Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Not the address. Hi, Jerry. I walked over to the property across the street. a lot of flowers. I would like to uh I think it's time we call to order the May 7th meeting of the planning commission of the city of Santa Monica. It's now a little after 6:00. So, we'll start with a pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At least that's Can we have a roll call? Commissioner Cho present. Commissioner Fresco here. Uh Commissioner Lambert here. Commissioner Landress here. Commissioner Hamilton here. Commissioner Reese here. And Chair Tolken. Here. Here. I didn't hear us. That's weird. Did you forget? Can we get the planning director's report? Okay, just do it. um at your uh next uh plan commission meeting on May 21st is cancelled. Um and then uh you'll your next regular meeting will be on June the 4th um which is a study session on the airport conversion project um the three scenarios um a hearing on a text amendment at uh 2668 uh second street along with um the associated conditional use permits and

then also um the commission's recommendation on adult use cannabis um July the 8 or sorry July the 2nd um is anticipated to be your election of officers. Um so that's the annual um rotation uh of the planning commission. Um on the architecture review board, uh some recent actions that happened in April um were the approval um of uh projects at 1640th Street, 14376, and 31023rd Street. I will note that the design approval at 1437 Strict Street was appealed um and will be coming uh to the planning commission um for the uh appeal of the ARB approval and then coming or excuse me this past uh Monday uh was a very short ARB meeting um to approve uh the design for a project at 1036 22nd Street. Um on the landmarks commission agenda uh coming up at your May at the their May 12th meeting, excuse me. Um is uh a hearing um for designation uh of a structure at 137 Hard Avenue and then also uh 226 Palisades. That's the statement official of official action um designating that property as a landmark. Um then on the June 9th meeting um uh that is uh 308 alta as a new hearing for a landmark designation. Um recent city council actions um for the April uh 8th meeting um the city council received um the annual comprehensive financial report for uh year end uh June 30th, 2024. Um they also approved uh a final map for 1230 Ashen Avenue which is um one which is an SB9 project. Um and then they approved an RFP to award uh to CBRE um uh the sort of a broker contract to sell uh 1632 to 45th Street which is

otherwise known as the Apple building um property um over by the metro station. Um on April 22nd um the council heard uh the prominade entertainment um zone which is the establishment of an open container or the ability to consume alcohol in public spaces on the prominade if it's purchased from a licensed business. That item uh we received direction from council um to actually turn that more into a daily uh activation or more regular activation. So that actually will be coming back to council at their May 13th uh meeting. Um and then the council also uh um extended and ratified uh proclamations of an emergency for homelessness and also the regional fires. They also gave direction to extend for a further 60 days um the relaxation on rules associated with alcohol service for restaurants. So things like the number of TV screens and number of you know other other rules um that were relaxed in light of the fires emergency those are now extended um I believe till the end of June right um when uh council has to act again to extend the emergency order. Um and then uh just to give you an update on economic recovery efforts. Um the uh uh internal staff uh economic development task force has fully launched along with a number of committees uh focusing on different areas such as special events, marketing and branding, um process improvements, uh uh things like that. Um capital uh infrastructure. Um so that work is underway in terms of focusing on areas um that can support the city's economic recovery and also um uh Armen has kicked off um the city council subcommittee for economic development. So all of these u major efforts are underway um in order to focus on uh recovery efforts um economic recovery

efforts uh for the city and then uh the city budget process um is ongoing. So the council will have a their study session um at their second meeting um in May. You know that where they will be giving uh direction um on the next bianual budget um and anticipated uh for adoption at their second meeting in June. So that completes the director's report and happy to answer questions. Okay, Leslie has a question. Yeah, I'm not sure this is properly addressed to you, but um given all that's going on in DC um regarding housing assistance and sort of other local funding um programs, this the city has a a lobbyist in DC, right? Or not. Do we have a federal lobbyist? Yes, we do. Yeah. I I assume that person's working on our behalf. Yes. On those programs? Yes. Uh it doesn't necessarily touch the work that community development does, but um certainly for our housing and humanities department, they're monitoring the status of you know federal funding um for housing obviously. Thank you. And what Santa Monica's source of funds for its uh tenant base and project based vouchers is does that come directly from the federal government? I don't know the precise answer to that, but I can find out for you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. U it would maybe this is an information item for another time but if we're getting if we're losing grants it would be helpful to know what we're losing. There's no other way to put that cuz everybody's everybody everywhere is losing everything all at once and it would just you know we get funding for everything from crossing guards to safe streets to other infrastructure funding. It would be I think it would be useful for us to really know what what's happening if we're losing. We have city staff that are monitoring that. Um to

