CommentsALPERN AT LARGE-This is an ugly article to write … and to read … but we're dealing with the aftermath of the City Council approval of the Martin Expo development in the Westside, and I'm in an ugly mood. In a nutshell: this project was too large, but it was mitigated, and it was NO repeat of the Casden Sepulveda nightmare.
For starters, let repeat my vigorous support for the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative to be voted on next spring as much as I have come to favor and support Measure M for more transportation funding while recommending a NO on just about every other city, county and state tax measure.
Because our taxes are being spent horribly, and being used to paper over a festering Pension Crisis that Paul Hatfield, Jack Humphreville, and just about every honest CityWatch and newspaper writer are rightfully raising the alarm about while most of us are more interested in Dancing With the Stars, Kim Kardashian, Kaley Cuoco, and their favorite superhero movie or TV show.
So California is well on its way to becoming the next Greece (huh? what? Greece? Is that a musical or something?), and yet we need to create a transportation infrastructure to allow our economy to survive.
And perhaps when this current governor is out of office we can focus on (a start to) fixing the Pension Crisis, limit-setting with teachers and other public sector unions that are destroying this state, spending transportation funding on freeway and rail projects and not a lopsided approach to the High-Speed Rail Initiative, and creating an atmosphere more suitable to business.
But in the meantime we had a Martin Expo Project adjacent to the Bundy/Olympic Expo Line station that was too big by many standards, and will violate a host of CEQA and other environmental laws by building a project that the LADOT and Caltrans stated was unable to be mitigated ... yet was not big ENOUGH according to the agenda-driven, Rasputin-like, wild-eyed miscreants at the leadership of our City of LA Planning Politburo.
The Bundy/Olympic Expo Line station, as with the Exposition/Sepulveda Expo Line station, is a perfect draw for some densification commensurate with a transit hub. Both were and are ripe for appropriate development.
Not OVERDEVELOPMENT, but APPROPRIATE development.
Fortunately, the Bundy/Olympic station, and the Martin Expo project, was in a CD11 district run by Councilmember Mike Bonin, who demanded a reduction in commercial space, and a less car-oriented use of commercial space, that would be reduced and more transit-oriented than that originally pursued by the developer. More affordable housing, transit-oriented mitigation and amenities, and other mitigations for car traffic were similarly demanded.
This is in stark contrast with the Casden Sepulveda project at Exposition/Sepulveda, which was by far too enabled by CD5 Councilmember Paul Koretz (and who feeds on developer money by far too much for my tastes, to be blunt--which has led to the rise in popularity of his future opponent, Jesse Creed).
Mike Bonin and his Planning deputies worked hand in hand with regional leaders to push for the mitigations that would make Martin Expo more palatable and appropriate for the region, but it's safe to say this project is larger than the majority of us would want at this or any other Westside region surrounded by roads and intersections which are rated "F" and clogged with traffic as it already is.
So this project was not the stuff of nightmares that we see elsewhere throughout the City, which continues to be at war with its serfs and peasants ... er, make that voters and residents ... who are left without any real voice in these matters. After all, Mike Bonin is the exception, and not the rule, at City Hall.
So what to do now?
The pragmatic, ugly, UGLY answer is that this project can and must be mitigated and fought legally to ensure it best fits in with the neighborhood ... but who has the big buck$ to do this? Most of us recognize that while Expo Line stations are perfect spots for projects like Martin Expo they must be kept at a reasonable scale.
We also have to stop Sacramento from gutting CEQA, and we have to have a City Attorney with either an altered job description or a City Legal Advocate elected by neighborhood councils to be able to sue the City or even Sacramento if laws are violated. And so long as voters and leaders roll their eyes at such an idea, you/we will have to get our own lawyers with money we really don't have.
And it bears repeating that the job description of the City Attorney is to defend and represent City Hall, and NOT you and me. If you don't know that UGLY fact, you may be part of the problem.
Imagine if Neighborhood Councils could run to a City Legal Advocate, which was tasked with upholding the laws and upholding the will of Neighborhood Councils if Downtown and Sacramento violated the law (and/or its own bylaws).
If Martin Expo or any other project violated CEQA, this office could threaten legal action by lawyers paid for with our taxpayer dollars in the same way that our City Attorney's lawyers do when they enforce laws or "variances" or City ordinances that don't make environmental or legal sense. Imagine if we had the legal juice to access a judge to weigh in on a nonsensical EIR and had the ability to find an unmitigable project illegal.
Whether it's scofflaw RV and oversized vehicles parking on streets illegally or developers paying their way through Planning, a City Legal Advocate could bring this matter to a judge and make it clear that these projects would have to have more than just a rubberstamp from our Planning Politburo.
Only then will developers, and the next Casden or Martin Expo project, be brought to bear.
And that's the ugly, UGLY truth.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
The Ugly Truth: The Only Way to Avoid More Westside (and Other) LA Overdevelopment
