Bridge Housing Must Obtain Coastal Development Permit, Coastal Commission Declares

Coastal Commission Announces Venice Homeless Shelter Must Meet Coastal Act Requirements

The California Coastal Commission announced Monday, September 17, that any new homeless shelter proposed in the Coastal Zone of Venice will be required to obtain a Coastal Development Permit (CDP).

This statement came in an electronic message to John Henning, attorney for Venice Stakeholders Association.  Henning had earlier written to the Commission to ask for confirmation of the VSA’s opinion that nothing in the State’s new emergency shelter statute exempts shelters from the Coastal Act, which requires a Coastal Development Permit for any “development” in the Coastal Zone, however minor.

“The proposed Venice Homeless Shelters are not exempt from coastal development permit requirements.  Each proposed project will require some type of Coastal Commission review,” stated Charles Posner, Supervisor of Planning for the commission, in his message to Henning.

Mark Ryavec, president of Venice Stakeholders, said, “We are encouraged by this confirmation of the Coastal Act’s jurisdiction over such a large development as the 100-person shelter envisioned by Councilman Bonin for the former MTA bus lot on Main Street. “

“The CDP requirement will automatically trigger an environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act and force the city to quantify and mitigate effects such as traffic, public safety, aesthetics, and noise, especially night time noise, and parking demand.”  

“Considering that some of the 100 homeless will include “car campers” who arrive with their vehicles, the City will have to provide a place to park them without taking street parking from visitors and existing residents.”

The CDP and CEQA processes will also force the city to consider alternative sites and give residents a formal hearing in which to comment on the proposal, which Councilman Bonin has to date refused to allow.

Venice Community Housing's Proposed Rose Apartments Violates Venice Specific Plan; Would be the Tallest Building in Oakwood

COMMUNITY ALERT!

The Venice Community Housing Corporation (VCHC) has proposed to replace its low-rise offices across from Whole Foods with a gargantuan structure that could house of up to 68 former homeless people in 35 units with only 12 residential parking spaces.

Please send this message to the Venice Neighborhood Council asking them to deny the project unless it is downsized as outlined in the letter below.

Mark Ryavec 

Dear VNC Board Members(Board@VeniceNC.org):

Please oppose the VCHC's Rose Apartments.  It is out-of-step with the low-rise nature of Venice and sets a dangerous precedent for the Venice Local Coastal Specific Plan and sends the wrong message to the city planners who are drafting the Venice Local Coastal Plan.  The project represents the type of over-development that our community does not want.

(Your name)

 

 

September 11, 2018

Venice Neighborhood Council

Re: 718-720 Rose Avenue, Venice – Rose Apartments

Dear Members,

I am writing on behalf of the Venice Stakeholders Association to oppose the Rose Apartments project proposed for the former site of the offices of Venice Community Housing Corporation unless the project’s height, setbacks, façade, landscaping and parking are modified.

As is readily evident from elevations of the project presented on VCHC’s website, the project will tower over all nearby structures.  Further, the massing, height and lack of required parking stand in extreme violation of the Venice Local Coastal Specific Plan.

To start with, the project description:

Demolition of commercial office uses and the construction, use maintenance of a four-story, 35 unit permanent supportive housing complex with ancillary administrative office.

is inaccurate.

This is a mixed-use project with ground floor commercial offices to be occupied by Venice Community Housing Corp, a private corporation, with a 35% plus 20% density bonus project totaling 35 residential units.  The commercial component is not ancillary to the residential housing because VCH intends on conducting their own separate corporate business at the facility unrelated to the housing component.

Outlined below are reasons why the proposed design should not be supported and the design modified to address the community concerns listed below. 

1. Number of stories and height of the building: The applicant has not designed the project within the California state standard density bonus guidelines but has requested “off menu incentives.” Off menu incentives are requests that exceed the “by right” incentives permitted under the density bonus laws.  As an example, the SB 1818 state density law permits an applicant to exceed the height limit by one story and not more than 11 feet.  This applicant is requesting two additional stories and 20 additional feet of height.  As proposed this building would be the only four-story building in the entire Oakwood subarea of the Venice Land Use Plan. The permitted height in the coastal zone for this project is 25-feet for a flat roof and the proposed project is 45 feet high. Thus, this project represents a dangerous precedent both for future developments under the existing Specific Plan and for the message its approval would send to city planners now engaged in drafting the Venice Local Coastal Plan and revising the Specific Plan. 

2. Parking The required parking for this project under the Venice Local Coastal Specific Plan would require 89 parking spaces. In the past the Coastal Commission has determined that state density bonus laws DO NOT trump the California Coastal Act.  Numerous affordable housing projects within the coastal zone have been required to provide one parking space per unit. The proposed project as designed provides 12 parking spaces for the 35 residential units of which seven parking spaces are proposed off-site. Based on the Los Angeles Municipal Code section 12.26E5 and documentation from the property owner who owns the offsite parking lot located at 225 Lincoln Blvd., these seven off-site parking spaces will not be available for the new project.

