New Emerging Theme: Distrust

By Frank Gruber

I am going to stick to last week's prediction about the ultimate shape the Land Use and Circulation Update will take, but I am sure confused after last week's City Council meeting. If you have read The Lookout's article, you know that at the insistence of Council member Ken Genser, the Council voted 4 to 2 to kick the project back to staff, so that a new "methodology" could be developed to determine "goals."

But what would those goals be? Two council members, Mayor Robert Holbrook and Herb Katz, said they were ready to pick population targets, but the other two council members who voted to punt, Genser and Kevin McKeown, said that they thought it would be too soon to do that. Without specific numbers, it was hard to understand how there could be any goals more detailed or explicit than the "emerging themes" that the Council approved many months ago after considerable public outreach and input.

Input from residents that was by no means "no more growth."

That there already were goals was, of course, the point Council members Richard Bloom and Pam O'Connor tried to make, and the point interim Planning Director Andy Agle tried to make -- tactfully trying to remind the council that to determine more specific goals now would be to make big decisions without considering alternatives or analyzing impacts.

I mean the idea is shocking; would Ken Genser and Kevin McKeown make major land use decisions without environmental analysis?

What puzzled me most was that this idea that the process had not identified goals seemed to come out of nowhere. Overall, the hearing was not particularly contentious, by Santa Monica standards. True, about ten or 12 adamant no-growthers spoke, and they foresaw various calamities, and some of them latched onto the notion that the City had to have hard goals before considering alternatives.

But more speakers -- including three former mayors -- variously supported numerous constructive proposals or ideas, including more housing, particularly affordable housing, transit options, more economic and social diversity, protection of the beach, historic preservation and adaptive reuse of buildings, lifelong learning and using schools as community centers, and more neighborhood serving business.

They were clear-eyed about the problems the city faces, but were positive in their outlook.

As Council member Bloom said, there was little of the "distrust" Council member Genser said he had heard, and nearly all of that came from speakers who have always been, and apparently always will be, distrustful of whatever the City does -- I'm thinking, for instance, of Arthur Harris, Ellen Brennan, Joe Natoli and Emily Hodgin.

You're not going to make these people happy, or "trustful," ever, but for every one of them, there were several speakers who, without any rancor or suspicion, had constructive and realistic ideas. Space does not allow mentioning every point raised but, for instance, and without necessarily agreeing with any particular idea:

Jerry Rubin supported taller buildings on smaller footprints, to increase open space.

Cycling activist Zack Beatty called for "re-localization" to reduce car trips.

Susan Love Loughmiller promoted development to maintain and achieve economic diversity.

Former mayor Dennis Zane supported converting commercial and industrial zones into residential zones.

Former mayors Judy Abdo and James Conn both spoke about the critical importance of building affordable housing.

Mario Fonda-Bonardi spoke about the importance of considering Santa Monica's regional context.

Kent Strumpel and Barbara Filet spoke about dealing with the legacies of prior decades of automobile-oriented planning.

Sustainability maven Sandy Grant supported "moderate growth," especially in housing, as did Sue Keintz.

SMRR-activist Michael Tarbet suggested that the city contained "swaths of land" near Bergamot Station that could be converted to housing, with a large on-site requirement for affordable housing.

Paul DeSantis had a list of nine suggestions, mostly designed to increase the amount of middle-class housing in the city.

But as we know, there are residents and there are residents. Our politicians have so internalized the notion that the people are angry, that the only persons they recognize as "residents" are those who complain -- and the more bitter or ignorant the complaint, the better. They accept the notion, promoted by the angry residents, that anyone who disagrees with them must represent a "special interest."

I'd like to see one of the council members ask Denny Zane, Judy Abdo or Jim Conn what special interests they represent.

At this meeting one speaker, Geraldine Kennedy, had a big influence. It was she who thought the plans needed more "measurable goals." Ms. Kennedy is, apparently, a former Planning Commissioner from the days Herb Katz was on the commission, but after having spoken to several people, I haven't found one who can recall seeing her address the City Council or the Planning Commission for at least ten years. I certainly don't recall seeing her at any of the prior LUCE meetings (but then I wasn't looking for her, either).

Whatever her prior involvement, Ms. Kennedy was shocked that the alternatives being discussed hadn't been analyzed quantitatively as to their potential impacts, but she shouldn't have been. The City's council-approved work schedule for the LUCE project logically called for the analysis to come after the crafting of alternatives; otherwise, what do you analyze? The schedule also called for an extensive round of public comment this spring.

Just to give you an idea about how bizarre Ms. Kennedy's fears are, which are sure now to become accepted wisdom among Santa Monica's no-growthers, she said that the city faced a "demographic time bomb" that would be "devastating to the quality of life that we cherish" because the average number of people living per housing unit in Santa Monica had fallen to 1.6. This decline, of course, reflects a long-term trend, the aging of Santa Monica's population, as well as our failure to build family-sized apartments.

Ms. Kennedy fears that a "small shift" in occupancy would cause Santa Monica to be overwhelmed, but if she fears that fecund young families will suddenly move into and destroy Santa Monica, she can relax. Given that the average price of a house in Santa Monica is now more than $1.5 million, as the L.A. Times recently reported, this is unlikely.

Maybe the problem Tuesday night was that the planners were asking the council to make a decision, a minor decision, to be sure, but perhaps the council members felt they were being put on the spot. That's always a bad idea.

Memo to Planning Department: do not ask the council to make a decision until they really have to, and then, preferably not in an election year.

But now that Council member Genser and his colleagues have sent the planning staff back to the drawing boards, I will do them one better. I say shut the whole LUCE process down until new City Manager Lamont Ewell picks a new Planning Director.

The staff under interim director Agle has done a decent job -- following, always, the program that the City Council and the Planning Commission approved. But it's just not fair to make Agle and the staff to go up and present plans to the council and have the council change its collective mind because of what they hear one night at a meeting, when, not being the permanent director, Agle doesn't have the clout or the position to tell the council what they might not want to hear, or force them to explain what they want more clearly, or, for that matter, express a substantive view about what would constitute good planning.

City Manager Ewell needs to spend some face time getting to know not only the council members individually but also what they want. Then he needs to hire a new planning director and back that new planning director up. No more of this twisting in the wind stuff, please.