LANNING POLITICS - It is now up to Councilmember Ed Reyes, as well as Councilmembers Jose Huizar and Mitchell Englander, to prove that there is such as a thing as rules and proper conduct in the City of Los Angeles, because to date Mayor Villaraigosa, the City Planning Commission and their "Planning Politburo" have shown there are virtually NO rules that need to be followed.
Well, the City Attorney has weighed in as a response to Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Bill Rosendahl, and has steadfastly demanded the Casden Sepulveda Project be returned back to Planning for appropriate environmental review.
The 2/28/2013 City Planning Commission meeting was one of the worst days of my life. After fighting over a decade for the creation of an Expo Light Rail Line to enhance mobility and to improve our quality of life in the Westside, I saw those endeavors smashed by a Mayor and City Planning Commission that decided to bend, if not break, every law in the book to pass a project that should have never seen the light of day, would certainly never have passed muster in either Culver City or Santa Monica (through which the Expo Line also will travel).
I've never seen corruption as much in display as I saw that day. I'll never forget that when the City Attorney's deputy brought up the idea of continuing this project, City Planning Commission President Roschen (who had ignored Bill Rosendahl's public plea to hold the CPC hearing on the Westside, and who ignored Rosendahl's and Koretz's emphatic urgings to stop the Casden Sepulveda project as is) roared at her that this was the wrong time to have brought up the idea of continuance.
Of course, the deputy shut up and she didn't bother pursuing the issue on that day, but clearly she brought her recommendations to the rest of the City Attorney's office, and had her concerns verified by Councilmembers Koretz and Rosendahl.
I remember thinking that Roschen was playing the role of tyrant, and that in bygone eras he would have been tarred and feathered because of his tyranny...but, ultimately, he was carrying out the marching orders of our Mayor. To his credit, he did demand the project have no residential within 500 feet of the freeway, although Mr. Roschen and Mayor Villaraigosa are so enamored of very tall buildings that they had no consideration of how the Expo Line publicly-owned ROW was included in the FAR calculation of this project.
Again, this Casden Sepulveda Project is so big, and so inappropriately planned (with City Planning officials who clearly had no respect for Westside residents, many who--like myself--fought for the Expo Line and pointed out that this was clearly a car, and not transit, oriented project) that this would NEVER have seen the light of day in either Culver City or Santa Monica.
Paul Koretz and Bill Rosendahl decried the lack of true outreach and compromise needed to create a project with this magnitude of zoning change and variance, and it is now necessary that the two of them use this golden opportunity to grab the bully pulpit and demand a delay of ANY appearance of this project on the PLUM Committee agenda until Planning (who really bent, if not violated and broke, the rules on this project with their "overriding considerations") does their job with the community with respect to outreach and compromise.
This is NOT a by-right project, and does NOT merit the huge zoning changes and variances that the City Planning Politburo and Mayor Villaraigosa are willing to offer its developers. There is NO public benefit for the rule changes being offered by this developer.
This site, adjacent to the future Exposition/Sepulveda Expo Line station, is an excellent location for development. It is a large business park, to create an industrial/commercial project more in tune with its current industrial, freeway-adjacent zoning? No.
If the developers wanted to create a residential/commercial project so close to the freeway (and YES, dammit, the community DOES have concerns about children and seniors living next to the freeway!), is it a hotel which would preclude long-term exposure to open-air freeway particulate matter, and which would provide both jobs and City revenues? No.
It's just a gigantic Playa Vista-type residential project that might have merit elsewhere, but not at this location, and not with so many unmitigable traffic and safety and environmental impacts in a project that is too car-oriented for any reasonable person to accept.
PLUM Committee members Ed Reyes and Jose Huizar and Mitchell Englander (regardless of whether or not they're outgoing, or whether this project is in their district) must listen to the City Attorney--we do NOT need to have a project here that invites lawsuits. I doubt I'm the only person that would like to avoid litigation here.
The Expo Line is a light rail line trolley of 70-90,000 passengers/day, not a subway of 2-300,000 passengers/day, and is meant to fit into the neighborhoods through which it traverses, not transform it. The Expo Line is meant to enhance mobility, not constrain it.
And on a final note, for those who despise industrially-zoned land because it's ugly (and clearly this land can command higher profitability from retail or commercial rental fees or sales), it's to be reminded that part of the reason Phase 2 of the Expo Line is being built so quickly and with low-cost materials is that the current cement factory at this location is providing much of the materials for this line! Just something to think about as we try to find ways to build roads and rail projects in our City and County.
This always was an illegal endeavor, or at least one that demanded legal action by the residents--an action that the City Attorney wisely is warning the City Council to consider. And if those supporting City Attorney candidate Mike Feuer want to dismiss this as a campaign ploy, they should speak to Feuer right away--his office has been contacted about this, and has made no public statements to date.
On this issue, Carmen Trutanich is absolutely correct--election or no election. The City Planning Department and the Casden Sepulveda developers are inviting unnecessary legal exposure to the City of Los Angeles, and are almost certainly breaking City zoning and planning and transportation laws (as well as potential CEQA and Brown Act violations).
Rules are meant to be broken, or so many believe. But we need not be a society without rules altogether.
(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] 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.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 40
Pub: May 17, 2013