3. Off-Site Parking Affidavit Parking affidavit 4123, which was recorded on October 11, 1973, was an agreement signed between a building tenant, Safeway No. 45, located at 225 Lincoln Boulevard, and The Children’s Center for Educational Therapy, located at 718-720-722 Rose Avenue. Parking affidavits are required to be signed by the legal owners of the real property of both properties and not tenants. Safeway No. 45 was not the legal property owner and had neither the authority, permission nor right to sign said agreement. Parking affidavit 4123 should be deemed null and void. Furthermore, parking affidavit 4123 will no longer continue in effect once the existing structures on 718-720-722 Rose are demolished.  The seven offsite parking spaces which supposedly satisfy part of the parking requirement for the project are non-existent.

4. Building Setback Requirements from Rose Avenue The Venice Local Coastal Specific Plan, in the Oakwood subarea, requires “any portion of the roof that exceeds 25 feet be set back from the required front yard at least one foot in depth for every foot in height above 25 feet.” The proposed project does not comply with this step back requirement and proposes a 45-foot high wall with no windows facing Rose Ave at the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th floors. The proposed design does not provide a varied and articulated facade with visual interest to pedestrians. The primary ground floor entrance to the residential entrance does not face the street and is accessed from a narrow side yard and a 14-foot passageway and is located more than 75 feet from the sidewalk. The ground floor office space, which is not a visitor serving use, is set two feet below the grade of the sidewalk, which is inconsistent with the Los Angeles Citywide Design Guidelines.

5. Environmental Categorical Exemption The applicant is unacceptably proposing no environmental review for the proposed project despite requesting a project with density almost double that permitted in the zone, the tallest building in Oakwood by an entire floor, inadequate parking, no loading zone, blank walls facing Rose Avenue, no required step backs from the street, all of the mass of the building facing the adjacent neighbors’ properties, and has not provided a detailed explanation of what services will be provided on-site to residents and at the ground-floor corporate office for nonresidents, which may generate vehicular traffic. Your Board should call for a full environmental review.

6. The City of Los Angeles and California Coastal Commission have already set a precedent for mixed use projects with a residential density bonus on Rose Avenue and this project is inconsistent with that precedent.

On August 9, 2005 The California Coastal Commission approved a precedent-setting mixed-use project which included a density bonus project with 70 residential units located at 512 Rose Avenue after an appeal was filed and a substantial issue was found. The De Novo Permit Special Conditions relating to the project set various building design conditions; these same conditions should apply to the 720 Rose Project and the design should be modified as follows: 

Building Design: The 720 Rose project should be designed with a varied and articulated facade that provides visual interest to pedestrians. Frequent windows and the primary ground floor entrances for the residential units shall face the streets. Porches, bays and balconies are encouraged, consistent with the City's setback requirements

Building Height: The 720 Rose project should be designed with three stories and a 33-foot high flat roof.

Landscaping: The 720 Rose project should be designed with landscaping in order to enhance visual quality, and to preserve water the side of the project facing the public street, Rose Avenue, should be landscaped with large canopy street trees and low water use plants, consistent with City requirements. 

Parking: The 720 Rose project parking should be designed with ground floor office parking equaling 10 parking spaces, one space for each affordable unit or 34 parking spaces, two spaces for the manager’s unit and ¼ guest parking equaling - 18 parking spaces - for a total of 64 parking spaces.  Having managed 160 units of affordable housing in the San Fernando Valley for five years I know from experience that while chronically homeless individuals usually move in without a vehicle, this does not remain the case in many instances.  As they stabilize their situation, receive benefits and job training, and eventually obtain employment, one of their first purchases is a vehicle.  There also is the likelihood that some of the eventual residents of the Rose Apartments will be former “car campers;” by definition they will arrive with a vehicle.  We have seen this here in Venice before.  During Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s tenure, one of the first vehicle dwellers that PATH moved into an apartment in a Breezes del Mar building on California Avenue at Electric Avenue parked his empty camper across the street from the building for months, taking two parking spaces away from residents. 

Thank you for your consideration of our views on this project.

Sincerely,

Mark Ryavec

Mark Ryavec, President

Please Tell the Venice Neighborhood Council to Oppose Temporary Homeless Housing on the MTA Lot

Later this month it is expected that the proposal to place temporary housing for 100 street dwellers on the former MTA bus lot on Main Street will come before the Venice Neighborhood Council.  Now is the time to voice your opposition to this misguided concept, which will only exacerbate Venice's homeless burden.

