the neighborhoods.
Each new development will have to serve a clear community benefit, Fogarty said.
The new general plan will keep neighborhoods the same, which are already built-out and have limited options for growth. The goal in LUCE with regards to the neighborhoods will be to protect the quality of life, improving parking conditions and adding open space.
Continuity is something that the residents of Sunset Park want to see.
“Residents tell us that what they currently like about living in Sunset Park is the ‘small town’ family-oriented feel of the area, the convenience of the location, the good schools, the parks and nearby ocean,” Josephs said. “What they would like to get rid of is the traffic congestion caused by cut-through traffic from the special office district, (Santa Monica College), and other parts of the Westside.”
One of the biggest opportunities for positive change lies in the industrial area, where city planners see a bright future built around the Exposition Light Rail Line, which will cut right through the heart of the district, enhancing walkabili-ty in the area.
The Expo Line, which is projected to come to Santa Monica in the next three or four years, will have stops at Bergamot Station and the Sears lot at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway.
“We’re looking at the industrial area as the area that is most likely to transform in the next 20 years,” said Senior Planner Elizabeth Bar-El.
GETTING RID OF TRAFFIC One of the biggest concerns with density is traffic, which has rapidly bottlenecked the Westside.
“Since 1984, we’ve overshot the mark, particularly on traffic generating commercial construction like massive office complexes that were approved by a non- SMRR Council majority in the late ’80s,” said Councilmember Kevin McKeown, referring to a City Council that did not have a majority of members from Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights.
But the solution might not be necessarily in just limiting growth, but rather attacking congestion at its source, requiring that new development try to fix traffic problems and not contribute to it.
Traffic consultant Jeffrey Tumlin, who is working on the LUCE process with City Hall, used the Water Garden as an example of how a management company can help the Westside’s congestion. By closely monitoring traffic counts caused by the people that go in and out of the Water Garden every day and implementing programs that would encourage employees to carpool or take alternate transportation, the traffic to the complex is half of what it could be, Tumlin said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 12, 2008. Read the original PDF.