Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000176 EndHTML:0000009927 StartFragment:0000002368 EndFragment:0000009891 SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/peggyclifford/Documents/Word%20Game1

According to a recent headline in SurfSantaMonica – “Multiple Development Agreements

Confusing Public, McKeown Says”

City  Councilman Kevin McKeown prides himself on listening to  and responding to residents.

But, in this instance, not only did he misread residents’ state of mind, and, manage, in the doing, to insult them, his response is still in the works. .

He is  scheduled to ask his Council  colleagues  at Tuesday night’s meeting to join him in directing the  staff to “briefly forego”

bringing  development agreements  to the Planning Commission and  the Council, until the new  land use plan (LUCE) is adopted and new standards are set.

The so-called public is  not “confused” by development agreements. They see them for

what they are  – devices that are meant to ease the passage of mega-projects by expanding the staff’s  authority and short-circuiting the public review process.

Nearly two years ago, in the belief that what has happened would happen, Santa Monicans for a Livable City and the neighborhood organizations asked the City to declare  a moratorium on new commercial development until the LUCE was adopted. The state has approved such moratoriums. The City refused. It also refused a subsequent request by the same groups to make no  development agreements until the new rules

are written.

Where were McKeown and the  other Council members then?   When the question of the moratorium came up, the City  Attorney said, “It would be difficult

to craft.” And that was that.

Apparently, it did not occur to  anyone that an iconic beach town

Is far more difficult to craft than a legal  document, and even more difficult to protect from the advancing hordes of developers with big ideas.

Santa Monica has been in land use  limbo since the expiration of the  1984 plan in 2004. Restdents were glad to see the end of it, as it  had overrun its own stated  limits  by 1996, but construction of more  commercial projects continued  unabated.

Without a moratorium or a ban on development agreements, residents believed the the  City would use  this limbo as an opportumiy to impose its planning preferences on Santa Monica, add more and bigger  commercial  developments, and, in that way, codify them before new  standards were established.

McKeown’s measure may fail Tuesday night. For one thing, the Planning Commission has already

reviewed a number of major  and controversial projects. For another, at least two Council members – Mayor Pro Tem Pam O’Connor and Richard Bloom — have taken campaign contributions from developers and may be disinclined

Here and now, we’d all be better off, if the Council spent more time listening to residents, which is, after   all, what they’re elected to do, and less time listening to staff, assorted consultants and “experts,” and  developers