Councilmembers concerned with how LUCE will pace development
CITY HALL Santa Monica’s general plan update, molded into its current incarnation during years of public workshops, is getting another once over by city officials.
The City Council on Tuesday kicked off a series of discussions on the strategy framework for the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE), the planning document that will outline the city’s future over the next 20 years.
“What we’re bringing reflects many thousands of comments and ideas,” Planning and Community Development Director Eileen Fogarty said.“We have tried to bring together a whole range of perspectives from both ends of the spectrum.”
The introduction of the planning document’s general framework, which was recently released by City Hall, will be followed by focused discussions on key elements of the general plan starting next week, topics including the neighborhoods, transportation, boulevards and districts. The council will be asked to endorse the framework following the meetings, expected to wrap-up in mid-July, prompting the environmental review phase.
The Planning Commission is also holding a series of LUCE-related meetings.
“This is a conservation plan,” Fogarty said. “A conservation plan that also will allow the city the opportunity to remain vital and be responsive to change.”
The LUCE is a product of 11 workshops held over the past several years, including the input of more than 60 community organizations and hundreds of individuals.
The key difference between the LUCE and its 1984 predecessor is that City Hall will take a proactive approach toward development, strategically locating them in places where they will better communicate with the neighborhood in which they are located. City officials have pointed out the problem with the current general plan is that it allowed development in a piecemeal fashion, projects being put into place irregardless of the landscape around them.
Among the new features of the LUCE will be a public benefits requirement for new developments, including extra community incentives for projects that exceed the by-right height of 32 feet.
Growth and its accompanying congestion has long been a concern of residents in Santa Monica. A ballot measure that would place a cap on commercial development recently gathered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Opponents of the measure, which is sponsored by the Coalition for a Livable City, have criticized it as hijacking the lengthy LUCE process.
As was in previous LUCE workshops, the issue of how the new general plan will pace growth was a key concern expressed during the meeting, several councilmembers wondering how to avoid an influx of development.
Proponents of the Residents’ Initiative to Fight Traffic have argued that the projections for new commercial growth set forth in the current general plan were exceeded six years after it was adopted.
“Missing in the documents is a mechanism to control the rate of change overall citywide,” Councilmember Kevin McKeown said during the meeting.
Projects above the allotted 32 feet would require council, commission and community reviews and it would be incumbent on the developer to devise a transportation demand management plan to offset added congestion.
Fogarty said that more than 90 percent of the city — the residential neighborhoods — would remain roughly unchanged, the majority of structural changes being concentrated on the boulevards and in proposed activity centers, areas where development will encourage residents to get out of their cars.
Councilmember Ken Genser said he feels that the proposed by-right height of 32 feet is still much too large.
“Along the commercial boulevards we need to keep in mind … that they back up into the existing residential neighborhoods,” Genser said.
The activity centers are being slated for areas that already have a supermarket or some other large business that can serve as an anchor, among the areas including the intersections of 14th Street and Wilshire Boulevard and Lincoln and Ocean Park boulevards.
Both intersections have a supermarket — Vons on Wilshire and Albertsons on Lincoln.
The activity center at Wilshire and 14th will include a parking district that would be jointly used by residents and shoppers, welcoming news for those residing in the Wilshire-Montana neighborhood where there is a severe shortage of on-street parking.
New development at the Wilshire- 14th activity center might use the new Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, which is currently under construction, as a basis for height, a suggestion that concerned several councilmembers.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to use it as a (building) we would key our plan off of,” Councilmember Bobby Shriver said. “It was an aberration and we should treat it as an aberration.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 12, 2008. Read the original PDF.