Monsters at the Gates
If you can read the letter below from the Friends of Sunset Park to the L.A. Planning Commission without at least wondering why there are so many planners and so few good plans, check your pulse.
The proposed “Bundy Village and Medical Park,” described below, would plant 1.1 million square feet of stuff, including over 3,300 parking spaces, on our eastern border.
This is not good news for us or anyone in West L.A.. Intermittent gridlock – in the Bundy/ Olympic intersection and adjacent streets, the 10 and 405 freeways, and Santa Monica in general and Sunset Park in particular – is virtually assured.
City Hall estimates that Santa Monica’s permanent population of about 87,000 soars to 300,000 every week day, and 500,000 on weekends.
A while ago, L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who represents West L.A., chastized Santa Monica for Mar Vista’s traffic woes. It’s rumored that Rosendahl now supports the mega-development, but we haven’t been able to confirm the rumor.
Still, his swipe at our multiplying traffic was spot on, and echoed Santa Monia residents’ rising complaints about spreading congestion in Santa Monica.
Just as many Santa Monica residents have consistently opposed such City Hall mega-projects as the luxe office district, our neighbors from the Palisades and Brentwood to Venice have opposed the aggressive development policies of L.A. City Hall.
It’s a wide screen, Technicolor, 3-D Capra movie – the people versus their City Halls.
Everybody should oppose the “Bundy
Village and Medical Park ”— for the reasons cited in the Friends of Sunset Park letter.
And residents of Santa Monica should review the revision of the land use and circulation elements of the General Plan (LUCE draft), which will be re-introduced at tomorrow night’s City Council meeting, It will determine our destiny, and that of our neighbors, for the next 20 years.
The 1984 plan triggered the commercial building boom that is the basis for most of our current problems. The new LUCE must not only soave the existing problems, but restore the strong sense of place that has been fractured in recent years and is so vital to this beach town’s well-being.
At the moment, it does neither, and r never will — unless residents weigh in. Emphatically.
This is going to be on the expo line. This is the perfect spot for future development and where density should be increased.
Olympic/Bundy is a perfect location in West L.A. for this style of development. It is a dense corridor that needs to get even more dense to encourage walking and an urban enviornment to surround the light rail line. Its an attractive project too that will help revitalize the area that its a little rundown.
This is exactly why everyone who cares about traffic on the Westside should be against the Expo line. It’s sole purpose is to enable overdevelopment. Santa Monica’s LUCE directly states that the “Expo Line will enable” two massive developments just east of the Water Garden and the total transformation of the area around Memorial Park. Add this Bundy Project to the mix and the Kasden Development at Sepulveda and those of you that thought Olympic Boulevard at 5:30 PM couldn’t get worse or in for a real nigtmare. As one developer put it to me about the Expo Line– “We plan to close in the gap between Century City and the Water Garden with as many skyscrapers as we can get away with.” This is also why the Expo Authority has already stated that “the Expo Authority projects no reduction in traffic or congestion on any freeway, boulevard, or major street as the result of building the Expo Line.” No kidding.
alex,
Those of you that want Los Angeles to remain a city that is a slave to the automobile and a slave to traffic should just give up. Los Angeles will alwys have the most oppressive traffic in the USA. Look at the 405! Millions spent to open an additional lane and it is just as bad as before. The Expo Line gives L.A. the chance to get mobile again, to get somewhere without stress as you just sit back and relax. Hopefully people will see the train gliding past them in traffic and realize that with Big Blue Bus, Metro, the Expo Line, and hopefully the Wilshire subway that they don’t really need a car for everything. Los Angeles IS a dense city and will only get more dense. It needs the infastructure to support it and roads won’t cure the problem.
Notice how your concern is all about YOU and YOUR traffic conerns. Well, how about giving transit users a shot this time and let them try to make L.A. more mobile says adding more lanes has already failed.
What Richard fails to realze that every city in the United States is a slave to the automobile. The New York Metropolitan Area has the most complete rail system in the country and still 90% of commuters drive to work. Los Angeles has the worst traffic of any city in the US simply because it has the lowest number of freeway miles per resident. Adding rail enables cities to increase the density of the population able to live and work in a given area. More people per square mile means a lower quality of life for all. By the way, I don’t commute along Olympic so that’s not about me, but the additional 405 south bound lane has reduced my commute by almost ten minutes And any one else going the same way can enjoy the same reduction in traffic as long as we keep out of control develoment in check.
Richard Mason writes: “Olympic/Bundy is a perfect location in West L.A. for this style of (large medical plaza) development. It is a dense corridor that needs to get even more dense to encourage walking….” How is this project and a similar one planned adjacent by Martin Cadilac going to encoruage walking? This is exactly the kind of bizarre reasoning we’re subjected to by devlopers and light rail supporters. Please. Mayeb you and Fridns4Expo’s Darrell Calrk can gt together and share delusions.
The proposed Medical Plaza is not next to thy Expo line which is about a half block south of Olympic. It will, however, bring more vehicular traffic into the area — like thousands of cars per day. The only walking people will do is from their doctor’s office to the parking garage.
Mason goes on, “Its an attractive project too that will help revitalize the area that its a little rundown.” Another brilliant statement. With much new mostly office construction in the area and along Olympic, the area may not be as slick as Century City but it’s improving while not being at all people friendly — but then Mason propbaly hasn’t been there recently.
Mason also suggests people will see the Expo train glide past them in traffic. Hey Richard, here in the People’s Republic, the Expo alignment is down the middle of Colorado Blvd for 14-blocks plus crossing many intersections at grade along its entire route Expo will contribute to traffic congestion (read the EIR) and Expo riders will be stuck in traffic, too. And with all the development Mason wants to see, we’ll all all be spending more time in traffic.
People should be prohibited from doing ANY development until all the empty office buildings and commercial stores already built are filled. Haven’t you noticed there is a recession on, and businesses are closing, resulting in For Rent signs all over Santa Monica? I know future needs have to be taken care of many years in advance, but the overbuilding of commercial development in the 1980s is now apparent. No more of it should be done. Instead, housing should be protected and expanded. We already have too much business development for which we cannot house the workers and customers. All the vacant areas of America are crying out for these huge developments, and they need them and have room for them. Santa Monica and West LA do not.