Venice Neighborhood Council Meeting scheduled for Tuesday night, 17 March has been cancelled.
Note: It is the Venice Update opinion that the same should be requested of St. Joseph Center. This is a public institution operating without answering questions. Any public, charitable institution should be available for questions and answers,
Darryl DuFay is making the motion request to be presented at the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) at the 18n February meeting that a Community Impact Statement (CIS) be passed by the Venice Neighborhood Council in support of this City motion (shown below) and be presented to the Los Angeles City Council. A CIS in effect states Venice agrees, supports you or does not agree and for such reasons,
A motion was brought by residents at the Venice Homeless Committee to add a restriction to the City’s Homeless and Poverty committee motion of a 500-foot restriction for parks and schools to include no homeless within 300 feet of property with a certificate of occupancy for R-1.. The Venice Homeless Committee turned the proposed motion down. Eva Greene has stated they have more than enough signatures to bring the motion to the Venice Neighborhood Council, bypassing the Venice Homeless Committee, at the February meeting. The Venice Neighborhood Council does not make laws. They make suggestions to the City Council for action.
Venice is the homeless capital for CD11. It should definitely stand up and state its position!
By Darryl DuFay
Homelessness is in a crisis. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority ( LAHSA) is the premier organization in charge. It is a joint-powers behemoth of the County and City of Los Angeles. It administers over 400 million dollars a year. The accusations, finger pointing, and complaints about the sad state of effectively dealing with homelessness has reached a point where the City Council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee demanded to know what is going on.
The Committee passed and sent a Motion on Jan. 15th to the City Council demanding to know what LAHSA has done over the past four years. It is a momentous action and reads like an indictment. A copy is below. It was adopted by the City Council on January 28, 2020.
When the VNC Board meets 18 February, Agenda Item 13D (see below) is a request for a VNC Community Impact Statement (CIS) in support of the City Council’s Homelessness and Poverty Committee Motion. This will create a permanent file. As of this date no other CIS has been filed.
By Angela McGregor
Despite the presence of two contentious motions brought forward by stakeholder petitions (and drawing a large crowd of would-be commenters), the Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) chose to front-load their December 2019 meeting with a long list of Land Use and Planning Committee (LUPC) items requiring length presentations and discussions.
701 Vernon Ave
One of these — the project at what is currently 701 Vernon Avenue — would have converted a single, 6300 square foot lot into two parcels, each featuring a large, single-family home. While LUPC recommended the project as presented, discussion on the Board focused on the misuse of the small lot subdivision ordinance, which was initially implemented in order to increase density (and therefore affordability) in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods like Venice, but instead has been used by developers to increase the amount of money per square foot they can glean from local real estate.
This, along with the project’s implementation of a roof-deck in order to bypass the Venice Specific plan’s height restrictions, resulted not only in the motion to approve the project failing, but a subsequent motion to deny the project passing (in both cases with votes of 10-8-2). A denial by the VNC of a particular project still allows the applicant to re-submit their project to LUPC at a later date once it has been substantially changed.
Rebuild of Wabi Sabi
The re-building of the former Wabi Sabi location was also on the evening’s agenda. The sushi restaurant at 1635 Abbot Kinney was devastated by a fire about a year ago and subsequently ordered to rebuild, even though the neighborhood favorite has since moved to another location. The owners wish to start construction on a new restaurant space in April (a new tenant — as yet undisclosed — has been found), which would be open until 1 am and serve breakfast and brunch on the weekends. The proposal easily passed the Board — 18-0-2.
Zone Change for Venice Median was Voted Down
It was well past 9:30 pm when the Board finally heard the motion the majority of the crowd had come for — the denial of a zone change from open space to commercial for the Venice Median (the proposed site of a low income housing/retail project), primarily due the imminent impacts of climate change and a rise in sea level.
