Living on Lincoln or Living in Riverside?
By Alice
Stek
Not Quite What We Had In
Mind
Mixed-use, small-scale development
of Lincoln Blvd is just what Venice needs, but developers have other interests.
Clever developers give the appearance that they are responding to community
needs.
In the September 2002 Beachhead we
discussed a proposal for improvement of Lincoln Blvd (Living on Lincoln - by Jim
Smith). The idea is to incorporate small businesses on street level and
affordable housing above, along with good public transit on Lincoln. Some large
developers have heard the mixed-use message, but being large development
corporations, they are proposing inappropriate, huge projects for our
not-so-lovely Lincoln Blvd.
One of
these, the Lincoln Center Redevelopment Project, was presented to the community
at the Grass Roots Venice Neighborhood Council Land Use and Planning Committee
on January 20. Architects Khalsa and Associates presented their plans for a
6-story, 75-foot high development covering the 2 blocks now occupied by Rite
Aid, Ralph’s and Ross. This would include a large parking lot facing
Lincoln, “small businesses,” restaurants and cafes on ground
level, and on the 2nd level, Ralph’s, Rite Aid, Ross and another large
store. On top of this would be more parking and 4 floors of apartments, totaling
280 units of 1 or 2 bedrooms, with 2.55 parking spaces per unit. In response to
a previous community input session, the developers promised to reserve 20 per
cent of the units for “affordable housing.” They correctly stated
that this is not required for this development. The intent is to make their
portion of California Avenue attractive for pedestrians with landscaping,
outdoor seating and for some strange reason diagonal parking. Details of the
Lincoln Center Redevelopment Project can be found at:
http://www.grassrootsvenice.org/documents/Lincoln_Lake_Project_012003.pdf
The
landscape architect was in attendance to show us his drawings of the greenery
camouflaging the huge buildings; the drawings and photos presented were indeed
quite attractive. Other concessions to the neighborhood include incorporating
solar energy technology, moving loading docks into the enclosed garage, and
re-striping Lincoln Blvd with a reversible flow traffic
lane.
Community members in attendance
supported the concept of a mixed-use development, but unanimously rejected a
project of this magnitude.
Some
comments:
“This project is a
blimp from Orange County that crashed in Venice.”
“It would be nice in
Riverside.”
“The
developers need to first ask the community what their needs are.”
“What is meant by affordable housing, for how long would this apply, and
will this be available for Venetians?”
“Will the workers at these
businesses be able to afford the apartment rents?”
“Senior housing must be
included.”
“How will this
development impact traffic on Lincoln?”
“Why so many parking spaces;
people will want to use pubic transit.”
“Eliminate parking on California
Street.”
“More green space
instead of parking.”
“Venice small businesses will
not be able to afford the rents.”
“The developer should purchase
Lincoln Place to compensate for this project.”
“They need to seek alternate
sources of funding to ensure more low-income housing”
“We can support such large-scale
projects only if they are 100% low-income housing.”
“This is about money and greed
and a conspiracy to gentrify Venice; we can’t lose this
battle.”
While the Grass Roots
Venice LUPC did an admirable job of organizing and conducting the January
meeting, what the developers really ought to do is have a design meeting and
invite the community, so that we are actually participating in designing the
project. It would be especially helpful if the community could know exactly how
much of the developer’s profit would be compromised if he scaled the
project in order to be acceptable to the
community.
The GRVNC Land Use and
Planning Committee meets monthly. The next meeting is February 17 at the Boys
and Girls Club. Representatives from the Lincoln Center Redevelopment Project
promised to provide responses to the public comments at this meeting.
Posted: Sat
- February 1, 2003 at 08:29 PM