Civic Center Development Will Have Traffic Impacts, EIR Concludes

By Jorge Casuso

June 21 – An ambitious plan to develop the Civic Center -- adding new housing, parks and jobs -- would have significant impacts on traffic on nearby streets, the 10-Freeway during rush hours and in neighboring Ocean Park, according to a Draft Environmental Impact Report released this month.

The plan, however, would help meet the City and the region’s goal of adding housing to the jobs-rich Westside and fostering a “sustainable” community that brings together both new housing and jobs, according to the report.

“From a broader scale, it is beneficial,” said Andy Agle, the City’s assistant director of Planning and Community Development. “It brings housing into a jobs-rich area and therefore brings potential employees into job centers.

“This makes it more likely people will walk or bike or take public transit to nearby jobs,” Agle said.

The proposed plan for the area surrounding City Hall, as well as the current site of Santa Monica Place, would allow the development of up to 16.4 acres of public open space, including as many as 775 units of mixed-use family housing, according to the report.

The development would bring 1,910 residents to the area and create approximately 811 jobs, the report said.

The proposed plan also includes three parks comprising nearly 13 acres, 20,000 square feet of new ground-floor retail, 150,000 square feet of public and community facilities and 85,000 square feet of office space, according to the report. The construction of new streets -- as well as pedestrian passageways and bike lanes -- would provide access to specific facilities.

But the ambitious plan would also generate traffic that cannot be mitigated, according to the telephone-book-sized document. The report found that the proposed development would result in the “deterioration of level of service at 9 intersections to below city thresholds.”

The development also would have “significant impacts on I-10 east of Cloverfield Boulevard in the westbound direction during the a.m. peak hour and the eastbound direction during the p.m. peak hour.”

Traffic impacts also would be felt in neighboring Ocean Park to the south of the Civic Center, according t the report.

“The project would increase traffic on neighborhood roadways,” the report found. Impacts to 4th Street from Pico south past Ocean Park Boulevard would remain “significant and unavoidable.”

In addition to the Civic Center, the plan incorporates Santa Monica Place, the 10-acre indoor mall formerly governed by the policies and standards outlined in the Bayside District Specific Plan.

Under the current plan, the mall would be redeveloped to extend Third Street to the Civic Center, the existing 560,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space would be reconfigured and between 150 and 450 housing units, as well up to 85,000 gross feet of office space, would be added.

The plan to redevelop the slumping mall -- which was hammered out two years ago by City and mall officials -- includes tearing down the two existing parking structures owned by the City’s Redevelopment Agency and replacing them with underground parking.

In addition to the housing slated for Santa Monica Place, the plan also includes a mini-village on the Civic Center site currently occupied by RAND that would include three mixed-use buildings totally 325 rental housing units, at least 160 of them low-income.

Earlier this month, the City received qualifications from 16 developers and architects interested in the project, which also includes a public neighborhood green and mews and sidewalks linking to perimeter streets.

In order to preserve as much public land for open space as possible, the plan “promotes some increases in building heights on specific parcels south of the freeway” and “promotes some intensification and redevelopment of Santa Monica Place.”

In addition to new housing, the plan would add much-needed open space by adding a 2.5-acre Town Square; a Palisades Garden walk connecting the Civic Center to the popular park perched above the beach and a 5.6-acre Civic Auditorium Park suitable for competitive soccer that could include night lighting.

“The Civic Auditorium Park would include flexible recreational areas and a playfield suitable for organized and informal field sports, special events, festivals, and programmed activities associated with the Civic Auditorium,” according to the report.

The plan also looks at the Sears site, providing policies to guide future developments but stopping short of proposing any specific projects.

The policies include preserving and restoring the Sears building, replacing the surface parking lots with subterranean parking or including them within buildings and recommending residential development, including affordable housing.

The plan also calls for a potential developer to “coordinate with the City and Metropolitan Transportation Authority to integrate an elevated light rail station as the western terminus of the planned Exposition line within or adjacent to the development.”

The Civic Center project would be constructed in phases and the buildout “would be largely contingent upon available funding and other factors,” the report said.

The Draft EIR is available at the City’s Planning Department counter. City officials will take public comments until July 22, when they will respond to the comments and prepare a final EIR.

The report will go before the Civic Center working group as early as September, then to the Planning Commission, followed by the City Council, which could give it final approval by the end of the year.