Sunset Park Residents Worry About Losing Small Town Feel

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

March 25 -- With politicians busily crafting a plan to reshape the city, one neighborhood group has gone to great lengths to inject their residents' voices into the debate over what Santa Monica should become.

At a time when neighborhood groups appear on the decline, 324 Sunset Park residents responded to a survey sent out by the neighborhood group, Friends of Sunset Park (FOSP).

The group hopes to go on record while the City works for the next two years updating the land use and circulation elements of the City’s General Plan, documents that will guide the development of Santa Monica for decades to come.

"We've been typing for weeks," Friends of Sunset Park president Zina Josephs said of efforts to transcribe the multi-page narratives sent in by residents. "We were pleasantly surprised by the large number of people who responded."

The high response rate, Josephs felt, came from many people feeling constrained by the City's current process to gather community input on a number of issues facing the City, including density and development, traffic, crime, public transportation and homelessness.

"I think people have very strong feelings on these issues," said Josephs. “We gave them an open-ended outlet to let the City know how they felt on such things as development that will affect Santa Monica for decades."

Some of the Friends of Sunset Park responses, though cordial, seemed less than friendly about the current direction the City is taking.

"Residents are looking for the City and its leaders to begin paying more attention to the concerns of its citizens," begins the first sentence of the executive summary.

"The residents want you to refocus your energies on the small-town that we were known for years ago reminiscent of Santa Monica's days as a beach community."

According to the survey, 85 percent of residents supported "citizen control over development." The group's board said they interpreted that to mean "the City bureaucracy remains unresponsive to community concerns about large-scale development."

The responses may have been influenced by the group’s opposition to the expansion of Lantana, a large-scale entertainment-based development in the city’s industrial corridor which residents worried would dramatically increase traffic in the area.

The survey also comes at a time the City and owners of Santa Monica Place are exploring ways to redevelop the struggling indoor mall.

According to the survey, 86 percent of the respondents opposed the original plan to redevelop the mall, which would have included three 21-story condo towers, an apartment and an office complex and a park perched above two stories of retail.

Sunset Park residents also weighed in on the Airport and Santa Monica College – which plan major projects in their backyard at the southeast section of the City.

"Most (respondents) wanted Santa Monica Airport closed down and redeveloped into parks and open space," states the summary, though "a substantial number are willing to cohabitate with the airport as long as the jet traffic is either eliminated or controlled to our satisfaction."

A long-running battle between the City and the Federal Aviation Administration has failed to curb jet traffic, which residents say can be deafening and contributes to pollution.

More than three-quarters of the residents said they would support an enrollment cap at Santa Monica College, while 81 percent do not want the college to allow students attending the new 10.4-acre satellite campus at 3171 South Bundy Drive access to Airport Avenue.

The responses to both proposals, according to the group's board, are "a strong expression of frustration with a college that continues to grow beyond the needs of the local community it was designed to serve."

Hand in hand with development, traffic remains a concern for residents, who complain about a high level of "cut-through" traffic on residential streets, some of which have schools.

In the past year there have been several instances of pedestrians injured after being hit by vehicles.

Other issues residents commented on included a call to boost public transportation, plant more trees and focus on preventing crime.

Many respondents said they felt safe in Santa Monica, although 56 percent said they felt less so at night. Resident leaders note the survey was conducted before a recent double murder and a rash of burglaries.

The questionnaire not only helped residents express their views, but helped boost the ranks of the neighborhood group, which added 85 new members.

"We have three issues that always remain constant: Traffic, the airport and the college,” Josephs said. “Those issues are not going away, so people are always looking to have a say on them."