Having lost its way several years ago, on July 1, 2010, Santa Monica lost its collective mind.

City staff, innumerable consultants, developers, lawyers, other “special interests,” and residents spent seven years and untold millions of dollars revising the land use and circulation elements of the General Plan (LUCE). and Thursday night, the City Council succumbed to the blandishments and buncombe served up by architects Hank

Koning and  Gwynne Pugh, and voted  to reject  key provisions of the LUCE in favor of   the Planning Commission version, ” which gives more latitude to architects and developers. And so it was that a 10-minute presentation trumped a seven -year project.

Koning and Pugh are members of the Commission, but they weren’t representing it,

they were lobbying for ‘significant’ architects (see letter below) and developers. Jim Rees and Ted Winterer were the official representatives, but the Council didn’t ask them anything.

The Koning-Pugh thesis – that bigger architecture is better architecture – is utter rubbish.   .

The legendary Mies van der Rohe said, “Less is more,” and proved it again and again.

Frank Gehry. generally seen as  the world’s most influential architect, designed the original Santa Monica Place, and promptly renounced it. But he and his family have lived for decades in a homely  tract house that he “adapted.” The mall  is gone. The house is an icon.

The LUCE is deeply flawed, as we have said repeatedly, especially in its misapprehension of the nature of this place. But it’s better than the Planning Commission’s last minute bow to Koning and Pugh’s demand for MORE.

As you may have noticed, the Council is aesthetically challenged, but it has a profound understanding of the concept of  MORE, and this is an election year, and five of the seven are running.

The Council could reverse itself tomorrow night. The  meeting starts at 5:30. You might want to be there.