the extent that there is some information available, we will of course share that with the commission. Okay. Thanks. One more. Um I heard from people in the audience that moving the item what is it? Lea is that messa messa the house the waiver and the variance. H it's coming next. It's coming next. Okay. Thank you. Out of my time. Yeah. Um I have an announcement for the audience. Um if you want to speak about an item, you have to submit a chit to the secretary of the commission prior to that items being considered by us. So please do that. Please write as legibly as you can because sometimes it's hard to read the names. Chair. Um, may I Sam, can I make a motion? I have an before you do that. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Uh, chair, I'd like to move that we u move item 11A to the consent calendar. I'd second it. I second. You Sam second. Okay. Can we do that by voice vote? Yes, you can. All those in favor of moving item 11A to the consent calendar, say I. I. opposed. None. Okay. You just did. Now, I guess I have an announcement. I've been reminded that my term as planning commissioner ends in uh June 30th and I will not be seeking another term. Um, I turned 87 in August and I have other things I think I need to take care of. Even though I'm genetically my family lives into the 90s, I I still think I should do other some other things. Thank you. And thank you all for uh your help when I needed

it. All right. Happy. We're happy to help and we wish you well in your other endeavors. What? We I said I'm happy to help. I'm happy we were able to help and we wish you well in your other endeavors. Thank you. I'm sorry. Did you say this was your last meeting? What did you say this was going to be your last? You're not going to No, it's not good. All right. My last meeting. It's just you made a decision in June and they asked me whether I wanted I said I'd be around if they didn't appoint anybody. I have a feeling that's going to happen quickly. All right. We we weren't I just wasn't prepared for you to I just want to thank you for um your camaraderie as the only other hearing impaired person on the the commission and and also um check out Viking Cruises. I already have. Thank you. All right. Where are we? Is this something? Now we have public input. Oh, forthcoming chair. And no, continue. Um, the only public input I have is Jerry Rubin. The only one Uh, thank you very very much. Uh, Jerry Rubin, longtime Santa Monica resident. I'm a member of the Santa Monica Urban Forest Task Force. But I'm just speaking for myself and boy, you know, Chair Tolken, you're such a cool guy and uh, you don't look 87. I just I'm 81 myself, but uh you I don't feel 87 most of the time. You could you could come and hang out at my sticker table anytime. Be great.

Great conversation. You did a lot of good. You still will. I'm uh here to say I will be reapplying for another term on the urban forest task force. I can't believe the two years went by that fast. I thought it was only one year and they had to remind me. No, it's been two years. So, uh, our next meeting is coming up and the whole landscape department of Santa Monica, you should be very proud of them and the work that they're doing, especially after the fires and the winds. I want to wish everyone a happy Mother's Day. And I want to uh also probably doesn't need reminding to take care of mother earth. And we need to do that every day. So when we're thinking about mother's day, remember to honor, respect, and love mother earth and mother nature. And every time I come to these meetings, I think what a great city we have. Same same goes for the city council meeting. And you're doing a great job and keep up the good work. Uh the next item on the agenda is the consent calendar. Do the commission any of the commissioners want to pull any of the items? Can we? I'll move. But we need to do exparte. We should do exparte because if you move the hearing item to the consent calendar here, we should What should we do? Exparte. Exparte on item 11 A. I'll jump I'll jump in. Um the applicant sent me an email requesting a meeting which we deferred uh pending the staff report. I read the staff report and we didn't meet. Yeah. I um I don't know how to do this, but I wasn't here at all on March 19th, nor was I in any condition to watch the

meeting. So I don't know if I should not vote or just that's enough to say. We're allowed to vote on We're allowed to vote on minutes. Okay, cool. No problem. I have no expart on on what was 11A. Um uh for 1923 LA Mesa I met with the applicant group on m Tuesday morning was it Tuesday? Uh and uh walked around the property mostly because I just wanted to understand what was changing and what wasn't. Um, also, uh, I just have a question. I just noticed I didn't bring that page from my notes by mistake, but in one of those minutes, Ralph Meter's name is like horrifically misspelled many times. So, do we need to figure out which one it is and pull it in order to correct that or can we just correct it? I think you can just make that as part of your motion and we will certainly search for that. It was dramatic or I wouldn't have I don't know if this qualifies for an expartite, but I was invited to a meeting for the La Mesa property and I declined. Did we approve the consent calendar? Not yet. We need to move it. Yeah. Okay. That's what I thought. Yeah. I'll I'll chair I'll I'll move the consent calendar with the um with the correction of Ralph Meter's the spelling of Ralph Meter's name and any other scriveners errors that may be identified in the future. Okay. Motion by Landress seconded by Ree. Um and so all those in favor of the consent calendar say I. I.

