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WESTSIDE - For nearly a decade the residents of Venice have opposed this foolish notion of constructing low-income housing just steps from the beach on a piece of prime real estate some value as high as $120 million.
The driving force behind the madness is the cottage industry of homelessness, led by not-for-profit zealots hell bent on making Venice “ground zero” for this crisis, as transients and out-of-state individuals seek new refuge just steps from the Pacific.
For there are no squatter’s rights here in Venice.
There is no divine right that mandates a homeless individual chooses where they want to live for practically nothing!
For local control and home rule have been tossed in the trash by government officials and not-for-profit bureaucrats who believe they have the moral high ground to determine how they will solve the problem and let the public be damned!
And what has been lost in this discussion is the hard reality that Venice is a popular tourist destination that is a driving factor in our local economy.
They come to visit the boardwalk, fishing pier, skate park and Muscle Beach, not to score drugs or subsidize the current conditions on the streets of Venice thanks to the failed policies of LAHSA, as well as city and county government investing hundreds of millions in failed contract providers who have made the situation even worse!
For the hard reality is that the homeless have no right to take Venice Beach hostage and government should be protecting the homeowners, property owners and tenants who actually live here, play by the rules and have endured these conditions for decades while locales like Pacific Palisades and alike are immune from any social responsibilities as Venice is the dumping ground for all that is homelessness outside of Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.
To seriously propose that low-income units in a tourist destination or landmark neighborhood like the historic Venice Canals is palatable or even reasonable defies logic as wrong has become right and right has become wrong in this disturbing example of misguided social engineering.
For Venice Beach is legally a park, just like Central Park in Manhattan and a very popular tourist destination like the French Quarter in New Orleans. A venue that is eclectic, like the iconic Muscle Beach, skate park and street art that draws some 10 million people from literally all over the world.
Do you see those cities mortgaging away their local economies to construct housing that will do little, if nothing at all to reduce the number of individuals on the streets?
For Venice Beach is in dire need of major reconstruction and investment, as the boardwalk has not been paved since 2000 when LA hosted the Democratic National Convention. And with the FIFA World Cup coming in 2026, the Super Bowl in 2027, and the Summer Olympic games in 2028, why are tax dollars and prime real estate being squandered by the homeless industrial complex?
There is a reason the Summer Olympics has chosen to ignore Venice as a venue for any event.
It is because Venice and specifically Venice Beach is filthy, crime-ridden and dangerous.
Venice in its current condition does not brand enhance the Olympics, it denigrates it!
For the people of Venice, the residents who actually live here have been ignored over and over again by the affordable housing lobby that has characterized those who oppose this misguided project as “segregationists” and NIMBY’s and have ignored the amount of housing both temporary and permanent here in this neighborhood to say nothing of the hundreds of RV’s and multitude of encampments that still thrive here in this exhausted community tired of being pushed around politically by those who do not live here, but seem to have more to say then the very residents themselves!
So, despite the overwhelming opposition to this proposal, super bureaucracies like the California Coastal Commission are poised to give this mess the green light no matter how loud locals roar in opposition.
The location is ludicrous, the cost outrageous and the end result a permanent disaster in terms of access and parking, as well as the environmental sensitivities of constructing something this costly that will do little to change the conditions of most homeless individuals.
The time is now to reject this folly once and for all!
(Nick Antonicello is a thirty-one year resident of the neighborhood who has covered the Venice median project since its inception. Have a take or a tip all things Venice? E-mail him at [email protected])
