Down at San Juan and Abbot Kinney
By Jim
Smith
Some years ago, I was getting my
haircut in the now long-gone Rich’s Barber Shop which was across the
street from the development that is the subject of this article. Ricardo, aka
Rich, pointed with his scissors at the half-bulldozed house on the corner.
“Sure as shootin’ they’re going to build some big deal over
there that’s going to run all us little guys out of here” Rich
observed. I sympathized with the barber, and with the house. It had been a nice
old Venice frame house with a big wrap-around porch. In the months prior to its
destruction, it had been an ad-hoc used furniture store.
Rich had seen the writing on the wall and
departed, along with his $4 haircuts, long before the project really got
rolling. What I didn’t know then was that a lot of the neighbors,
including Lydia Poncé, shared his views - and they weren’t leaving.
Can a young mother stick her finger in
the dike holding back the flood of big development projects threatening Venice?
At times, Lydia Poncé must feel it’s impossible. One of those times
was on the evening of Feb. 5 after the West Los Angeles Planning Commission
voted unanimously for the Abbot Kinney Blvd./San Juan Avenue retail/condo
project.
Within a few days, Poncé
was again optimistic about new appeals. It’s personal with her. Poncé
and her daughter live a half block down San Juan from where the proposed
building would dump cars out of the underground parking lot. Some of the drivers
would have been drinking at the chic new bar. They may choose to avoid Abbot
Kinney Blvd. traffic by zooming east on San Juan Avenue, a narrow street with
narrow yards where kids play in both.
A
lot of Poncé’s neighbors signed petitions against the project, 145 to
be exact. Most of them would not be able to afford to frequent the new bar or
the gourmet restaurant next door, let alone buy a “market-rate”
condominium upstairs. They are not the “movers and shakers” of
Venice, so their wishes were ignored by the five-member West L.A. Planning
Commission - friends of Mayor Hahn. They were also ignored by City Councilmember
Cindy Miscikowski, who supports the
project.
The Feb. 5 hearing on the
13,200 square-foot project had several moments of high drama. In addition to
Poncé, a number of local residents, including John Davis, Fred and Marian
Crostic, Paul Ryan, John Mitchell, DeDe Audet and me testified against the
project. We cited a variety of problems, such as its size, its ability to
gentrify (expensive condos and stores that won’t cater to the residents of
Oakwood), traffic, lack of parking, and its looming presence over Abbot Kinney.
This project, if ultimately approved, would be the first on Abbot Kinney to
combine three separate lots. Such a precedent could be used to create more big
(chain) stores which would drive out the
locals.
We were followed by the
developer’s lawyer, the developer, the developer’s employees and the
developer’s friends. Allan Silverman, president of the Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Association spoke for the project.
Two
members of the Venice Neighborhood Action Committee (VNAC), an Oakwood group,
spoke in favor of the project. They said that VNAC had originally been opposed
to the project but that Sant had met with the group and convinced them to
support it. Jataun Valentine of VNAC said that she hoped some local residents
would get jobs at the building, “even if it’s just sweeping
floors.”
Tibby Rothman, publisher
of the Venice Paper, spoke enthusiastically in favor of the project.
“Michael Sant makes me proud to be a Venetian,” said Rothman. She
also alleged that certain people were “accusing VNAC of taking a bribe (to
support the project).”
After the
testimony, the commissioners quizzed Emily Gabel-Luddy, a Planning Department
administrator who had ok’d the project last September. Gabel-Luddy
explained that although Sant was not providing the required number of parking
spots, he had paid the city $18,000 for each of four missing spots. Besides,
Gabel-Luddy said the project had plenty of parking according to city-wide
standards. She admitted that the coastal district and the Venice Specific Plan
require more parking, but it didn’t seem to faze her. As I sat listening
to the banter between Gabel-Luddy and the commissioners, I thought I knew how
colonials in the British Empire must have felt as they sat, nearly invisible,
listening to their patrons discuss their
fate.
In the end, after some feigned
sympathy for the locals, the commission voted unanimously to approve the
project. They added a requirement for valet parking (which seems somewhat
counterproductive to the anti-gentrification argument) and for beer and wine
only. No very dry Martinis, alas.
Posted: Sat
- March 1, 2003 at 06:47 PM