City could have transit villages
When City Hall’s general land use plan is updated later this year, a piece of the final draft should represent boulevards of Santa Monicans’ dreams.
Those dreams came together in one room on Saturday when members of the community, from business owners to residents to civic leaders, gathered at John Adams Middle School for one of the biggest workshops to date in the ongoing update process of the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE). The discussion centered on the future of the boulevards.
Over the past few years city planners have been holding various community workshops to gauge the public’s opinion of the future of Santa Monica’s development. That future will be guided by the updated general plan, which will guide development through the next 20 years. The community input sessions in the past have focused on major segments of the general plan, from the industrial lands to transportation.
“It’s an opportunity for you to define your future,” Eileen Fogarty, the Planning and Community Development Director, said at the Saturday morning workshop.
With the actual drafting of the plan underway and the series of workshops concluding in the next few months — only three remain — Fogarty spoke of the overall messages she has heard from the community throughout the LUCE process and how those goals would apply to the development of the city’s boulevards, wishes of expanding open space, enhancing walkability and how to better utilize public transit resources.
The community has overwhelming said two things — keep the residential neighborhoods, which make up roughly 80 percent of the city, the same and keep the bulk of the change to the commercial areas, city planners said.
“For residential (neighborhoods), the vision is to protect, preserve and enhance them,” city consultant Matt Raimi said.
Some of the changes can be seen along the major corridors of the city, including Wilshire, Santa Monica, Ocean Park and Lincoln boulevards.
One of the possible changes along certain portions of the boulevards is the introduction of so-called activity centers, transit-oriented districts with mixed-use developments, serving as gathering points for the community.
City planners have targeted the intersections of Santa Monica Boulevard and 14th Street, Centinela Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard and 14th Street and Ocean Park Boulevard and 17th Street as possible activity centers, each intersection currently providing space that could accommodate such a plan, such as locations with a grocery store.
Such is the case for the intersection of 14th Street and Wilshire Boulevard, where there’s a grocery store and a drug store.
The activity centers could result in wider sidewalks and medians and more off-street parking. Total height allotments for developments in the activity center would depend on its use and location. For example, at Wilshire Boulevard and 14th Street, projects would start at a base height of 32 feet, going up to 58 feet for projects that provide a so-called “public benefit” and up to 78 feet for affordable housing projects, according to city planners.
Each activity center would cater to the surrounding community. At an activity center on Pico Boulevard across from Santa Monica College, the district would include safer bike paths and more walkability while the activity center near John Adams Middle School would encourage small mom and pop businesses.
Aside from the activity centers, each boulevard could be beautified by adding more landscape, changing parking configurations and enhancing signage.
City planners used Lincoln Boulevard as an example, a street cluttered with auto repair shops and strip malls. The street could be beautified by reducing curb cuts and therefore adding more parking spaces and changing signage for both the city and businesses. The area will likely remain largely commercial.
The updated general plan is expected to take a more radical approach to community development than its predecessor, dictating the exact locations where certain types of projects should be placed. The result will be a more cohesive community where developments communicate with one another whereas the current plan has led to what Fogarty called “piece meal” development, random clusters of uncommunicative projects scattered about.
467,“We want to be clear what we want, where we want to put it and how we want to do it,” Fogarty said.
Cheryl Drymon, a Stewart Street resident who has attended the past six LUCE workshops, said she is interested in seeing more mixed-use buildings and safer bike lanes along the boulevards. She added that the current configuration of bike lanes, which sit to the left of parking spaces, isn’t safe since a parked motorist could open the door into an oncoming bicyclist.
A safer configuration would be to move the bike lanes between the sidewalk and cars, Drymon suggested.
“I’ve had a door open on me before,” she said.
Being a regular at these meetings, Drymon said she noticed on Saturday that some of the plans presented have changed slightly from past workshops, incorporating wishes of the residents.
“It should be a good plan if they’re really listening to what people are saying,” she said.
jump hedline – city could have transit villages under new general plan suggested pullquote - It’s an opportunity for you to define your future,”
Eileen Fogarty
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 11, 2008. Read the original PDF.