Eva Greene (175 stakeholders signed the petition which placed the motion on the agenda) delivered a detailed, 10-minute power point presentation which gave the history of flooding woes in Venice (in particular the El Nino of 1982-83 which resulted in severe flooding of Venice Boulevard) and its vulnerability to the increasing impacts of climate change. Complicating matters is the fact that, with the shift in funding of the project from Prop HHH funds, which are now entirely earmarked to Prop 2 funds, the project must now be used to house the severely mentally ill, a replacement parking lot, and various retail establishments.
All but two of the intrepid public speakers who had stayed for the motion were in favor of it. Several pointed out that alternative solutions, which would house more homeless at a more cost-effective, less climate-vulnerable location, have been proposed, such as shared housing solutions currently being implemented by Venetians Heidi Roberts and John Betz, or the proposal for a project near LAX by VNC Board member Jim Murez. Others pointed out that the current estimate of $90 million to complete the project was simply an egregious waste of tax payer dollars for a facility that might be underwater or sold to a private developer after a mere 30 years.
Board comment focused on the zoning issue rather than the particulars of the proposed project. Board President Ira Koslow pointed out that the VNC has already voted on the issue of this project three times. In response to this, Mark Ryavec pointed out that, according to the City Charter, any change in zoning is required to first be brought before the Neighborhood Council prior to any specific plans for a given site being made, and in this case, the city had failed to do that.
Therefore, a vote specifically addressing the change in zoning was both essential and important. LUPC Chair Alix Glucovsky pointed out that “conversations about the impact of sea level rise” are going on all over the country in flood prone areas, from Florida to Texas, and that several of these communities had banned dense residential development in flood zones for this reason.
In opposition, Board member Matt Fisher stated that the project was already a “done deal” and he would “see you at the ribbon cutting.” Homeless Committee Chair Charles Rials stated that “if you’re going to come with a motion that blocks housing in Venice, then you need to come with a solution” and called the motion “redundant.” The motion passed, 13-6-1. A subsequent motion, to file the item as a Community Impact Statement, was tabled until the next meeting.
No Confidence Motion for Councilman was Delayed to February Meet
The final item on the evening’s agenda was a motion to issue a vote of “no confidence” in CD11 Councilmember Mike Bonin. A motion to delay a vote on this item was immediately entered, and the majority of board members in favor of a delay noted that the motion (put forward by Venice Stakeholder Nick Antonicello) is vague, overly general, does not cite the recent Venice Stakeholders Survey (which indicated broad-based dissatisfaction with Bonin) or recommend specific ways in which the Councilman could address their dissatisfaction. The motion to delay the motion passed, 11-7-1, and it will be taken up at the next VNC Board meeting, which will be held 18 February 2020 at 7 pm.
There will be no VNC Board meeting in January in order that the Board may instead attend a Board Retreat.
The Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) performed a motion marathon Tuesday night that started early (6:30) and ended just before 11 pm. Approximately 25 motions were approved or not approved before a larger than usual crowd.
In addition to the motions, Chris Zonas, was selected by the board to fill the Land Use and Planning Committee vacancy. His concerns were sticking to the Venice Specific Plan and Venice traffic.
Alek Bartrosouf, transportation deputy for Councilman Mike Bonin, said new parking signs had been installed on Pacific from Navy to Market. It use to be a no stopping or parking tow away zone between 8 am and 8 pm. Now there is no stopping between 8 to 10 am and 3 to 7 pm, leaving parking between 10 am and 3 pm. There was some criticism regarding this. President Ira Koslow explained that the proposal had been before the VNC board three times and was approved the third time and that this was a trial.
The VNC authorized Outreach satisfaction survey was presented and approved. It showed that two of the questions, showed a high lack of satisfaction with Mayor Eric Garcetti and Councilman Mike Bonin. It was suggested that these two showings be removed or put at the last because there was no place for politics in the survey. Board member Chris Wrede said they should stay that the satisfaction might be higher than either politician expected. President Koslow then said that the questions had already been approved. To see a copy, click here.
The single-lot subdivision at 315 6th Avenue was passed. The lot has 6000 sq ft and two separate houses were planned. They were told they had to put an an “Additional Dwelling Unit” (ADU) on each piece of property. This was passed.
