City planner Jing Yeo and Carrie Garlett from PBS&J, the firm that’s doing the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) on the proposed Bergamot Transit Village Center, gave a preliminary report on the 960,000 square foot project Wednesday night, and then heard what some of the 50 residents at the meeting thought about the project. Those comments will be included in the DEIR.
The deadline for issues residents want the DEIR to address is December 15, 2010. They should be sent to jing.yeo@smgov.net and copied to Council@smgov.net
The DEIR will be available for comment in Summer 2011.
The meeting demonstrated, as all such meetings in recent years have demonstrated, that there is a significant divide between what residents want Santa Monica to be and City planners’ aspirations for it.
A Pico Neighborhood resident noted that no residents want more large projects, noted that Olympic between Cloverfield and Centinela is already gridlocked, and asked that all the commercial projects that are planned for that immediate area be included in the EIR, which should examine current traffic, water usage and so on, as well as the proposed projects’ impacts.
A West Los Angeles resident said the planners should look at cumulative projects. Bundy Village and Medical Park, a half mile east of Bergamot, as proposed, would generate 21,000 new daily car trips and significantly increase congestion in 19 intersections that could not be mitigated. and added that Santa Monica should provide affordable housing for the work force that currently funnels through West LA every day.
A Santa Monica resident said the current plan has insufficient parking spaces.
Another resident said 1900 parking spaces will draw 1900 cars. The developer should “unbundle” the parking, provide more bicycle parking spaces, and create a true “transit village” in which the residents would walk, cycle, and use public transit.
A 32-year Pico neighborhood resident believes there’s already too much traffic, and the proposed project will make it worse.
35-year 32nd Street (Sunset Park) resident said traffic is impossible now. He works in the creative arts, and questioned the need for hundreds of thousands of square feet of additional
creative arts office space in the Bergamot and Mixed-Use Creative districts.
A Pico neighborhood resident said there were too many parking spaces in the plan, adding that everyone should do as she does and ride bicycles everywhere to reduce the amount
of space devoted to traffic and parking.
A Mid-City resident asked how many car trips 1900 parking spaces would generate.
A Sunset Park resident reported that HUD and the Department of Transportation is awarding the City of Santa Monica a $600,000-plus grant to develop a Master Plan for the area that includes the Bergamot Station, the Bergamot Transit Village, and the Mixed-Use Creative District. The HUD grant notice says that “The Master Plan is a critical component of the citywide vision to integrate land use and transportation to achieve reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduce partial vehicle miles traveled, and create a sustainable local community.” If the City needs this to plan for the environmental impacts of all of the future projects in that area, how can any valid EIR, which has to include all of these projects, proceed before the Master Plan is complete?
Isn’t this piecemeal planning? Residents and decision-makers have a right to understand all of the cumulative impacts on traffic, air quality and infrastructure for all projects that are located in the same area and will share the same roads. Because we don’t yet have a Master Plan, we don’t even know what densities would be allowable from a neutral planning process for which areas, or what the cumulative impacts would be on the environment.
A Mid-City resident said developers should be forced to live near their projects to fully appreciate the impacts on people’s lives. The city has been taken over by developers. They apparently bought the last election. Mid-City Neighbors is re-activating, and all residents should get involved with their neighborhood organizations. Everybody in the city will be affected by these projects. Even the buses get stuck in traffic. We have to say, ‘Enough is enough.’
Another Resident noted that the Los Angeles area has a water shortage and the worst air quality in the country. A large project like this will only make it worse. Quality is more important than quantity. All of these large developments are not “sustainable,” a goal upon which the City of Santa Monica prides itself.
A North of Wilshire resident said that before Mayor Ken Genser died, he warned residents to keep an eye on the LUCE update and on developers. She suggested that the Bergamot project be a “no parking structure” and wondered whether tenants could be required to sign contracts to use only public transportation. She currently feels trapped in her home by traffic congestion that makes it difficult to get anywhere, day or evening.
A Sunset Park resident, who has lived in Santa Monica since 1970 and is saddened by the changes he’s seen reported that, as an attorney, he does CEQA litigation and “sues the City of Los Angeles all the time.” The City of Santa Monica has to say, “We have reached the saturation point,” and enforce limits. It’s a matter of private property rights of developers vs. the rest of the city. An EIR can always be overcome by a “statement of overriding considerations.” These turn into a thousand paper cuts that kill a city. Residents should start talking to Council members now and ask. “What’s the saturation point? When is enough enough?”
A Sunset Park resident, who has lived in her home for 15 years, said the intersection of 20th and Pearl, which is in the middle of a residential neighborhood, already has a Level of Service LOS) rating of “F.” She added that the Bergamot project is too big, and she’s concerned about building height and mass, development density in that area, the thousands
of additional daily car trips the project will generate, including commuter traffic from Venice, Del Mar, Marina del Rey, Playa Vista, Playa del Rey, and Westchester through her neighborhood. She opposes large developments if the traffic impact on residential neighborhoods cannot be mitigated, and wants the Draft EIR to include daily traffic counts, Level of Service ratings for intersections, impacts on air quality, sewers, water, energy, solid waste, public services such as police and fire, the adjacent neighborhoods, parking, shadows created by such tall buildings, and lighting issues such as the effect of nighttime illumination and daytime glare on adjacent land uses.
In the last three decades, the City planners have overseen the design and construction of
9 million square feet of over-sized, undistinguished new commercial development. 10 new equally mediocre projects are now in the works, including the 960,000 sq ft Bergamot project and another million sq ft of new commercial construction nearby. As the residents said again and again at the meeting, the area is already choking on traffic.
The addition of another 2 million sq ft of new commercial developments here and the 1 million-plus sq ft Bundy Village project just across the L.A. line seem bound to lead to terminal gridlock that will effectively shut down Sunset Park and the Pico Neighborhood to the south, the mid-city residential neighborhood to the north and east, and the entire 10 freeway.
The City’s traffic “expert” has already been forced by alert residents to recant his initial
promise that the recently adopted land use and circulation elements (LUCE) would result
in “no new net trips.” He now says there will be “no new net peak PM trips” — probably
because there will be no room for even one more vehicle there and then.
Why, then, are the planners pushing Bergamot Transit Village Center? Because their job
seems to be to push, not plan. And developers, including Hines, the Bergamot project builder, have apparently bought the Council majority, which has the last word on these projects.
But, of course, residents have more planning savvy than the City’s crew, as well as the actual
last word, and it’s time they used both.

Thanks to Zina Josephs for her report on the meeting.