The Year in Rebuke
15 Developments that Rocked Our World (revised for the Web edition)
Venice Projects, Politics, and Traffic in 2005
by Tibby Rothman
1. Making smart growth a cornerstone of his campaign, Bill Rosendahl wins the 11th District City Council seat and with it the unenviable job of representing Venice. Within his first week in office, he personally meets with respected citizens’ planning group the Venice Community Coalition and places his advocacy where his mouth is: urban planning and transportation.
Rosendahl takes hits as he bats for Venice before establishment powers but his determination to make Venice development more user-friendly for its citizens (a goal which also enhances business growth) earns appreciation and respect. Real leaders do not play it safe—they accomplish big things by not shying away from momentary failure. That’s Rosendahl. In addition, he appoints Greig Asher as his Planning Deputy. Asher’s status as an insider—he’s been both a planning commissioner and a planning deputy before—does not quell his enthusiasm for good planning and for openness to the community. Street-talk has Asher springing his own money to head to Portland for the weekend to check out that city’s transpo system.
Year Ahead: Too close too call. Rosendahl’s vision & smarts could lead to big picture improvements by the end of 2006, but the RAD-Sunset development on the site of the current MTA-bus yard could be the test of his term. On one side is a powerful Fortune 500 company. On the other—his constituency which has consistently said no to the project's list of requested exceptions from planning codes governing the surrounding neighborhood. And the community won’t except anything less than results. That’s the high cost of Venice real estate for you.
2. The Year of “No Traffic Impact.” A traffic study issued for a 244-unit, mixed-use project finds that the project—located on Lincoln near the Marina Del Rey/Venice border—will have no significant impact on Lincoln Boulevard traffic. While the findings are based in part on the project’s replacement of commercial development (which currently exists on the site) with residential units, the study is part of a list of projects that determine large, incoming developments have no “significant impact” on traffic in the area. For example, a study determines that Lincoln Center—a mixed-use project also of over 200 units—has no significant impact after “mitigation measures” are implemented. And another project of over two hundred condos and 10,000 square feet of commercial space, located in the heart of Venice is also deemed to have no significant impact after mitigation measures. This could be the result of “new math,” but during a neighborhood council Land Use and Planning Committee meeting in Fall 2005, Ann Giagni, a committee member, tells a developer’s consultant that though she believes their study is well-intended, she has to trust her own experience of driving Lincoln Boulevard for years: traffic is worse. Venetians feel her pain.
Year Ahead: Advances in iPOD technology will continue to make Lincoln Boulevard commutes more palatable.
2a. The Year of “No Traffic Impact” Part II: In conversations with community members, Jay Kim of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (known affectionately as D.O.T.) says the department does not follow up to see if developers’ traffic projections turn out to be accurate.
D.O.T. is also yet to create a formula for traffic generated by commercial uses situated in mixed-use developments versus freestanding commercial. Neither have they studied what types of retail business located within such projects cut back on traffic. Mixed-use developments can encourage residents to utilize “neighborhood serving” retail within walking distance rather than stand-alone commercial, which generates high levels of traffic. The lapse in devising new traffic generation formulae discourages mixed-use developments, and makes LA’s traffic situation worse.
3. Due to an escalating dogfight over who will control Venice’s neighborhood council, the old council’s Land Use and Planning Committee (LUPC) is disbanded before 2005 even starts. This leaves Venice without formalized citizen input in to Los Angeles city government decisions for nearly the entire year. Making the loss greater is the fact that the 2004 LUPC had become an effective, educated, respected body which shared research and drafting chores, listened carefully to developer and citizen testimony, and worked out thoughtful compromises.
The first meeting of a newly reconfigured LUPC in October 2005 features most new committee members so poorly prepared that it evokes sympathy for the MTA-lot development-team presenting redrawn plans to the council. Brett Miller and Stan Mohammed (who both appointed themselves to the LUPC) show little interest in the committee’s work. However, the committee’s second meeting turns it around. Ann Giagni adeptly steps into the committee chair role for the evening, and Phil Raider, who helped draft the Venice Specific Plan, proposes a moratorium on new development on Lincoln Boulevard. The committee adopts it, which is kinda interesting when you think the last neighborhood council was characterized as being radically anti-growth.
