“New Council Will Help Shape Downtown’s Future.” The mind reels at the very thought.

The Council’s previous essays at “shaping” downtown Santa Monica have not gone well — in large part because it has followed staff’s lead.

Staff wanted more than two dozen ficus trees removed from downtown streets. Over 10,000 residents opposed the removal. Staff prevailed. It also convinced the Council to impose an “intensified urban form” on this thoroughly eccentric beach town, and ordered more housing in the downtown area. and loaded Fifth and Sixth Streets with stunningly mediocre apartment buildings. Staff also recommended the installation of a $15 million “transit mall.” Council okayed it. It was installed. And from that day to this, traffic congestion in that area has been unbearable.

The headline appeared recently in Surf Santa Monica. Apparently. “with the Expo Light Rail line fast approaching, the newly elected council will tackle a host of related issues — including parking and traffic …” Uh-oh.
According to the story, the current Council okayed the City’s purchase of the land occupied by Chase and the Bank of America near Fourth and Arizona. The banks have long leases and the City hasn’t decided what to do with the land.

The Council also okayed a dreadful “hotel project” at 710 Wilshire, which will humiliate a great office building, straight out of the Raymond Chandler canon, and add a 284-room hotel in a neighorhood that neither needs nor wants it. The Council also okayed a new 83,000 sq. ft. 12-screen AMC Theater that will replace a City parking structure on Fourth Street. The deal does not require AMC to provide parking for its customers.

The new Council will oversee the design of the Expo Light Rail terminal. at Fourth and Colorado, and traffic management in the area. In fact, City staff is currently contemplating making Fourth Street one-way south from the Fourth Street freeway exit.

That would require someone heading for Bloomingdale’s, a block north of the freeway exit,
to loop south and west through Ocean Park, then north on Main or Ocean, then east on
Colorado. OR he or she could park in the Civic Center parking structure and walk to
Bloomingdale’s, or drive south on Fourth, west on Olympic Drive, north on Main and east on
Colorado,

Of course, if the recent selection of a quiet residential corner in the Pico Neighborhood as the
site of the Expo maintenance yard is an example of the Expo plannimg process, Expo will
have the last word on the entire Expo installation.