Please send the following message to <Board@VeniceNC.org> and a copy to Councilman Bonin's deputy:  <taylor.bazley@lacity.org>

Members of the VNC Board:

I oppose the use of the former MTA lot for homeless housing.  The lot is surrounded by residences and is too close to four schools on and around Westminster Elementary School.  This use will inevitably draw more transients to this neighborhood and to the schools.

There are no assurances that the new facility will actually reduce the homeless population in Venice, nor any guarantee that new encampments will not just spring up all around the MTA lot.  

The City's DWP facility in West Los Angeles (shown below), north of Olympic Blvd. and east of Centinela Avenue, is under-utilized and the south end of the parking lot (upper center of the photo bordered in light green) is a far better location for a temporary shelter.  It is surrounded by industrial uses on three sides and on the north the rest of the parking lot could provide a 200 hundred foot buffer between the temporary housing and the residences on Nebraska.

The concept of Bridge Home housing is untested and residents should not be forced to be guinea pigs.  Please urge the City to find a location, like the DWP parking lot above, that is set back from residences.

Thank you for considering my views on this important issue.

Argonaut Op/Ed Points to Folly and Danger in Homeless Housing on Metro Bus Lot

Temporary Housing Insanity

Posted by The Argonaut | Aug 1, 2018 | Opinion | 0 |

100 beds on Main Street won’t solve homelessness, but it will move associated problems closer to residences and schools

By John Tapia

Tapia is a pharmacy owner and longtime Venice resident writing in response to “Help is on the Horizon,” a July 12 opinion piece arguing in favor of establishing temporary housing for the homeless in Venice.

The city’s plan to convert the former Metro bus yard on Main Street into a 100-bed temporary housing facility will be a catastrophe for Venice. While I appreciate that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin may have the best of intentions, the city’s previous failures to keep our community safe from the ill effects of homelessness would suggest that city leaders are not prepared to address the dangers inherent to a temporary housing facility at this site.

First off, the site is a couple blocks from four schools clustered on or near the Westminster Avenue Elementary School campus. These house our community’s most vulnerable children, and some have already been harmed by repeated incidences of homeless campers and those occupying vehicles on Main Street and Westminster openly exposing their genitals and relieving themselves in sight of children. Inviting 100 homeless individuals to live at the Metro lot — and others who can be expected to just hang out outside (to sell drugs, see their buddies inside, etc.) — just increases the risk of such incidences or worse.

Next, the site itself is surrounded on all sides by residences, unlike other potential sites on the Westside, which are at some distance from residences. I anticipate that the 24-hour nature of the facility will allow a lot of coming and going, much of it at night. This will undoubtedly relocate some of the late-night noise problems associated with current encampments along the boardwalk and on Third Avenue between Sunset and Rose avenues. It also has the potential to bring the crime associated with those sites to our neighborhood.

The city has presented nothing to suggest that it will prevent the public space around the Metro yard, or the parkway and sidewalk across the street at the Dogtown Station Lofts, from becoming yet another large homeless encampment.  While Garcetti recently suggested that the city has the right to return to enforcing its “no sleeping on a sidewalk” ordinance, we have yet to see any proof of this — nor has the council office publicly agreed to direct the LAPD to use that ordinance to prevent additional encampments around the temporary housing facility.

Attorney Michael Rapkin’s recent guest opinion piece in support of establishing temporary housing in Venice suggests that the city will start cleaning up former encampments once the facility is up and running. But city sanitation workers already clean up encampments along the boardwalk and Third once a week, with little lasting effect. These areas quickly return to Third World conditions, with litter and food waste and bodily fluids strewn among assorted furniture and enough bicycles to suggest that some of them were stolen. It’s not clear what benefits additional cleanups will bring.

What would benefit homeowners and renters living near existing encampments is for the city to declare them “red zones” — that after campers are offered transitional housing or other accommodations, the city would declare that no sleeping, camping or storing personal possessions would be permitted at the former encampment site. The city has adopted a similar standard to bar people living in their vehicles from parking near schools and parks and/or on residential streets at night, and they could do so for sidewalks and parkways near residences in Venice, too.  We have seen no indication, however, that the city intends to enact similar restrictions for existing encampments.

Mr. Rapkin also asserts there would be far less personal property strewn around Venice once the bridge-to-housing facility is opened, since personal property could be stored on the former Metro lot. Assuming some of the folks now camping near the beach or along Lake Street next to Rite-Aid move into temporary housing, there is absolutely nothing in the city’s plan that will prevent other transients, from elsewhere in Los Angles or from out-or-state, from taking their place.

The end result of temporary housing will likely be no decrease in the size or odiousness of current Venice encampments, no checks against the growth of new encampments popping up on and around Main Street, and a riskier situation around Westminster Elementary.

No thanks!