Los Angeles Times reports of duplicity involved with obtaining building approval.  Builder must answer to LA City and then the California Coastal Commission.  If Venice had an approved Local Coastal Plan, developers would have only one group to answer to.

So what is the problem? Read the story and then read what Arnold Springer has to say about it below.

Addressed  to writer of LA Times article,

It’s about time.

I would like to make some comments on your article which might be helpful
for people who are interested in this and for you as well in framing the
issue down the line.

#1:  The City is not taking the first step, it is taking the final step in
finishing its local coastal program.

The City was supposed to finish its local coastal program or LCP and
submit to the Coastal Commission. But instead it chose to abort the project
under Ruth Galanter after finishing the Venice Specific Plan. The VSP was an
afterthought by City pols and city planning because they would or could not
finish up the ongoing Neighborhood plans.  These draft neighborhood plans
were actually submitted to the City and can be found on line for you
information.

The Venice Specific Plan (VSP) was issued instead of the final Local Coastal
Program for Venice –  BECAUSE—-the various Venice neighborhoods were busy
devising their neighborhood plans which aimed to deal with and set down
standards for MASSING AND SCALE OF NEW CONSTRUCTION, whic

But developers, including Frank Murphy whom you quote in your article,
objected to the fine tuning being done by the volunteer neighborhood groups.
I know because I led the Milwood group from start to finish and Frank Murphy
was a part of that group.

The neighborhood groups were trying to apply massing and scale to the LCP
and that was what the Coastal Commission wanted before it would sign off and
give back full administrative permit authority to the City of Los Angeles.

The developers obstructed and obfuscated and Galanter, under pressure and
not wishing to antagonize builders, developers, architects, postponed
indefinitely the Neighborhood plans that were meant to be the final element
of a complied LCP before it was submitted to the Coastal Commission.

Now developers and architects alike say that massing and scale is too vague
and cannot be “ordinanced”.  Lots of us Venetians think otherwise.

But massing and scale is a common sense idea. Just look at the neighborhood
and try to mold your new project to fit in as much as you can, to save the
special architectural characteristics of this local community, neighborhood
by neighborhood.

So the issue always was massing and scale, and also affordable housing and

Your article failed to mention these issues and cast the entire process in a
false and unhistorical light.

The issue was never about two much administrative control.  It was about
massing and scale and preserving the special neighborhoods in the Venice
community that the Coastal Commission and Coastal Act set out to save.

Hope you get your reportage and narrative straighter and more correct in
your next efforts because this new effort will certainly be an interesting
process.

Arnold Springer
Venice Calif.

Member:
Planning and Development Committee  Venice Town Council 1972-1990.
Member of LUPC twice between 2002 and  2010. Resigned in protest
frustration, and disgust after failing to get the Venice Neighborhood
Council to move on the issue.  Now it has finally done so, thank the gods.