Year Ahead: Keep Giagni at the helm. Count on Phil Raider to know his Venice Specific Plan. Meanwhile, some developers will do diligent homework as to community concerns regarding development—i.e. consultant Kristen Montet and developer Dave Wald. And, yes, that’s Deirdre Wallace the owner of the proposed hotel on the site of the Eames’ garage quietly sitting in the back of the room.
4. Trammell Crow Discovers P.O.W.E.R. In a battle over affordable housing, P.O.W.E.R., a grassroots organization composed of working poor people, steps up against Trammell Crow, the country’s largest private developer with relationships which reach as high as the Supreme Court. P.O.W.E.R. wants 30 units of affordable housing (as required by California law) included in TC’s Oxford Triangle development of 297 luxury apartments; TC doesn’t. (Their opening bid to avoid the units is $250,000.) Venice’s city councilwoman at the time, Cindy Miscikowski, sides with TC’s final offer of 18 units and finds herself at odds with P.O.W.E.R. The grassroots group sidesteps their city representation’s aegis and brokers a compromise for 27 units with TC directly. P.O.W.E.R. has out maneuvered a councilwoman and is officially a player.
Year Ahead: P.O.W.E.R.ful.
5. The Eye of the Beholder. In a decision upholding a ruling allowing an “over-height” fence, the West Los Angeles Planning Commission cites “beauty” as a unique circumstance. While Venice’s fence issue is a complex and charged one with many pros and cons from all sides, “aesthetics” are now officially noted as a determining factor. At the deciding meeting, Matthew Rodman, the West LA Planning Commission President, hints at what such a finding could bring, “…we get into becoming a design review body as opposed to, ‘are there, unique circumstances here.”
Year Ahead: How good do your plans look?
6. Venice eats its own. With national, state and city-wide corporations pouring funds into large Venice developments (75 units+)—NIMBYs hook up with anti-development Venetians to vilify local developer Frank Murphy and stop a
two-unit project. When Murphy holds a public workshop to encourage dialogue on another one of his properties, none of his fiercest critics bother to attend.
Year Ahead: The developer standing in line behind Murphy is bigger, doesn’t live here, won’t be picking up coffee at Abbot’s Habit or Stroh’s and has a host of PR people so he’ll never have to hear your concerns directly.
The Upside: The former most-vilified-man-in-Venice, affordable housing advocate Steve Clare gets to take a well-earned break. That’s Venice: one day it’s the non-profit taking heat, the next day it’s the developer earning ire. But not everyone lines up the way you might expect. Real Estate maverick Jack Hoffmann, for instance, voiced his respect for Clare’s 4th Avenue low-income housing project.
7. Friends-in-High-Places. The team for the proposed MTA-Lot development continues to include friends-in-high-places such as Bill Christopher, a commissioner on the Board of Neighborhood Councils. The relationship reflects the cozy connections between public service and business seen nationwide. The truth is people want to do good, but public service pays so little—we all gotta pay the rent somehow. Speaking of rent, Fortune 500 company KB Home is active in the MTA-lot project. (That’s the enterprise formerly known as Kaufman and Broad, co-founded by Eli Broad, the renowned philanthropist.) Though a spokesperson for RAD Development states that there is “no ink on paper” between the two entities, KB CEO Bruce Karatz initiates a meeting between he and Venice’s city councilman, Bill Rosendahl in regards to the development.
8. Dogtown, the new “uptown.” RAD Development breaks ground on Dogtown Station. Part of RAD’s financing packet for the project includes monies from a well-respected fund initially established to benefit low and moderate income neighborhoods. (Dogtown Station’s proximity to Venice’s Oakwood-area means the project falls within the fund’s guidelines at the time financing was considered.) But the developer legally defers all affordable housing required for the site by the California Mello Act to another project. Later, Dogtown Station units are dubbed “luxury lofts.” Somewhere, CR Stecyk—the man who nicknamed a rotting ghetto “Dogtown”—is smiling at the irony.
Year Ahead: Aaron Spelling will launch the TV series “Dogtown 90291” with an ensemble cast featuring a crack dealer with a heart of gold, a tidy skateboarder (think a Young Kid Rock-type), and the beautiful, street-wise hooker who brings them together. Production trucks will occupy all parking spaces on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. When merchants protest, the industry will decry run-away production while stars earn millions in salaries.
