ALPERN AT LARGE-At the risk of sounding naive and ridiculous, I'm going to make a plea to Paul Koretz, Eric Garcetti, Herb Wesson, Mike Bonin and the rest of City Hall: we need your vision, leadership, and integrity more than ever.
The Times headlines aren't so great this morning: The Hollywood Millennium and other major projects are next to major earthquake faults, and a panel of City leaders (who have their OWN conflicts of interest and baggage, to be fair) just sent out a Chicken-Little list of complaints and concerns that LA faces a grim future.
Whistling past the graveyard, saying the right things, and diverting voters away from really fixing things has not, cannot and will not get things done anymore at City Hall.
For the most part, this should have been the take-home message from our last Mayoral election: the giddy beginning of the Villaraigosa era ended in a sad and sorry image of a City Hall that was beholden to few, and non-responsive to many.
In contrast, the era of City Controller Ron Galperin is off to such a credible and respectable start that (for those who still give a damn about City politics) memories of her predecessor boils down to "Wendy who."
Whether it's charges of incompetence, laziness or corruption, the fairness of the charges leveled at the troika of Villaraigosa, Greuel and Jack Weiss are not nearly as important as the desire of Angelenos to be done with them.
So let's not repeat that Villaraigosa-Greuel-Jack Weiss era, OK? People will accept a learning curve (and even a well-placed apology), but blatant conflict of interest and incompetence won't serve LA's future. Follow the Galperin example, and keep things honest and open.
CASE IN POINT: the upcoming fundraising event for Councilmember Paul Koretz by JMB Realty Corporation consultant Steve Afriat flies in the face that JMB is still illegally pursuing a Century City Center that is three times the legal size allowed for commercial square footage in the Century City Specific Plan.
Westsiders do NOT want Paul Koretz to be another Jack Weiss, and Koretz should know better.
Increasingly, the role of duly-elected neighborhood councils and neighborhood/homeowner associations is to protect Angelenos from a City Council and Planning Politburo that is all-too-willing to break the laws of the City of Los Angeles and ruin the lives, economy and environment of its residents.
After enduring a miserable Westside grassroots experience fighting the Casden developers, where we received entirely insufficient support (and sometimes downright treachery) from the City Council and Mayor Villaraigosa, we now have JMB Realty and its paid-for backers willing to (again) throw another avoidable, unnecessary body-blow at the Westside.
1) We still don't have a clue as to what the Casden development at Pico/Sepulveda/Exposition will look like, even though it will be a HUGE project that SHOULD have been transit-oriented...and even though it was approved by the City Council.
Yes, we have a very large residential project, non-transit-oriented and next to the future Exposition/Sepulveda Expo Line rail station...and we don't know what it will look like.
2) We still have a HUGE Hollywood Millennium project passed by the City Council and Mayor that was rammed through the Planning process before the geological/earthquake fault issue was properly raised.
3) And we still have a HUGE Century City Center that is breaking a legal covenant and process that has been followed by all commercial landlords and developers since 1981, and threatens a precedent that will illegally triple the size of Century City.
The song remains the same--that JMB can LEGALLY build their project if they buy enough "trips" (not real traffic trips as per 2014 traffic counts, but an arbitrary designation that was designated in 1981 that was meant to keep commercial real estate to 2.5 million square feet).
If that term "trips" bothers anyone, replace it with the term "credits", and it will easier to understand that JMB sold their credits to build two enlarged projects in the past, and that they can buy new ones if they wish to make their new project legal and proper...but another commercial landlord would have to sell JMB these credits to keep the size of Century City in check.
Another option would be to change the 1981 rules, so Paul Koretz, the Planning Politburo and City Hall will have the choice of obeying City law, or break it to meet the needs of a special few interests.
Note to JMB Realty: just buy the "trips" (or "credits", if you will), and this whole hassle ends for all of us. Please? Pretty please?
Following the law isn't too much to ask, is it? If the Century City Center will be a boon for business, for unions, for construction guilds and for the rest of us, then the process of building this tower legally is one shouldn't be tough to adhere to.
If City Hall wants to create a vibrant new Downtown to live and work and create jobs, and if City Hall wants to create a vibrant new commercial district next to LAX, then great. That's vision, that's wonderful change and that's a first-rate way to keep LA strong and economically powerful for years to come.
But if another "sweetheart deal" to allow JMB to bypass the law and save hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the "trips" or "credits" needed to LEGALLY build the Century City Center, then it will be impossible to:
1) Convince Angelenos that bonds or taxes are needed to rebuild and upgrade our roads.
2) Convince Angelenos that City Hall really "gets it" with the need to respect hardworking and hurting taxpayers who (gasp!) want to merely follow the law.
So to Paul Koretz and the City Council, no one will believe (or want to hear) that those opposing the JMB project (Century City Center) is "restricted to a few vocal folks from Beverlywood and South Robertson".
The Mar Vista Community Council, the Westside Village Homeowners Association, and the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee (which includes many representatives of CD5 neighborhood councils and associations) voted overwhelmingly and emphatically to oppose the Century City Center currently proposed by JMB Realty.
Just as Paul Koretz and others in CD5 rightfully came against the oversized Bundy Village project in CD11 (outside of his district, but yet entirely impacting of his district).
The Westside, by and large, DOES NOT and WILL NOT want any money from JMB Realty, so PLEASE ignore those few groups that got hush money from JMB ... PLEASE!
We just want a right-sized Century City Center tower based on the assigned trips that will prevent the tripling of and "super-sizing" of Century City.
We just want a City willing to live within its means, follow the law, and demand that both well-heeled and ordinary Angelenos alike do the right thing, without cheating...and without an enabling City Hall.
Otherwise, the doom-and-gloom folks ARE right. The City of Los Angeles DOES have a grim and painful future.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us . The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 3
Pub: Jan 7, 2014