I think the next thing is item 11 A. No, 7 8A. Santa Monica Boulevard safety study. We're going to take before that. We're done. Wait a minute. See what happens when you miss a meeting, Leslie. I'm moving it along. Be proud of me. Does that work? You want to go back and hear the perfect Okay. Well, good evening, commissioners. Uh, thank you for having me here. My name is Carlos Hernandez. I'm a transportation planner with the mobility division. Um, about 10 months into the role, so this is my first big presentation. Really happy to be giving it here. Uh, I'm going to provide an update on the Santa Monica Boulevard safety study. And this safety study is a comprehensive analysis of Santa Monica Boulevard where we want to understand crash patterns and identify safety improvements for the street. This project came about because of past safety studies that identified Santa Monica Boulevard as a priority street and as a street with a history of crashes. So in 2015, the city adopted a vision zero policy and Santa Monica Boulevard floats to the top in terms of priority. In 2019, the city adopted a local roadway safety plan where we looked at different intersections throughout the city and Santa Monica Boulevard at key

intersections with crash history as well. This study is funded through a CALR grant and it will be completed early next year and we're working with a consultant team to develop a set of recommendations which will be included in a final plan and will go to city council uh for approval again early 2026. So these are the key components of the project. Since October, our project team has been working to understand how the corridor functions today and we've completed a a safety analysis and looked at the last 10 years of crash data on Santa Monica Boulevard. We've also engaged with the community and we've captured those observations and experiences uh and really filled those voids in the data. Um, and combining these efforts, our team is recommending enhancements for every intersection on Santa Monica Boulevard to improve safety and to connect people to destinations on the street. So, we're all familiar, I'm sure, with Santa Monica Boulevard. I'll go over the project area. We're going to study the full extent. So, it's 2.4 miles long uh from Ocean Avenue to San Noel Avenue. Um, and we know Santa Monica Boulevard is a critical east-west corridor in the city, and it does have some distinct segments. On the western end of the street, we have our downtown with high pedestrian foot traffic, uh, and a lot of small businesses and restaurants, as well as some anchor institutions. YMCA is there, uh, the public, uh, main branch library is there. Um, from Lincoln Boulevard to around 20th Street, this is known as our auto row. So we do have a high number of auto dealerships and service stations in this area. We do have two key destinations on the corridor that includes uh St. Providence St. John's Health Center and McKinley Elementary School. So this just sees a lot of

trips. Uh and then the segment from Chelsea Avenue to Sent Nella Avenue. This is a mix of small businesses and some recent mixeduse development projects as well. So, just as the corridor has different destinations, um, and it looks and feels different as you travel it, Santa Monica Boulevard is narrower, uh, and has slower vehicle speeds in the downtown area. So, both the profile of the street and the documented speeds, they actually increase as you travel eastbound, as you can see in this graphic. As I mentioned, our team recently completed a safety analysis of Santa Monica Boulevard. Uh, and we examined again the last 10 years of crash data, and we retrieved that information from our police department. And this data shows that there's been over 800 crashes in these last 10 years on Santa Monica Boulevard. More than half of these have resulted in uh some in sort of injury. Um, the other half were reported as property damage only, and these are typically self-reported crashes. Of the 435 injury crashes, 30 of these have been severe injuries, and we've only seen one fatality occur on Santa Monica Boulevard. That was in 2018. When looking at who is impacted by crashes, we know that young people and older adults, they're most impacted on Santa Monica Boulevard. Young people are over represented in crashes when compared to the city's population in this age group. So this is looking at the 16 to 25 year age group. Uh and then we dug a little deeper and we know that older adults make a large percentage of pedestrian crashes specifically when compared to their age group throughout the city. So, we looked a little bit closer at the modes and who's impacted in these

