No Applause in Venice for the MTA Bus Yard Swap
A message to the City Planning Commission
By Arnold
Springer
I want to strongly object to
this proposal project. There are many things wrong with it. Too tall, too dense,
too out of scale, too greedy, too pushy, too confrontational towards the
neighborhood and community.
Specifically I
wish to protest the change of zone from M-1 to C-M Zoning. Granting this zone
change request gives the developer the opportunity to build a residential
project of up to R-3 density. The Venice Specific Plan and the North Venice
Neighborhood Plan call out a zoning of RD 1.5.
Comment: I worked on this North Venice
Specific (neighborhood) Plan from 1976 following the passing of the California
Coastal Act to 1990 when the Specific Plan was adopted. I helped organize scores
of neighborhood meetings at which 100’s of residents and property owners
listened and spoke, educating themselves about zoning and planning and coastal
access issues. I worked as well with other Venice neighborhoods when they
crafted their Specific Plans. All of us were under the impression that these
plans would organize and regulate future building in their neighborhoods: That
they would be respected by Los Angeles City planning
authorities.
To me now, this is a
matter of respect. You asked us to participate in this community planning
process. You spent lots of public funds through the Planning Department and
Commission helping us to produce these plans. We worked hard through myriads of
meetings and hours of discussion and preparation. We acted in good faith with
the City of LA. Will the City now reciprocate and repay us by staying in good
faith with us, or disrespect us and disrespect our good will in working with
you? This is a test!!!
It comes as quite a
shock to see these plans ignored and dismissed, as is the case with this
project.
Specifically, all of us in
North Venice were aware of the MTA site and the possibility that it would be
developed sooner or later. We very consciously decided to attach conditions to
the zoning at this site (Q and T conditions) which would restrict the density on
any future development to the density of the surrounding
neighborhood.
One of the first
successful neighborhood initiatives we undertook after the passage of the
California Coastal Act was the successful initiation of a zoning rollback in the
North Venice neighborhood from R-3 to RD
1.5.
We proposed this zoning roll back
to the then Councilwoman Pat Russell. She supported this roll back. At that time
we cited two reasons to justify the roll back. First, we wanted to support the
Coastal Act, to wit: to do everything possible to “enhance public access
to the coast” and specifically to Venice Beach. By lowering density and
inhibiting large scale development we hoped to ease the pressure of
gentrification, maintain our low and moderate income housing stock, and thereby
enhance and insure continued public
access.
Since public parking was such a
key issue in assuring and enhancing public access, our down zoning relieved
pressure on Ocean Front vacant properties (which were down zoned from C-2 to
C-1) and thus we hoped to preserve our public access
parking.
All of us property owners
realized that down zoning would reduce the speculative value of our properties.
Nevertheless we enthusiastically supported the down zoning to C-1 and RD 1.5
because it would help achieve our two objects, to wit: Support of the Coastal
Acts mandate to local governments to “enhance public access to the
coast” and to support the low and moderate incoming housing stock in the
Coastal zone.
We filed hundreds of
appeals of LA City permits between 1976 and 1990. In all of these appeals we
cited the above reasons. We were very successful with the Coastal Commission on
our appeals and eventually convinced Los Angeles Planning Department officials
to implement our recommendations. The zoning roll back took place, for the
reasons cited above; the City started to protect existing coastal access and
neighborhood parking and, with the passage of the Mello Act, also to protect our
low and moderate incoming housing
stock.
At the time in the 70’s
that all of us supported the zoning roll back, we argued that the MTA lot should
also be zoned RD 1.5. We understood that M zone (industrial) could be changed,
at the request of a property owner, to a C zone very easily, and that the C zone
(either 1 or 2) carried with it a residential density of R-3. We were afraid
that the MTA, which even at that time said it wished to move) would sell to a
developer who would try to rezone to
R-3.
When we proposed that the MTA lot
should be rezoned from M-1 to RD1.5, we were told that the MTA objected to this
because then they would be operating a bus yard in a residentially zoned parcel
and so would be in violation of their zoning and that they would be open to a
law suit (non conforming industrial use in a residential zone) which could have
shut down their facility. They didn’t want to be put in that
position.
There was some logic to this
argument. So as not to confront the MTA we proposed the application of Temporary
Q conditions on the lot, proposed that the RD 1.5 designation be put onto the
tract maps so that everyone knew that if sold or traded, if the industrial use
on the site was terminated, that the underlying zoning would be changed to
RD1.5
In this we acted responsibly and
respected the MTA’s concerns. Nothing has changed since the T and Q
conditions were applied by Councilwoman Ruth Galanter to this parcel, and I
don’t see any reason for the Planning Commission to overturn the land use
policy adopted by the North Venice Specific Plan and the Venice Specific
Plan.
What is the most obvious and
appropriate use for this parcel? I would submit, parking. We do have a Beach
Impact Zone (BIZ) which was established specifically to address the paucity or
shortfall of visitor and residential parking in the North Venice area. Los
Angeles City is collecting monies from developers which are supposed to go into
the BIZ. Visitor serving parking has been significantly reduced of late by
permitted projects on the Ocean Front between Brooks Ave in the south and Rose
Ave in the north. I would say that 100’s of public access parking places
have been lost as a consequence. Has the LA Planning Department done a survey
and produced an accounting of the previously existing visiting serving parking
lost to new development in the North Venice area? I haven’t heard of
it.
Is the City of Los Angeles doing
everything it can to enhance public access and visitor serving uses in the North
Venice area? If not, it is in violation of the Coastal Act provisions which
mandate enhanced opportunities for public access to the beach and
coast.
In sum, I urge you to reject
this project as proposed. I urge you to have this project renditioned back to
the GRVNC for a hearing and recommendation. And I urge you to suggest to both
the current developer and to MTA that they should consider a development more in
keeping with the letter and spirit of the North Beach Neighborhood and Venice
Specific Plans.
Any project proposed
for this site should observe the zoning, density, and height limits set out in
the planning documents which I have mentioned, and should give serious
consideration to measures which would enhance public access to the coast by
making the below street level parking entirely beach public access and
residential neighborhood and replacement parking. Although some BIZ parking is
included in the RAD proposal, it is not enough to mitigate the losses of beach
access parking and neighborhood residential parking being eliminated by this
project.
On top of this parking we
would all accept and welcome a 30-35 high residential development at RD 1.5
density.
Please keep in mind that the
land is worth lots of money, but that the MTA didn’t pay anything for it
because it belonged to the City of Venice and was turned over to Los Angeles in
the late 1920s. If the parcel was subdivided into 30 x 85 foot lots, about 90 of
these could be created and the MTA could sell these, and, at $1 million per lot,
capture a windfall profit which it could use to build its new bus terminal at
another location, which is its
desire.
The City and County of Los
Angeles could use the BIZ funds to construct the parking facility, which would
pay for itself as part of a parking authority over the years. In this way Los
Angeles would demonstrate its support of the public access provisions of the
Coastal Act. Meanwhile the above grade lots could be sold to individual
developers to construct duplexes. The neighborhood would be willing to consider
Mello Act mandated density bonuses for low incoming housing and we would find a
developer to develop such a project on site.
Posted: Wed - January 4, 2006 at 02:15 PM