Robin Murez announced that she is building a carousel for Venice and it will be put in Centinnel park which is the land east of the Venice Library on Venice Blvd to Abbot Kinney. She said one bike peddling the carousel will move 15 people.
Motions
Two of the main motions were regarding the Venice Blvd median. One was rezoning and the other the homeless unit cost as explained by Ron Galperin, city controller, rising as high as $700K per unit. Galperin expressed outrage and recommended other solutions. The motion was written and aimed at the Venice Median project.
The motion opposing the zone change from open space to mixed use, R-3, was passed. Board member Jim Murez explained and verified the public parking numbers in Venice. He listed the number of public parking places as less than 2000 total spaces while neighboring Santa Monica has 16,000. For the sake of the residents and the tourists, he explained, that rezoning this open space property used for parking was a dire mistake, eliminating the residents of Venice from ever having preferential parking and limiting tourists,
The motion regarding the cost had to be modified to remove any reference to the Venice Median project proposed by the Venice Community Housing. So the motion was to recommend reprograming housing to less expensive projects. Then the motion was approved.
Other motions
One motion was to have trash cans around the Old Venice Post Office area. One person made the comment that the cans would just be used to prevent homeless from sleeping on the sidewalks. Others said Venice could not have too many trash cans.
A Venice Grand Prix was a fun motion made by Jim Murez, head of parking and transportation. Murez showed slides of couches moving down the road. None of the vehicles can go as fast as a scooter, said Murez. He proposes investigating such an event. Board member Sima Kostovetsky said it is just a fun project.
VNC Board approved a retreat and authorized $900 for it.
Several tree motions were made and they all passed without discussion. Request the City to Update the tree species list, support tree planting/tree care blitz, revisit the tree planting guidelines.
One motion by board member James Robb asked for an investigation into OFW clothing printers, all under the same ownership, who have received reviews of scam, rip-off.
A motion was made to make all bike lanes green.
One motion had to do with traffic controls at Speedway and Venice Blvd. Another motion wanted VNC to be notified prior to a bike corral or parklet being implemented. One motion had to do with protecting the historic column heads, another filming in Venice to notify the Venice council, a study to fix problem of wrong way traffic at 100 Sunset.
Since the implementation of transit oriented corridors, Murez requested documentation to provide abutting areas of such transportation effects that they might have on Venice.
Parking Transportation committee made a policy statement motion that it wanted any future coastal zone community plan or land use plan to protect the Venice Quality of Life in relation to public right of ways and to provide adequate notice.
Motion proposed to get Caltrans, LA City and VNC together to determine plans for Lincoln Blvd, State Route 1, from Navy to Maxella.
VNC Outreach Officer Sima Kostovetsky, originator of “Coffee with a Cop,” an unidentified resident, and Captain Brian Morrison of Pacific Division at the Cow’s End in Venice Tuesday morning.
(21 August 2019) LAPD Captain Brian Morrison answered all the attendees’ questions and explained the “whys” to many of the answers Tuesday morning for the first ever “Coffee with a Cop” meet at the Cow’s End. There were off and on about 10 people attending.
The program was newly elected Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) Outreach Officer Sima Kostovetsky’s idea. She wanted a platform to get some of these questions that people ask of the police answered. If the first meet is any indication, they will all be successful. Everyone walked away satisfied.
The meet was suppose to be from 8 to 10 am with LAPD Pacific Division senior lead officers. No officers arrived. Some had given up and gone home. Then Captain Brian Morrison of the Pacific Division showed up about 9:15 and everyone was impressed. He explained a few of the hangups that had occurred that morning and then proceeded right into answering questions.
(16 August 2019) Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) will hear the Tesuque Project at their 20 August meet.
Members of VNC Administrative Committee voted down sending the new Tesuque project to the Venice Neighborhood Council Board because it had previously been disapproved by the VNC.
Members of the community wanted it heard, so they got a petition with double the required number of signatures to require VNC to hear this project again.