crashes and we know that 81% of all the crashes include uh vehicles. Um, but when you look at serious injuries, those numbers shift. You know that we know that 29% of serious injury crashes involve pedestrians and 26% of those serious injury crashes involve bikes or scooters. Though active modes are disproportionately over represented in severe and fatal crashes on Santa Monica Boulevard and focusing our safety improvements on these modes can help save lives. So these heat maps illustrate where crashes are happening along Santa Monica Boulevard. The top map shows all the crashes documented. Uh so you see some areas of concentration but the bottom map that's where we look at the injury crashes and we have uh smaller concentrations but some around 14th Street, 16th, 20th, 26th Street and a few others. Of the 34 intersections in the project area, 20 of these are signalized. 14 of them have two-way uh stops on the side streets. And through this safety analysis, we found that crashes occur most frequently at signalized intersections, but injury severity is higher at unsignalized intersections. Right-of-way violations are the primary cause of crashes, which means one party made an error, crashed into another party by not yielding to their right of way. Um, for crashes just involving vehicles, uh, we know that the most common crash scenario involves two vehicles proceeding straight, uh, which are typical of broadside or T-bone crashes. For pedestrians, the main preceding movement for crashes includes a vehicle making a left turn into a c pedestrian crossing at an intersection. And for bicyclists, the most common uh proceeding movement involves a vehicle making a right turn, a left turn, or

proceeding straight all while the bicycle is proceeding straight. So there are other factors that contribute to crashes. We know that unsafe speed is the second primary collision factor. Um although it is an assessment of many contextual factors and a police officer has to account for these factors when determining that there was unsafe speed at a crash zone. So the safety analysis really give us a historic view of crashes and community feedback has been essential especially for again filling those gaps in the data and understanding the community's experiences and their desires for Santa Monica Boulevard. So I want to talk a little bit about some of the engagement events we've had. Uh and we kicked them off uh during Halloween of last year. We had an exercise called light up the night and we hosted it at the main public library. Um, our team installed these two interactive displays and uh, participants were able to show up and do a dot voting exercise to vote for their sort of priorities for Santa Monica Boulevard as well as place comments on a map of areas where they find sort of difficulties crossing or um, getting through that intersection. And that was community touch point number one. The second touch point we hosted was a walk audit. Um, and this was in partnership with Providence St. John's where uh we had 20 residents help us observe the corridor and document the behaviors of people driving, walking, and taking transit uh on the corridor. Throughout the engagement process, we've been collecting online feedback. So, this is for folks that can't make in-person events. They were uh encouraged to leave an online comment using a social pinpoint mapping website that we've hosted on our project website. and people can drop comments uh for particular intersections and let us know some of the near misses that they've experienced. The final uh community

touch point that's going to be a openhouse style meeting. Um we're planning it at the moment so we'll host that uh later this summer where we will showcase some of the initial recommendations to the public. So overall results from the engagement events and our online map shows that residents want safer crossings for people walking. They want drivers to make safer vehicle movements and people feel that vehicle speeds are too high. Those are the top three things that we heard in our engagement events. We also had some comments related to transit and transit improvements. So that led us to further investigate transit improvements as part of this project. even though it's focused on safety. Other ways we've been getting the word out about the project includes uh we mailed out 10,000 postcards um for residents and businesses within half a mile of Santa Monica Boulevard. We uh Kyle and I actually went door knockocking on the business to all the businesses on Santa Monica Boulevard and uh were able to even tape uh the project flyer to some of their windows um obviously with their consent. And we've also uh leveraged our social media channels by to promote the project and our project website as well. Um and the city's take the friendly road newsletter which goes out to hundreds of people. And lately we presented to three neighborhood associations. And our next presentation is to city council for through a study session and that's scheduled for June 10th. Now I'd like to go over some of the proposed recommendations we have so far. This is not a complete list, but the recommendations are applicable in concept and they have proven safety results. So, first I want to summarize some of our findings from the safety analysis and the community feedback events. And based off our work so far,

