Highway to Hell
By John
Davis
Well L.A. County is at it again
trying to please developers who need extra road capacity in Marina del Rey. They
want to replace a publicly funded and owned small craft harbor with non-priority
housing and hotel projects.
An Environmental Impact Report is being
prepared but it is unclear if City Council District 11 will comment on behalf of
Venice or not. Given the adverse negative impacts on Venice and other City
adjacent areas our elected leaders must not turn a blind eye to developments in
MDR as they have in the past.
While
many do not realize it, those of us who live in Venice also have a County
Supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky. The decisions he and the Board make have direct
effects on those of us who live in the
City.
This story is not new. Citizens have
stood up to this nutty proposal and backed it down before. In fact it was even
worse then. The plan was to build a bridge across the bay to Malibu. While the
current proposal is less crazy, it’s only real intended purpose is to
support converting MDR from a public park and playground to apartments and
hotels for the wealthiest segments of society.
The County Grand Jury said to the
Supervisors in 1989-1990 that the County could not lease apartments out for
sixty years because there was no active public use. Yet the County ignored
it’s own Grand Jury. Public funding required only fair and reasonable
rates to be charged and that equal access would be provided for all. The County
has now gone renegade and is being sued by a local non-profit for almost 100
million dollars in leasing fraud.
A
Transportation Implementation Plan exists for Marina del Rey and was approved by
the Coastal Commission. It requires the extension of Admiralty way into area A
of the Ballona Wetlands. Now that it is public land, that will not happen and it
invalidates the existing transportation plan.
Luckily, the Coastal Commission is
reviewing that plan. It has already told the County it cannot allow developers
to pay into a Transportation Mitigation Fund in hopes that someday those funds
will really mitigate the traffic the projects hemorrhage onto Venice
streets.
The County claims its needs to
be one grand entrance into the Marina. That is their only justification. But it
is a lie. Developers want that land bad and this is the best last desperate lie
they can tell. Ask any small craft owner if we need a highway to get to the
Marina for boating or a picnic. Hell no. We can all get in just fine. If they
build the freeway and turn Admiralty and Via Marina into class one state
highways what will be next, another bridge to
Malibu?
• Contact Dominic Osmena,
County Project Manager for details at
626-458-5912.
• Call City Councilman
Bill Rosendahl and ask him to comment on behalf of Venice at
213-473-7011.
• Call Supervisor Zev
Yaroslavsky at 213-974-3333
• Call Pam
Emerson at the Coastal Commission at 562-590-5071 to comment on the MDR Review
Posted: Sat
- April 1, 2006 at 09:05 PM