Low-income Project Clears Final Hurdle

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

Sept. 18 -- Capping a battle over a 44-unit affordable housing project on Main Street that has raged since May, the Planning Commission early Thursday morning unanimously rejected an appeal that maintained the building was incompatible with the Ocean Park neighborhood.

The vote upholds the approval of the Architectural Review Board, which held three hearings before giving its blessing, and clears the final hurdle before construction can start on Community Corporation's controversial 113 bedroom project on Pacific and Main Streets that will house mostly low-income families.

In a passionate and calculated 15-minute presentation, appellant Jeffrey Weinstein argued his case, citing 25 exhibits and repeating in-depth what he has maintained all along: that the building is too tall, too dense, lacks enough parking or retail space and will ruin the neighborhood.

To the delight of most of the 33 people who waited until nearly midnight to express their support for the project, the commissioners said it was beyond their jurisdiction sitting as the ARB to address many of Weinstein's complaints and, besides, had no inclination to do so.

“Aside from your objective opinions, which still have a subjective nature to it, clearly (the project) is not in direct conflict with the rules, regulations and permissible building aspects of this site,” said Commissioner Jay P. Johnson.

Johnson added that he has seen neighbors up in arms about similar affordable housing projects and has witnessed the apocalyptic predictions vanish once the projects were built.

Citing as an example the “dire consequences for the future” predicted for the neighborhood around the low-income housing project on 11th and California, Johnson said that “now there is not one objection in the community… Your worries and concerns might be mistaken.”

Sticking strictly to aesthetics and not structure or politics, Chair Darrell Clarke had only one concern.

“It’s a lot more stucco” in the neighborhood, Clarke said. “I just wish I wasn’t looking at so much stucco.”

Weinstein, however, had more then just stucco on his mind.

“Santa Monica has a great legacy of neighborhoods to protect," he told the commission. "We need to continue development, but without overwhelming the neighborhoods that make up the character of Santa Monica. Approval of this project tonight as currently designed will adversely impact the surrounding neighborhood.”

Weinstein also charged that politics has allowed the project -- which is exempt from City Council and Planning Commission review by a law to encourage more affordable housing in the City -- to be rammed through the public process without any real meaningful input from the neighbors it will impact.

Paramount in his mind was the issue of density, which for Weinstein meant people per square foot, not just total square footage. At 27,046 square feet -- with some three and four bedrooms per unit -- the project tries to cram too many people into too small a place, Weinstein said.

“We are not concerned with who the residents will be but the number of residents,” said Weinstein. The neighborhood, he added later, would “look like downtown Santa Monica, and we didn’t choose to live in downtown Santa Monica, we chose to live in Ocean Park.”

Weinstein offered a compromise: reduce the project by 13 units, use some of the saved space for expanded retail, and compliment it with a full floor of commercial parking, which would make up for any lost revenue from the nixed apartments. This plan would reduce the density and height, add parking and enhance commercial activity on Main Street, Weinstein said.

If density is the big concern, asked Commissioner Julie Lopez Dad, then why didn't neighbors oppose with the same intensity the Boulangerie project across the street, which is much larger?

While the Boulangerie project would put “a lot more density in the neighborhood…that seems to be okay (with Weinstein), and the smaller project (the affordable housing) is not.

"That is my curiosity, when there is a focus on a smaller project that is affordable housing, and no concern about a huge project that is for rich single people,” said Dad.

Rene Montagne, a Pacific Street resident, who said preserving economic diversity is as important as preserving the historic quality and aesthetic beauty of Ocean Park, said she “was shocked that Commissioner Dad imputed Mr. Weinstein that he only cares about rich people.

“I don’t know about his pocketbook, and it’s nobody’s business, but his wife is black and his children are black,” Montagne said.

Joan Ling, the executive director of Community Corporation, the agency that will run the building along with 2,000 other affordable housing units in 80 buildings in the city, said the public has had substantial input on the project. Ling cited all the changes incorporated from the 20 community meetings and the three ARB reviews of the project.

To address community concerns about height, density, and aesthetics, five units were eliminated completely, while three one-bedroom units were moved from Main Street to Pacific Street, and the height was kept under the allowed maximum on both sides of the street.

Tenant walkways on the upper floors were relocated to the Main Street side (pushing back the façade five feet), and the width of the pedestrian passageway on Main Street was reduced from 21 to five feet.

The project was also redesigned to break up the façade by adding articulation, toning down the colors and adding more than 1,700 square feet of retail space to enhance pedestrian activity along Main Street, which City codes didn’t require. There will also be more landscaping along Pacific, where the building faces a row of houses.

“We’ve done our best to accommodate the neighbor’s concerns about design,” said Ling.

While some of the 33 people called the design “a huge ugly block,” or a “misplaced do-good effort,” in a ratio of roughly 2 to 1, most residents expressed support and said the housing was “critically important.”

Closing the final battle over the project, Commissioner Terry O’Day ended the discussion on an optimistic note.