we know that crashes occur most frequently at signalized intersections, but injury severity is higher at the unsalized intersections. We know pedestrians are over represented in serious injury crashes. And we know that safer pedestrian crossings and safer vehicle movements is what we keep hearing that the community wants. So these findings uh have shaped some of our recommendations, but we also gained insight from uh doing field observations and understanding land use and destinations on the corridor. Um for example, St. John's Health Center is a major destination. So you have a lot of workers and commuters uh going there at all times of the day. Uh McKinley Elementary School obviously during the peak hours. We've also hosted field observations with the technical advisory committee. So this is um a advisory committee that's made of city staff. So that includes police, fire, public works, and our transportation departments. And we similarly went out to the street and walked the full corridor and documented sort of what's happening there. So these four sources of information you see here, they've led us to a set of recommendations that could be organized into sort of three categories. Systemic improvements, hotspot intersection improvements, and transit improvements. I'll I'll talk about systemic improvements first, and this includes lowcost solutions that can be applied throughout the corridor. This includes just making sure pavement markings and signage are consistent throughout the corridor. Uh ensuring that we have adequate uh bicycle crossing uh through the intersections, leading pedestrian intervals which uh give pedestrians a head start at a signalized intersection, allow them to walk before any traffic proceeds. Um, we are also doing some traffic operations

analysis and we'll have some signal timing coordination take place from 20th Street to 26th Street. This is shown as sort of the most congested part of Santa Monica Boulevard. Um, and we are also recommending right turn only from side streets at unsalized intersections. Uh so right turns only from side streets. They minimize turning movements for vehicles and therefore minimize conflicts with other modes. We propose this treatment as I mentioned at unsalmized intersections. And the data shows that the through movements and the left turns at these two-way stop control uh side streets, they're minimal. They represent around 1 or 2% of all the traffic at a particular intersection um entering that intersection. So, these are the 13 locations where we're recommending the right turn only restriction from those side streets. As you can see, they're all located within one block of a traffic signal. So, to minimize disruption in commuting patterns, um people can make their left turns or their through movements at those signalized intersections. Now the next category is hotspot intersections. And hotspot intersections are unique in the corridor in that they either have a unique crash history or geometric conditions. They're near an important destination or we've heard a lot of community input. So the safety audit is safety study is going to develop concept plans for 15 of these hotspot locations and address their specific and unique concerns. Today I'm going to show you five of these locations. We haven't developed all 15 yet, but these five can be applied to other intersections throughout the corridor. So, this could give you a good example of what we're talking about. The first one is Sixth Street. So, this is a intersection in our downtown. Recommendations are to include a

pedestrian scramble. Uh if you're familiar with um some crosswalks in the downtown area, they allow you to cross diagonally as a pedestrian. Um, pairing this with the no right turn on red restriction for vehicles, it basically separates the movements between people crossing the street and cars entering the intersection. So, those two movements are completely separate. That application can be done at other intersections including Fifth Street and 7th Street. And we did hear some community feedback around a potential application at 20th Street. So, this is near uh the medical center. Um, and we do believe that this warrants further study, especially tie into our uh traffic operations analysis to make sure that there's no uh congestion issues with introducing a new phase. And these are the locations again where there are existing pedestrian scramles and we propose uh new pedestrian scramles. The next hotspot intersection is 10th Street. So, the recommendations here are to add a new crosswalk. Uh there is no crosswalk existing at 10th Street at the moment. Um so, we propose adding a crosswalk with flashing beacons as well as curb extensions. You may be familiar with curb extensions. They do help shorten the crossing distance and the profile of the street and just create more visibility for pedestrians. This paired with the right turn only from the side streets restriction that would minimize the turning movements and the potential conflicts at this particular intersection. So other intersections that don't currently have a crosswalk where we can apply this include 12th Street, 19th Street, Chelsea, Harvard, Stanford, and Franklin. As you can see here, the locations in orange are those new crosswalks. And that pink circle at Chelsea, we did get uh plenty of

community feedback and we are further investigating this for a potential pedestrian signal or a full traffic signal. So that's part of the ongoing work at 11th Street. The recommendations here include bicycle markings across the intersection. So this is an intersection that has a full signal and bike lanes that drop before the intersection. So we do want to extend that. and again have bicyclists continue through the intersection. Um that bike across the intersection that treatment can be applied to 14th Street and Yale Street as well again to connect bicyclists north and south across Santa Monica Boulevard. And we also have as you can see in those arrows farside bus stop relocation. uh it essentially moves the bus stop from before the intersection to after the intersection and that helps with overall visibility um with pedestrians uh crossing at the crosswalk and making sure that um they're just visible overall. It's a a proven sort of safety approach that's done in most instances and we have a few locations on Santa Monica Boulevard where we uh propose that. In terms of the uh again proposed bikeway crossing improvements, uh they're located here. And we're not proposing bike lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard itself. It's not part of the bicycle network. We're instead focusing again on getting cyclists across Santa Monica Boulevard and connecting them to the existing bike network. As you can see, we have bike lanes on Arizona and one block to the north and on Broadway, one block to the south. The next hot spot location is 18th Street. There's an existing marked crosswalk at this intersection. So, we recommend adding curb extensions again to shorten that crossing distance and to increase visibility and including that right turn only from side streets uh to

