Docket Full for Council Meeting

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

January 24 -- If you're planning on watching Tuesday's City Council meeting, be sure to grab a cup of coffee because it could be a late one.

From what Santa Monica will look like in 20 years to limiting retail on the Third Street Promenade to changing cable service providers, City Council members have an ambitious schedule packed for their second meeting of 2006.

With dozens of speakers expected to turn out, Santa Monica's Land Use and Circulation Element or (LUCE) -- a document that influences everything from growth, density and building heights to traffic and historic preservation -- is expected to dominate most of the agenda.

Staff is asking the council to ax one of four proposed alternatives that would dictate the city's future development. The three remaining will then be subject to further study, along with a "no growth" scenario that the Planning Commission requested also be studied.

The three alternatives include:

• A "neighborhood centers" approach that would concentrate future development "at strategic locations along commercial corridors to create mixed use Neighborhood Centers," including a new neighborhood around the planned light rail stop at Bergamot Station;
  
• An "Uptown/Downtown" plan that would focus development activity downtown and at a new downtown-like district near Bergamot where commercial corridors would remain largely unchanged;
  
• And a "Grand Boulevards" plan that would focus future development on transit-served boulevards -- a proposal that Planning Commissioners voted to drop.

Neighborhood associations' email lists have been abuzz urging their members to sound off at the next meeting, so there could be a high turnout for the item.

Worried that the Third Street Promenade could see the further exodus of restaurants driven out by some of the region’s highest commercial rents, City Council members are scheduled to weigh in on a permanent plan to limit retail stores on the popular shopping strip.

Under the proposal, restaurant owners would have to undergo a "discretionary review" if they plan on converting any portion of their Third Street Promenade business to retail.

Currently, the City limits the total linear footage and square footage of retail on each block of the Promenade to ensure diversity, which City officials said has worked.

However the new law would "focus more directly on the conversion of restaurants," according to the staff report.

The shift "eliminates the need for linear retail and square footage inventory per block" and "allow an applicant or property owner the opportunity to demonstrate that the conversion of a restaurant space to retail is appropriate for the Bayside District," the report said.

On January 4, in a 5 to 2 vote, the Planning Commission recommended requiring a 250-foot per block minimum total frontage for street-level restaurants. Under the commission's proposal, property owners would have to apply for a conditional use permit (CUP) if they want to convert space from restaurant to retail use and could appeal for a hardship finding based on "unique onsite conditions."

Santa Monica City officials Tuesday also are expected to move a step closer to switching cable service providers, from the financially ailing Adelphia to Time Warner.

Since filing for bankruptcy in June 2002, Adelphia has been in the process of lining up potential buyers and now appears ready soon to turn over reigns to Time Warner.

With Adelphia expected to emerge from bankruptcy proceedings by October this year, council members Tuesday will be asked to formally approve the transfer of ownership and authorize the City manager to negotiate two matters involving a case before the FCC and "safety code violations" and service complaints in Santa Monica.

Three questions on many people's minds -- whether content will change, whether rates will be raised and how claims by Adelphia that competition by satellite carriers will play out -- will not get answered Tuesday, said Kate Vernez, the City Manager's assistant for governmental relations.

She did say, however, that there is an agreement in place that Time Warner "would not raise rates in response to the deal itself."

Content, Vernez said, will be left to Time Warner, since Santa Monica does not regulate that area.

The change, however, could mean that Santa Monica's new cable service provider could offer more sexually explicit material, a taboo at the conservative Adelphia cable giant.