Compromise Fails to Still Opposition on Building Curbs

Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, besieged by developers and property owners fighting proposed restrictions on building in Venice, has agreed to delete a controversial parking provision from the measure.

But even with that concession and several others, opposition to the temporary restrictions persists, with critics saying they will appeal directly to Galanter’s colleagues to kill the measure when the City Council considers it on Friday.

“This whole thing has been put together in a backdoor and underhanded way,” said Kelly Doyle, owner of Sail Realty and a critic of the controls. “People feel they have been left out.”

Galanter, who was making last-minute alterations on her proposal this week, has been reluctant to predict whether she will prevail on Friday. Last month, temporary building controls proposed by Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky for high-rises along the Wilshire Corridor in his district were rejected by the council.

Council ‘Lobbied’

“I know (the council members) have been lobbied by the Realtors,” Galanter said Tuesday. “So I sent them an explanation of what we have done. . . . We can just hope it gets in the hands of their planning deputies.”

The restrictions, which would be implemented in the form of a one-year interim-control ordinance, reduce height and density limits and increase the number of parking spaces required for new developments in the area bounded by Marine Street on the north, Washington Street and Via Marina on the south, Lincoln Boulevard and Via Dolce on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west.

They are intended to put a cap on construction while the city of Los Angeles develops permanent building guidelines, known as a local coastal program, for the Venice area. Shortly after her election last summer, Galanter promised to begin work on the program, which is mandated by state law but languished for years under former Councilwoman Pat Russell.

Developments in most of Venice must now be approved by both the city and the state because the community falls within the state’s coastal zone. Once the city completes the local coastal program and it is certified by the state Coastal Commission, the state will no longer need to review projects. In the meantime, developers have been caught in what Galanter calls a “double-bind of inconsistent permitting practices”--meaning the state and the city have been following different guidelines in approving or disapproving projects.

The interim-control ordinance, Galanter said, has been crafted to create city regulations that roughly match guidelines used by the state, in a move to reduce conflicts between the two governments.

But while Galanter’s critics applaud her resolve to develop a local coastal program for Venice, they have mounted a determined effort to undermine the interim controls, which they regard as excessive, arbitrary and in some cases more restrictive than the state guidelines.

Flyers urging residents to oppose the controls have been distributed in Venice by real estate agents, and several opponents of the controls met last week with the city’s planning director, whose department drafted the ordinance, to detail their objections. This week, Galanter met with about 10 of her critics.

“What we need is more architectural review as opposed to arbitrary guidelines,” said Michael Dieden, founder and past president of the Venice Action Committee, an organization of businessmen, residents and artists. Dieden said height restrictions, parking requirements and prohibitions on combining lots included in the interim control ordinance “damper the creativity” of architects in designing buildings in Venice.

Duplexes Exempted

In a concession to her critics, Galanter agreed last week to exempt duplexes from a provision that requires builders in the so-called beach impact zone--an area that extends several blocks east along the entire length of the beach--to provide an extra parking space for each 500 square feet of ground-floor development. Builders of duplexes are already required to provide a total of five parking spaces for the two units.

“Those parking requirements, when applied to duplexes, essentially constitute a complete moratorium,” said Jim Bickhart, Galanter’s planning deputy. “They are so restrictive that you can’t meet them on a single lot. The intent of the requirements was not to prevent people from building duplexes, it was to provide parking spaces.”

The controversial parking requirement, which would still apply to larger residential developments, has been a rallying point for opponents of the restrictions. A more restrictive variation of the requirement also applies to commercial developments.

The city’s Planning Commission refused to include the parking requirement in a version of controls it approved in January, but Galanter added it to a version later approved by the City Council’s Planning and Environment Committee.

At the committee meeting last month, Galanter said builders of duplexes who found the provision too restrictive could opt for an alternative provided in the proposed ordinance: contribute $18,000 per parking space to a special parking fund.

“The fees developed by the Planning Department for this ordinance accurately reflect the cost of providing a physical parking space in the beach impact zone and provide a nominal alternative for the builder of, for example, a duplex on a single 30-by-90 lot, where providing an extra space or two might physically be impossible,” Galanter wrote in a report to the committee.