minimize those turning movement conflicts. Similar intersections that currently have marked crosswalks that could use that turn restriction and the curb extensions include 9inth Street, Uklid Street, 15th, 16th and Princeton streets and those are indicated here. It's the orange dots with the sort of tiger stripes. And the last hotspot intersection I'll showcase today includes Stanford Street. So this is further to the east of the corridor. The recommendations here include a new crosswalk with a flashing beacon. And here we are recommending a pedestrian refuge island. Uh so this is uh a space in the middle of the street where pedestrians can cross either in two stages or um do it in in one stage, but it does shorten that crossing distance and that time exposed to traffic. um introducing a pedestrian refuge island in the center of the street does um restrict turning movement. So in this case the westbound turning lane is removed in lie of that pedestrian refuge island. And we also looked at recent counts that we took as part of this project. We know that left turns from Santa Monica Boulevard account for around 1 or 2% of the vehicle movements at the intersection during peak hours. So there are very few uh vehicles making those left turns um in c certain cases, but it's something where uh we still want to investigate. Pairing this with the right turn only from side streets prohibition again allows for fewer conflict opportunities. Uh similar intersections where this can apply include Princeton, Harvard, and Franklin Street. And again, these are the streets further on the eastern end of the corridor. As you can see here in yellow, it's uh the the circles to the right. We

wanted to make sure that we recommend um these in the street in the part of the street with the widest profile where the pet refuge islands can fit. Um we also know that there is a potential study for busoni lanes on this corridor. We want to make sure that whatever we recommend here isn't in conflict with what buson lanes could look like um as they travel on a curbside condition. In short, these are the 15 hotspot locations that we've recommended again with unique conditions that warrant some sort of concept plan. Now, we want to complete uh the first drafts of these concepts and take them to our big community open house uh this summer. Uh, and today we showed you five, but those are sort of the the types of safety improvements that we're thinking about for the other 10. Now, the third category, transit improvements. Um, we did get a lot of uh community feedback again from um from the events in terms of transit improvements. I did mention the far side uh bus stop relocation for those bus stops that can't move to the far side location because of a large driveway. Sometimes there's a gas station or a fast food restaurant and you can't have the bus stop at the far side location. We are looking at Q jumps. So this allows the bus to sort of bypass traffic at intersections um so that they can get sort of a rolling head start and get in front of um any traffic at the intersection. So these are the locations. Um again very few farside relocation uh opportunities but where we did see them we definitely are recommending them. And then the two Q jumps where we cannot move the bus stop to a farside

location. So this safety study focuses on safety improvements on Santa Monica Boulevard. Um, but we've had a lot of comments uh about again transit enhancements and we know that there's a separate study being led by the Westside Cities Council of Governments to analyze transit enhancements on several corridors in the Westside region, one of which is for Santa Monica Boulevard. Um, so that paired with the community feedback has led us to include a cursory level of analysis for transit operations in this safety study. So we want to ensure ultimately that this study focuses on safety but that it also supports future transit planning efforts. So to that end, we wanted to see what a transit what transit priority lanes could look like on this corridor in a way that minimizes impacts. And we took the widest street profile again on the eastern end of the segment and we looked at the existing conditions. Currently we have one turn lane down the middle. We have uh two drive lanes in each direction and parking on either side. So given this geometry and the wide profile of the street, uh we put together just a quick mockup of what peak hour bus only lanes could look like. As you can see that turn lane in some cases is a pet refuge. As I mentioned earlier in the slides, um the two drive lanes are maintained and the parking lane can transform into a bus only lane during those peak hour times. So geometrically this is we know what we know uh can fit um for this potential bus only lane segment as you can see here. Um I think it's important to understand the profile of the street and how we fit a 12 or 13t bus lane. Um and considering the existing street

