Mayor Garcetti’s Big Elephant has Come to Town

VOICES-According to Mayor Garcetti when he took office, Los Angeles cannot be the BIG elephant in Southern California with all its neighboring cities. Well is it. Starting before Garcetti become Mayor, a project was being considered from JMB real estate corporation in Chicago to build a building on the land that it owned and controlled in Century City which would be three (3) times the size of the twin towers already there in Century City. 

This new building would also be the subway station for the Metro, which had changed its original route (approved by over 74% over of the voters next door in Beverly Hills) that went from downtown LA to the Pacific Ocean past UCLA and the Veterans Administration facilities. The LA Planning Commission approved; several companies and landowners complained. 

In the end JMB won by “donating” to the Cheviot Hills and other areas nearby. In the end the elephant won. Another building on 10000 Santa Monica Blvd next to the Beverly Hills High School will be 42 stories high. 

The Metro subway under the BHUSD High School is one thing that concerns everyone, as everyone in Beverly Hills wants the subway. But not under their high school. This would be the FIRST such dangerous construction and transportation system to a public school building ever done in the State of California. 

Now the elephant has gotten bigger and continues to bounce on other local communities. On March 16,  the Los Angeles Central Planning Commission denied an Appeal (Case # VTT-70499-CN-1A) from members of nearby Los Angeles and Beverly Hills communities. The Appeal was to examine further the destruction of historical buildings at 332-336 N. Oakhurst Drive in District #5 (Council member Koretz) which is 30% in Beverly Hills and 70% in Los Angeles. 

Keep in mind that there are only three buildings (332-336) the denied Report from the LA Advisory Agency Report notes that there are 11 other buildings in the same area that borders 3^rd Street and Arden Way on N. Oakhurst Drive. In short, the decision here to reject this Appeal is now a blank check to the other 8 buildings to be sold and other 5-6 stories, 31+ units built very soon. The legal claim will be that the approval of 332-336 is applicable to the other buildings. Some local residents in both LA and BH refer to this as “The Great Wall of Los Angeles”. 

Hello, Mayor Garcetti, your elephant is NOT big enough. 

Consider the actual Appeal process before the LA Central Planning Commission, the Decision is full of false, erroneous and debatable conclusions. However like at the Appeal Hearing, the opposing side. (Appellant) was not allowed a rebuttal or provide counter evidence. 

There are many disturbing and factual errors in the 30 page report from the Advisory Agency ranging from miss-quotes and lack of data ranging from traffic, water, waste, energy and other infrastructures to the repeated statement that say “satisfactory arrangements” and “suitably guaranteed” to statements about what Beverly Hills did or did not do. 

Consider just three factual errors deliberately appearing in the Denial of the Appeal. One is the statement about the first woman architect in Los Angeles, Edith Mortensen Northman who designed as “Spanish Colonial revival style 334-336 N. Oakhurst buildings in the 1930s “moved onto commercial and institutional buildings and factories, including over 50 service stations for the Union Oil Company and military engineering fortifications for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.” 

The testimony by the Staff Director of the LA Commission stated the above in testimony before the Commissioners in both a negative and demining manner. How could she do that? Here is the FIRST woman architect in LA and in the 1930s during the global depression; and then like most American

women during WWII took the work that men had been doing and gave their lives at home for work that was needed: U.S. Army Corp, Union Oil and fortifications. Ms. Northman was a hero then. And needs to be respected and given tribute today. Her buildings are historical and need to be protected. 

To do that would mean that the LA Central Planning Commission needs to require both a CEQA and EIR analyses, which it NOW has denied, based on the false, misleading documentation and testimony from the LA Planning Commission staff. 

There is more. But given space and time, the other items can be given more in court where this entire case is going. However, for the general public, take two more points of false and misleading information. The Report by the LA Planning Commission states that the Beverly Hills City Council did NOT vote for an Appeal the day before it was due in February. The BH City Council held an emergency meeting and then voted 2 to 2. Why? 

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The Mayor was home all that week because her mother, a Holocaust survivor who came to California to have a family and children, had passed away the Saturday before that. The 2 to 2 vote is NOT a vote by BH against filing an Appeal on the issues about 332-336 N. Oakhurst. 

The third item (and there are many more) concerns other claims by the LA Central Planning Commission staff that BH did not follow up with requests from them. There is a long list of misstatements and false statements but one that is connected to another area is the historical value of the buildings that need to be protected. The LA Central Planning Commission staff claim in their Report that BH had a “short” report supporting the historical value of the buildings. But instead they selected to cite their own report by a paid advisor that the buildings were not historical. 

The conclusion here is that the buildings at 332-336 are the elephant, which will turn into The Great Wall of LA surrounding other cities. Other local property owners will soon duplicate the building with its 6 stories and its 31 Units. Now will all the infrastructures – from traffic, water, and waste

and other areas – be safe, secure and used. We hope not.

 

(Woodrow W. Clark II is a Qualitative Economist and is Managing Director of Clark Strategic Partners.)

-cw

 

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 26

Pub: Mar 27, 2015