To the City Council of Santa Monica
September 26, 2011

RE: Agenda Consent Item 3-R: Planning Services Related to the Bergamot Area Plan

This report to the City Council from the Planning Director, recommending the hiring of a professional design firm to “develop and complete” the Bergamot Area Plan confirms that no developments currently proposed within the 140 acres under the Plan legally can or should be negotiated or approved until the Plan is completed. To do otherwise, would constitute poor planning policy and piecemeal planning in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and our local Land-Use and Circulation Element known as LUCE. SMCLC and other community groups within and outside of Santa Monica first raised these objections in December 2010 in connection with the scoping meeting for a draft environmental impact report for the Hines/Bergamot project on the Papermate site. SMCLC reasserts these objections now based on this report.

This Report Confirms That This Area Plan Design Is a Regional Planning Issue.

This entire area is one mega development project and the City is treating it as such. Last year, the City was awarded a HUD grant of $652,500 to develop an Area Plan in order “to transform the 140 acres of industrial land into a transit-oriented, mixed use neighborhood.” According to the City, this entire 140 acres is the “project.” The project includes 35 acres of the Bergamot Transit Village District and within that, the central 7-acre Hines/Papermate property), 19 acres of the Bergamot Station Arts Center across the street from the Hines project, and 86 acres of the Mixed Use Creative District, which together encompass a huge area from Cloverfield Boulevard on the west to Centinela Boulevard on the east and Colorado Avenue on the north and Exposition Boulevard on the south.
(See Map, Exhibit “1”)

Under the HUD grant, residential housing, including affordable, workforce and market-rate housing, is key to creating this transformation in order to promote transit ridership and reduce auto traffic. Indeed, the residential goal to be achieved under the HUD grant is “a 40/60 commercial/residential ratio in one sub-area and a 50/50 ratio in another.” (See City’s Summary of HUD Grant, Exhibit “2”)

This is just another way of saying that under the grant the City has committed itself to plan and approve projects that will not worsen the jobs/housing imbalance in our community. The HUD planning grant summary does not even mention the development of commercial office space. This is not surprising given that a major source of the daily gridlock that residents and visitors alike confront in this very area is the result of the overbuilding of commercial office space in the 1980s.

Now, the City is being asked to commit the bulk of the HUD grant funds to generate this Area Plan to create this new “transit oriented” city within Santa Monica. What this confirms is that fundamental planning for this new city has barely begun. There has been no determination by neutral professional planners as to the cumulative amount and mix of residential and commercial or even where it should be located within the project area.

The report further affirms that LUCE requires detailed planning for this area and coordinating residential and commercial land uses to achieve a “complete neighborhood.”

Until this Area Plan is completed and it includes the designated residential and other uses, and the infrastructure to support a complete neighborhood, no development agreement for any individual project that is currently in the pipeline should be negotiated. Otherwise, each developer will propose far too much commercial development because it’s much more profitable than residential. This is, of course, exactly what Hines is proposing. Further, there will be no Area Plan to control it and create a real neighborhood.
The notion of a “transit-oriented neighborhood” will be in name only.

The Hines Project Must Be Put On Hold Until The Area Plan Is Done.

Postponement is especially critical as to the Hines site because it is by far the largest parcel in the Transit District, it is the closest to the Expo stop, it is proposing a massive commercial project with less than 30% residential housing and several other nearby properties in the District have already been approved with little or no residential mix. That’s not acceptable under the HUD grant, or under LUCE.

In addition, this entire project area abuts existing thoroughfares in all directions which are already at failing capacity much of the day and evening. These roads, both new and existing, would have to be shared by all of the new development that would be built in a compact area that everyone traveling into or out of Santa Monica must traverse to get on or off the highly used 10 Freeway and through much of the City. The Cloverfield/26th Street off-ramp on the 10 freeway is at functional collapse now, as commuters back up past the 405 Freeway every weekday morning. Most of Santa Monica’s commuter traffic, as well as resident-generated traffic, would be significantly affected by development in the project area, as would the entire Westside region of Los Angeles.

CEQA Outlaws Piecemeal Projects, Where, as Here, the Project Area Includes Multiple Projects Which Cumulatively Would Have Far Greater Environmental Impacts

The requirements of CEQA cannot be avoided by piecemeal review. Otherwise, CEQA’s mandate to review the actual effect of the project upon the environment would be defeated if a large project could be divided into many smaller ones – each claiming a minimal impact on the environment – which cumulatively could have disastrous consequences.

Here, piecemeal planning would result from breaking the entire project area into separate projects, and thereby failing to appropriately address the cumulative impacts of all of the reasonably foreseeable future development of the project area that is the subject of the Area Plan for which the city received the federal funding. (See Exhibit “3,” map of the pending projects in this Area)

A review of the City’s website, which lists pending environmental reviews, reveals that there are at least two other projects in this area for which EIRs are being prepared – Roberts Business Center and the Village Trailer Park. We believe that neither will withstand judicial scrutiny under CEQA for the same reason that any EIR prepared for the Hines project would be deficient.

For all of these reasons, SMCLC urges the Council to reconsider its “float up” approval for the Hines project on August 23, 2011, and to publicly affirm that it will not negotiate or approve any development agreement for any project in the Area Plan until the Area Plan is completed for this critical transit city within our city.

SANTA MONICA COALITION FOR A LIVABLE CITY.