According to City planners, their uber consultants and developers. But most residents don’t want a city.
At last Wednesday’s Workshop on the “development” of the “light rail hub” at Bergamot Station, which is currently a celebrated regional arts center, according to a story in the Santa Monica Daily Press, “Santa Monica residents chimed in on a variety of topics, including density levels of housing and retail, how to promote and maintain the arts and the kinds of architecture appropriate to the space…(the discussion was) launched with planners and consultants giving an overview of the guidelines for developing the area as set forth by the Land Use and Circulation Element, or LUCE.
“The emphasis was on the inevitable: Light rail is coming to Santa Monica, giving the city the opportunity to develop a vast amount of land in the area using the framework created through the six-year general plan process.”
Yes! “The opportunity to develop a vast amount of land in the area.” Many residents see development of “a vast amount of land in the area” as a threat, rather than an opportunity.
The story goes on to say, “…planners look to improve connectivity in the area by chopping up large blocks and buildings using small side roads to reduce the amount of traffic forced onto large, congested streets and encourage pedestrian and bike travel.”
Apparently, planners are not aware of the Sunset Park and Pico Neighborhood Syndrome, in which once quiet side streets are now flooded with cars trying to avoid the congested major thoroughfares.
Compounding the problem, according to the story, “In exchange for the alterations to buildings, private landowners would get incentives in development agreements allowing them to increase the height of the building based on a formula set out in the plan….
That feeds into the LUCE mantra of ‘no new trips’ by 2030, and the envisioned 17-hour-a-day community, meaning that activities would be ongoing from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.”
Congested skies, courtesy of the Santa Monica Airport, congested streets, courtesy of the planners, and now…congested skylines and congested nights, courtesy of LUCE.
Jeff Tumlin, the most piquant of the uber consultants, noted that “”Three-quarters of the city is within walking distance of the needs of daily life,” Tumlin said. “Not Bergamot Station.”
“The struggle, Tumlin said, was how to strike a balance between the goals of the plan and the comfort level of the community….How much change is appropriate?”
In fact, the goals of the plan, as currently described, are antithetical to “the comfort level” of the community. The City spent six years revising the land use and circulation elements of the General Plan and managed to ignore the community’s “comfort level,” while doing development agreements with carpetbaggers for mega-projects. The only “appropriate” change is a change that reflects residents’ wishes rather than contradicting them.
“’The meeting was productive, said Senior Planner Peter James. ‘It was positive. People left feeling excited, knowing that they had a role helping shape the future,’ James said. ‘They focused on the important things, like making a complete place.’”
Ah, there’s the rub. Santa Monica was “a complete place,” before James and his colleagues were born. Residents’ principal concern is that the planners and developers seem bent on uncompleting it by adding more and more in areas where less is not only more, it’s vital. Now.