After reviewing the requirement at the request of several developers and property owners, however, Galanter last week changed her mind. Bickhart said it became clear that the $18,000 fee would make it uneconomical to build most duplexes.

The parking requirement “would not only make it physically impossible to build, it would make it financially impossible,” said Bickhart, adding that most duplex builders in Venice are not large developers who could absorb the fee. “We are not dealing with the Summa Corp. on these properties.”

Not Buckling Under

Galanter said she made the change to avoid a stream of developers who would seek hardship exemptions to the interim control ordinance because of their inability to build on their property. She said she was not buckling under the pressure of developers.

“I don’t view them as concessions,” she said of changes she has made to the ordinance. “I view them as a cleanup act. . . . There is a good possibility that people will notice things that we did not.”

Opposition to the controls has also focused on other issues, particularly those involving new height restrictions along the three dozen streets in Venice that are limited to pedestrians. The interim control ordinance reduces building heights from 35 and 30 feet to 28 feet on those streets. Galanter said the height limit, while more restrictive than the state Coastal Commission’s guidelines, was recommended by the Fire Department for safety reasons.

“I talked to the people (firefighters) who carry the ladders up and down the streets in Venice,” said Galanter, who has refused to budge on the height issue.

Critics’ Accusations

Opponents of the interim-control ordinance have directed some of their harshest criticism at the way Galanter has gone about seeking approval of the controls. They accuse her of excluding the community from the drafting process and of failing to notify property owners about hearings before the Planning Commission and the council’s Planning and Environment Committee. They also accuse Galanter of violating one of her own campaign promises by not holding a formal public hearing on the ordinance: her promise to give residents of Venice a bigger voice in decisions that affect the community.

“A very serious thing is happening here without any public participation,” said Guy A. Bartoli, an architect who was appointed by former Councilwoman Russell to a citizen’s committee that drafted a local coastal program for the Venice Canals and Marina Peninsula neighborhoods. The program was never adopted. “We are passing laws without anyone being notified about it.”

In her defense, Galanter said her office sent copies of the proposed ordinance to various community leaders and neighborhood organizations and she directed her staff to discuss the ordinance at community meetings. She said she also released the information to the media.

Galanter described a formal public hearing--which would require notification of all property owners 24 days in advance--as a “very extensive and expensive” proposition. She said it is “unfortunate that more people were not aware of” the ordinance, but she questioned whether those protesting loudest were actually in the dark.

“I am surprised to hear them claiming total ignorance, particularly since a lot of them were at the Planning Commission” hearing, she said.

In a move to assuage some of her critics, Galanter agreed to postpone council consideration of the proposed ordinance from Tuesday to Friday to give residents a chance to review the document before the meeting. The ordinance was originally scheduled for a council vote last Friday, but was delayed because the city attorney’s office had not finished making revisions to it.

Bickhart, Galanter’s planning deputy, said Galanter had considered designating the Planning Commission’s discussion of the ordinance as a legal public hearing, but ran into trouble when the Planning Department did not finish drafting the controls until early December. Bickhart said Galanter wanted the commission to consider the ordinance in December--which eliminated the option of giving 24 days notice.

Bickhart said Galanter has been eager to get the ordinance passed quickly to avoid a possible confrontation with Marina East Holdings, a partnership that includes state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys). Marina East Holdings owns land in the Oxford Triangle area of Venice where it wants to build a 2.1-million-square-foot shopping and residential complex, to be known as Admiralty Place.

Marina East and the proposed developers--Marina Gateway Properties--dropped their opposition to the restrictions only after Galanter agreed to limit the interim-control ordinance to one year with a 60-day extension. The ordinance originally included a one-year extension. Burt Pines, an attorney for the developers, said the ordinance with the shorter extension would not interfere with development plans for Admiralty Place because the company does not plan to seek city approvals for the project before early 1989.

But Bickhart said delays in getting the ordinance passed could begin to cause problems for Marina East by effectively extending the ordinance later into 1989. Bickhart said Galanter has tried to expedite the ordinance so that it does not become a battleground over the Admiralty Place development, which is opposed by nearby residents.

“There will be plenty of places to debate Admiralty Place, so why should the interim-control ordinance be one of them?” said Bickhart. “I know small property owners at the beach don’t want to hear excuses about Alan Robbins, but that is the real world.”