the Bureau of Engineering and the City Engineer. The report also notes that BOE plans to hold new project requests in a queue until a baseline citywide five-year CIP is published in early 2027, meaning city departments cannot initiate new projects or seek grants for new work during the transition period. The CPSC's oversight role would consolidate or eliminate several existing capital oversight bodies, including the Street and Transportation Project Oversight Committee, and would require the Municipal Facilities Committee to step back from capital project oversight. The Bureau of Engineering's July 2026 report was referred to the Public Works Committee, which continued the item in early September 2026 before scheduling it for a hearing on September 22, 2026. The file remains open and pending in committee as members review the intake rules, scoring methodology, and the proposed administrative code changes.

Activity (17)

  • 2026-09-18 Public Works Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on September 22, 2026.
  • 2026-09-08 Public Works Committee continued item to a date to be determined.
  • 2026-09-04 Public Works Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on September 8, 2026.
  • 2026-07-10 Bureau of Engineering document(s) referred to Public Works Committee.
  • 2026-07-10 Document submitted by Bureau of Engineering, dated July 9, 2026.
  • 2025-10-01 Council action final.
  • 2025-09-30 Council adopted item, subject to reconsideration, pursuant to Council Rule 51.
  • 2025-09-26 City Clerk scheduled item for Council on September 30, 2025.
  • 2025-09-19 Community Impact Statement submitted by Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council.
  • 2025-09-10 Public Works Committee approved item(s) .
  • 2025-09-05 Government Operations Committee approved item(s) .
  • 2025-09-04 Public Works Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on September 10, 2025.
  • 2025-08-31 Community Impact Statement submitted by Los Feliz Neighborhood Council.
  • 2025-08-27 Government Operations Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on September 5, 2025.
  • 2025-08-18 Community Impact Statement submitted by North Westwood Neighborhood Council.
  • 2025-07-10 Community Impact Statement submitted by North Westwood Neighborhood Council.
  • 2025-07-01 Motion referred to Government Operations Committee; Public Works Committee.

Documents (13)

Council votes (1)

  • 2025-09-30 Adopted — 13-0-2 · Regular

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