Council Airs Views on Views

By Erica Williams
Staff Writer

May 22 -- Known for expressing their opinions during lengthy deliberations, City Council members Tuesday night aired their views on views for more than four hours.

In one case it was the effect the proposed five-story, 880-space Civic Center parking structure would have on ocean views guests on the upper floors of Doubletree Guest Suites enjoy.

In the other, it was about those same views enjoyed from the upper deck of the Mariasol Restaurant by visitors to the pier.

Without much sympathy, the council denied the Doubletree’s appeal of the project and unanimously approved the final Environmental Impact Report and related documents.

The parking structure across the street from the hotel would replace the Civic Center’s sprawling surface parking lot on 4th Street and Pico Boulevard with a new 244,930-square-foot facility that reaches five levels above grade and burrows one-and-a-half levels below.

It includes rooftop parking and space for commercial tenants on the first and second levels and would be located behind the County Courthouse and adjacent to the new Public Safety Facility.

“I think an impact on private views is not an environmental impact,” Councilwoman Pam O’Connor said during three hours of deliberations.

O’Connor took umbrage with accusations from the Doubletree and its representative, Maureen Gorson, who accused the City of using “fake data” in its traffic study and not exercising due diligence to take into account alternatives in the EIR that would reduce impacts to the hotel.

“I find it offensive the charges the Doubletree (has made),” O’Connor said.

Representatives of the eight-story hotel also argue that the project would significantly cast shadows across its outdoor patio, restaurant and lower level guestrooms and swimming pools.

“This five-story structure is going up like a wall across the street,” Gorson said, adding that “under the thresholds they set in their EIR, the impact (on the hotel) is significant.”

Planning Commissioner Kelly Olsen, however, produced a video demonstrating the shadow impacts of the eight-story hotel on a neighboring two-story apartment building.

“Shadows that go around eventually come around,” Olsen said, adding “there is no protected view corridor here.”

Councilman Bob Holbrook noted that Guest Quarters was the original owner of the hotel. The City, Holbrook said, had tried to get the owner of the adjacent rental property to sell but he refused.

The council also approved the project with the conditions that a community room be included somewhere in the structure. It directed the Architectural Review Board, which will hear the project next, to maintain the number of parking spaces, minus those needed to accommodate the community room, and to look at issues raised by the Planning Commission that include relocating rooftop trellises and a roof-level stepback.

The council also instructed the ARB to implement a landscaping plan that includes “parkway landscaping” at the curb and landscaping at the building façade, provided it doesn’t deter from the pedestrian experience.

In a separate action, after more than than an hour of deliberations on an appeal of a Landmarks Commission’s decision on the second floor expansion of Mariasol Restaurant on the Pier, the Council continued the item to its May 29 meeting.

According to staff, the restaurant violated the Commission’s 1999 approval of design plans that called for casement type windows, which could be opened to allow ventilation, on all facades of the building.

This and a Conditional Use Permit the restaurant had obtained earlier allowed it “to enclose an upper level outdoor dining area into a second story for the restaurant.” The space had originally been an open-air public deck, part of which the restaurant could use.

Santa Monica resident Ed Muzika appealed the Commission’s “post facto approval” in April of an assortment of fixed, inoperable windows now installed on the north and west sides of the restaurant that its architect, Sam Tolkin, admitted to knowingly installing without the proper permits.

Tolkin told the council Tuesday that he installed the windows to reduce costs that had already spiraled above $1million, more than double the project’s original estimate. He said he did not seek out the proper permits because he feared further delays.

Dubbing the now-enclosed space an “ugly bunker,” Muzika, denounced the restaurant’s attempt “to commandeer this public space and make it private.”

“The fortress-like configuration of the ‘public Viewing Deck,’” Muzika said, “has turned it into a 90-foot living room for the Mariasol Restaurant.

“The large plain windows,” he added, “are an aesthetic affront. They should be removed -- not replaced by fixed and casement window sets -- but removed and replaced by a railing for the public to lean against, creating a large public porch and returning it to the people.”

After much grilling of Tolkin by the council, which thanked Muzika for bringing the issue to the City’s attention, Councilman Herb Katz, an architect, made a motion to do just as Muzika recommended.

But City Attorney Marsha Moutrie reminded the council that the restaurant had rights under the CUP which, she said, “entitles the windows.” The council could only consider what windows to require, not whether to allow windows.

Katz then raised the question of whether the restaurant’s violation of the code invalidates its CUP, while Councilman Ken Genser questioned the City’s role as the property owner.

Councilman Bob Holbrook then made a substitute motion to require the restaurant to follow staff recommendations “so these people can get on with it.”

But Moutrie told the council she was not prepared to fully advise it on any action it would take Tuesday night “given the information I heard for the first time tonight.”