City Hall Pushes Through Real Estate Projects During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Given the Governor's and Mayor’s Executive Orders that includes office closures and stay-at-home restrictions, the public does not have (and has not had, since mid-March) access to the physical documents and case files that enable them to make informed comments regarding the project and the Staff Recommendation Report. 

The hearing for this case should be postponed until the multiple Executive Orders have been lifted and stakeholders have had ample time to reassess the records. 

The complete case files are not available online - only in person. Some of the files are available in the City Planner's Recommendation Report, but they require access to and knowledge of computers/technology to be legible. And those who did not receive the courtesy notice do not have a link to the documents. This discriminates against community members who do not have access to technology/bandwidth or the wherewithal to set it up - elderly, disabled, low income, and others. Given the discrepancies in the project files, and new issues the have come to light since stay-at-home orders were enacted, stakeholders need access to the records in order to make accurate comments. 

If City Planning pushes a project through its approval system while the public’s access to case-information is shut down, your Department is circumventing Constitutional guarantees of due process. 

Why else should the meeting be postponed? 

Community voices are disabled. Right now the public is preoccupied with stressful health situations, caring for family, home-schooling, and financial problems due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The City/CPC would be holding a meeting during a confusing national/global emergency, when many people are in crisis and unable to participate. The only beneficiaries to this exclusionary process are the developers and those on their payroll or benefitting from their campaign contributions. 

This is deeply troubling and definitely inequitable for the following reasons: 

Scheduling online meetings discriminates against and excludes people who do not have access to computers/smartphones and Internet, who have limited data plans, and/or are not comfortable implementing Zoom (teleconferencing) technology. The proposed hearing would discriminate against older and disabled people, as well as low-income stakeholders. Additionally it will intimidate stakeholders from speaking who may not want to be recorded during a public video broadcast for various reasons (language difficulties, lack of documentation etc.). 

Teleconferencing or phone-only (if available) weakens public voices - it does not enable stakeholders to have the same impacts that in-person testimony allows. Stakeholder effectiveness to communicate with CPC Members (and attendees) is dramatically weakened. 

Inadequate Notice: I received a digital Courtesy Notice, but most stakeholders in the project area are not on the email list. The notice stated that hard copies of the ‘virtual hearing’ notice have been ground mailed, as well - although I have not received one. Neither have any other stakeholders that I know of.  I’m sure you are aware that many people are putting their mail aside for several days to ‘cool off’ because of Coronavirus concerns. Given the already short lead-time, the public notice for this hearing (next week) is not adequate during this pandemic. 

Cumulative Impacts: There will certainly be cumulative impacts between this project and another by the same developers a few blocks away. But as per the case file (when it was last available in March) there were no haul-routes listed. The haul routes must be considered when determining cumulative impacts, but they were not. The developers simply listed ’no cumulative impacts’ and City Planning accepted the self-assessment. Has the case file subsequently been amended and impact study re-done? Without public access to the case file this cannot be determined. The hearing should be scheduled after the files are available to the public, and in tandem with the hearing for the developers’ other project at 2111 Pacific Avenue. 

Precedents: This project will set a precedent for other projects in San Pedro, so it’s absolutely critical that the hearing is inclusive of community stakeholders, outside of a national state-of-emergency, rather than circumventing/reducing community input due to the situation. 

In addition, the precedent of online hearings, if continued for the City’s convenience, will certainly weaken the public process. 

Ethics: These particular developers have operated as ‘flippers’ with other property in San Pedro - they are in the business of securing as many off-menu entitlements / concessions as possible for their acquired lots - well beyond established restrictions, allowances, and community plans. They then flip the lots, loaded with entitlements, to other builders - at enormous profits. Their process depends on the collaboration of City Council members and City Planners. The public does not benefit from this activity. 

Who Benefits?  What are the motives for the City of Los Angele for enabling this?

Will the City of LA facilitate this activity during a Pandemic crisis when the community is at its weakest, has no access to records, and least likely to be paying attention? 

This hearing should be postponed until the public has regained access to case files for a reasonable period of time, and the ability to appear in person before the CPC. 

The proposed online hearing process is exclusionary, discriminatory, unfairly biased toward developers, and scheduled at a time when the public is at its weakest during a Pandemic, with no access to the complete case documentation or City Planners.

Community voices will be deliberately disabled. 

Beyond being inequitable, it’s wrong - if not illegal. 

I hope that you will reply promptly with your determination to postpone the hearing (CPC-2019-4908-DB-SPR) until the public can reasonably re-engage with the process.

(Danial Nord can be reached at [email protected])

-cw