Those promoting the new school parcel tax aren’t the only ones dealing lousy poker hands these days. Our friends on the Bayside District Corp. are throwing some punk cards, too.
The Bayside Board considered and approved recommendations for changing and improving the Bayside (downtown) area at its April 24 meeting.
One set of recommendations came from the Bayside Task Force, whose August members included Council members Mike Feinstein (liaison to Bayside), Pam O’Connor and Herb Katz. Planning Commissioner Jay Johnson is on the task force, along with a couple of downtown property owners and a past and a present Bayside director.
Now, I don’t want to get off on a tangent here, but has anyone noticed that the Bayside Task force, like most others including the Downtown Parking Task Force and Civic Center Task Force, is terribly incestuous? We have Council persons falling down to appoint themselves along with Planning Commissioners and others who are already on related city boards and commissions.
We surely don’t want fresh blood. Heaven forbid we appoint someone who isn’t already in a decision-making capacity or a close political ally. No wonder we keep getting the same narrow, inbred ideas while the rest of us sit on the sidelines and carp. But I digress.
A second set of recommendations came from Bayside’s Land and Assets committee composed of, you guessed it, Bayside directors. The full board reconciled the various inputs and voted to support 15 recommendations for City Council review and action at its June 10 meeting.
Most recommendations have to do with zoning issues and the business mix in the downtown area. One multi-part recommendation is overdue for action.
Improving pedestrian ambiance and lighting, improving cleaning and concierge services on the Promenade and creating adequate public restrooms make sense.
But a recommendation to expand vending carts to the Transit Mall — including food service carts — has the potential to inhibit pedestrian flow and spread Third Street’s carnival atmosphere.
There are factions in the city that don’t want you and me interfering with development issues. That philosophy is obvious with some of the other Bayside recommendations.
For example, last year the Bayside board recommended, based on input from the city’s Planning Department, that alcohol Conditional Use Permits for new downtown restaurants under 100 seats be administratively approved. (”Administrative Approval” is Planning Department terminology for in-house approvals, bypassing that troublesome and pesky Planning Commission and elimination of public comment). Although that recommendation was scuttled, the Bayside board remains undeterred.
A current recommendation would “allow alcohol serving restaurants to open within the district by administrative approval subject to pre-defined standard conditions; allow modifications and expansion of existing alcohol-service CUPs by administrative approval; CUPs for alcohol-service would be required only when applicant requests modification of standard conditions.” No mention of seating limitations, here.
In another recommendation, the Bayside board voted to request an amendment of the city alcohol ordinance to allow more than just Type 41 and Type 47 alcohol permits — on-site service of alcoholic beverages with food.
For example, they want gourmet markets to offer take-out alcohol sales. (All the downtown drunks should show up at council chambers, en masse, to support that one.) And, they also support on-site alcohol sales in live theater venues, downtown.
The Bayside board supports raising the development review threshold in the Bayside District back to 30,000 square feet. This too is a step in the wrong direction. Just last year, the City Council wisely changed zoning codes to require public review for commercial developments of 7,500 square feet or larger. The Bayside board also favors removing caps on the number of restaurant uses on the Promenade and replacing them with a district wide cap. Bayside board members support setting a standard of operations similar to a CUP. If a restaurant agrees to that standard of operation, they only need a business license to operate.
Santa Monica has one of the highest number of alcohol licenses per capita in the state. So any curtailment of public input on alcohol CUPs is unacceptable. And, while some of Bayside’s recommendations have some merit, others require a lot more thought and study.
But the question is will the public really be heard, or is this all a done deal? (Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 23, 2003. Read the original PDF.