I loved L.A. the moment I saw it. I was six years old and I knew perfection when I saw it, and L.A. was perfect. Four years later, I was forced to return to the east coast by my parents. In the years that followed, I lived in a number of places, none of which was perfect – except Aspen, which was perfect, until it wasn’t. But, in all those places and all those years, I knew I’d come back to L.A. And I did.

I live in Santa Monica because I love the ocean, and I still love L.A., and rage when it’s insulted. Two of the worst insults are Century City and the Wilshire Corridor. They have nothing to do with Los Angeles, everything to do with money. They aren’t buildings, they’re deals.

Imagine then, how furious I was to learn that, according to the smart money, replicas of Century City and the Wilshire Corridor are on their way into our own gloriously idiosyncratic precincts.

Developers are already busy turning the area between the Water Garden
and the L.A. border into Century City West, and they’ve apparently
targeted San Vicente Boulevard from Ocean Avenue to Brentwood as the ideal site for a replica of the Wilshire Corridor –- miles of high-rise $10 million condominiums, eradicating blocks of lovely, irreplaceable garden apartments, cutting off our view of the sundown sea and the mountains, and throwing long, glum shadows across everything north of Montana.

Century City and the Wilshire Corridor insult Los Angeles, but it’s far too large to be diminished by them. To insert one or both of them in our eight square mile beach town would be akin to locating the proposed NFL stadium on the Santa Monica Pier.

Unfortunately, truckling to developers seems to be City Hall’s principal
priority now. Some developers have complained at having to abide by the
interim LUCE measure, and, according to Surf Santa Monica, “City Council wants to reduce red tape at the local level. During deliberations before a January vote on the interim measure, Mayor Richard Bloom and other council members said they didn’t want to stand in the way of continued progress downtown. ‘My concern is that we don’t lose the momentum built up during the last decade,’ Bloom said…As council passed the ordinance, it directed staff to find ways to streamline the process and create new incentives – that could possibly include waiving development agreement fees.

“City staff is working on what they are calling a ‘DA Lite’ – a development agreement that is less daunting and time consuming. A ’DA Lite’ will probably include ways to eliminate or speed up various levels of fepartmental review so the agreements can move more quickly up the ladder to the Planning Commission and City Council.

“The less arduous development agreement could shave several months
off the process, planning officials say.”

Perfect! A pair of monster projects moving “quickly up the ladder,”
greased by our alleged representatives.

In the next City election, I’m voting for red tape.