9. The community squanders its opportunity to provide meaningful testimony against the MTA-lot project. In the fall, the community packs a room to tell Jon Foreman, a Los Angeles Planning Department hearing officer, their outrage over the 200-plus unit/56-foot high development to be located in the heart of Venice. Straight-out, their testimony is abysmal—shrill, emotional and containing little research on planning policy—which leaves Jack Hoffmann a real estate professional and long-time Venice community member who supports the project to provide some of the most well considered words of the day. For the anti-side Phil Raider is one of the few stand-outs, explaining that the F.A.R.—the ratio of buildable-square footage to property-square footage—which the developer seeks, is above that in the surrounding community. “Don’t give them the F.A.R. and the density bonus, Jon,” he pleads sanguinely. Foreman patiently suffers through over four-hours of community ranting and still recommends against the project.
Year Ahead: Don’t expect the Los Angeles Planning Commission to put up with anything but organized, educated coherence.
10. A 3-lot consolidation is denied in the canals. VenicePaper isn’t in the room to cover the story, but, still, it happens and is a defining moment for the future of the canals.
11. Light-industrial disappears from Marina Del Rey. According to a source, one property owner raced to demolish his industrial structure prior to the election for the 11th District City Council person.
Year Ahead: If Scott Anderson is your shaper, organize a property purchase fund for him with other Venice surfers.
12. Pioneer Bakery ups its program. Though the Garacochea family is initially concerned about the viability of commercial usage in their Pioneer Bakery-lot project, once the Coastal Commission mandates such a use, John Garacochea \throws himself into identifying exciting, unique, non-chain store owned, neighborhood-serving businesses to line the project’s Rose Avenue frontage.
Year Ahead: If Garacochea successfully executes his vision, the Pioneer Bakery building will become a beacon to Venetians. (He’ll also prove that an excellent commercial component raises prices for residences located within the same project.)
13. Development on Abbot Kinney Boulevard explodes. Along AK’s short commercial district, 15-plus lots are under construction or in development.
Year Ahead: Rents along AK will continue to spike, meaning, if you have a business along AK that you would like to see continue, share some love, drop some cash—rent just went up a whopping 20%.
Man-Of-the-People Award 2005
Given to City Councilman Jack Weiss for berating Lincoln Place tenants who, facing eviction, seek his help at a public meeting.
No doubt, the Lincoln Place saga is extraordinarily complex, but isn’t it bad timing, or at least poor political practice, to hit someone when they’re down—especially when they’re elderly? In 2002, Weiss voted for a deal struck between the city and Lincoln Place developers which was supposed to prevent evictions at Lincoln Place but this year, as a member of the city council’s Planning and Land Use Management committee, Weiss sidesteps a request by tenants to enforce the deal. Arguing against the tenants and for the project’s developer is law firm Latham & Watkins. Firm attorneys have personally contributed at least $11,300 to Weiss’ coffers since 2000, which beats other law firms contributing to Weiss by about $2350.
Year Ahead: Jack, when your parents taught you to open the door for seniors, they didn’t mean the eviction door.
14. Venice Community Coalition (VCC) solidifies its position as a power in planning & development politics. There are two kinds of “power.” Power granted formally (i.e. institutionally, as in President of the United States) and power earned through action. The VCC, which was initiated to combat the two-block-long Lincoln Center redevelopment, falls into the latter. With Venice’s LUPC out of commission for much of 2005, the VCC drenches itself in traffic and land-use policy then provides well-researched, methodical input on such developments as the Maxella project (in Marina del Rey), the MTA lot and the Lincoln Place battle. The Los Angeles City Council passes the VCC’s Lincoln Blvd Community Development Overlay initiative which will lead to community input on the future of Lincoln Boulevard. And the VCC engages attorneys for some high-power help on Lincoln Center. But the group also has its flawed moments. One respected VCC member forgets his tent at the Lincoln Place tenants’ tent-city-protest-on-Rocky-Delgadillo’s-front-lawn and must drive back to a Hancock Park-adjacent park to retrieve it on a Friday night—talk about poor planning.
Year Ahead: The VCC will be busy, and stay very smart.
15. Mayor Villaraigosa appoints Venice resident Mark Winogrond as Interim Director of the City of Los Angeles Planning Department.
Year Ahead: We’d beg Winogrond to go permanent, but how could you want a fellow Venetian to suffer so?
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