widths, um they're best suited on the east end of the corridor to have uh peak hour bus only lanes. So continuing bus only lanes further west will require further study um and ongoing traffic analysis and we hope that the council of government study will look further into this. So, we've done a lot of the investigation for this project. We've studied the street. We've looked at the existing conditions. We looked at crash history and an analyzed some crash patterns. Um, and we've obviously talked with the community and we'll continue to engage with them during our open house meeting. Our next steps include a presentation to our city council on June 10th. So, it'll be a similar presentation to this one uh and receive feedback in preparation for our big community open house. After that, we will uh get back to our desks and put this plan together and make revisions to those concept plans and then come back to city council early next year for adoption. So, with that, thank you for your time and I'm happy to field any questions. I just I have I have one question. Um, is this basically the same process that was followed for the Wilshire Boulevard improvements? Yes. So, the community outreach and all that is basically the same. Correct. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Landrew. Yeah. Um, I I hesitate to ask a question that is more research than research, but I do want to I I do want to ask it. Um, I've up and down Yale quite a bit and um I have seen and heard about also from my wife who drives up and down Yale about various accidents uh collisions at um north south. So the starting question is when you're calcul when you're determining that something is a is a

collision at an intersection it doesn't matter whether it was east west or north south right you're counting everything in that right okay in that vicinity that's helpful so we are on the way to banning a right turn from Colorado eastbound to Yale northbound through the safety improvements that are happening at Colorado and Stewart. Um, which is going to put a limitation on a major north south uh corridor for the city um on its eastern side. Uh it's the it's the one corridor between Sentinella and and uh and 26th really Clint 26th and Cloverfields that it goes from the top of Santa Monica all basically all the way to the bottom because if you go to the bottom of 28th Street um then you can then you can jog over. But my question is when you look at the Stanford intersection and the right turn restriction, have you considered the potential impact on north south travel that the restrictions on Colorado and Stewart are going to create? Meaning it's going to to a certain extent push some traffic to Princeton and to Stanford. Um, there's also a Days in at Stanford and Santa Monica that has its parking lot entrance just north of Santa Monica, right? So, you're going to have you may have some small number of people coming north on Stanford. I would imagine most will be coming on Santa Monica, but maybe there are some small number of people who think they're coming north and then uh get confused and might that might drive more traffic into the neighborhood. So, I'm not opposed to the to the right turn on Stanford. I I understand the logic behind it and I've seen how it works on Wilshshire and it makes a lot of sense

in terms of safety. I think what I would just ask is that when you look at the that side of the city, just as someone who goes north south a lot on Yale, to think about what these restrictions in concert, how they're going to affect traffic patterns, bike, pedestrian, scooter, car, um in that kind of multi-block radius between Broadway and what would that be? um Arizona. Absolutely. And I think the benefit of working with the mobility team here is that you know we are working on several projects and we understand that you know these projects don't exist on their own. There's there's other impacts that you know that the community may face that we have to take account. So thank you for that. Thanks. Just just to make those just to make those connections and also on Wilshire as well because um there are right turn there are right turn restrictions and I think what we start to see people doing is these these kind of jogging curves where they're really trying to get they're trying to get north and they end up going they go north and then turn right and then turn left and then turn right and then turn right. And so that may be an unintended consequence. And I think it would be helpful to map it and say, "Yeah, we're fine with this because the traffic volume is okay and there we're not going to have car versus pet or car versus bike collisions." Um, but you might also map it and say, "Wait a second. We didn't mean for that to happen." Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the comment, Commissioner Fresco. Hello. Welcome to Santa Monica. Thank you. Um, so when we first put the scrambles in downtown, we were very hopeful, but in the very beginning, it was actually kind of problematic because people didn't know what they were or how they worked and so do we feel confident that

adding more scrambles won't renew the confusion and that it we won't have un Yeah. Uh it's difficult to say um you know that some people might not be confused but I know that some of our most prominent intersections take um that Ocean Avenue right by the the pier um that scramble intersection I mean I think there's visitors from all over the world um at that intersection and and we're what we really want to do is create more of a consistent theme throughout the corridor and I think uh duplicating those those uh scramble locations in the downtown area where we see a lot of pedestrian foot traffic could add actually some consistency to the downtown area. Um there may be some people that are confused but we do have signage uh posted at the existing scramble locations and I think people generally uh you know don't proceed with like the green light for example and then there's some uh there's some learning there that happens when we go out. So, do we know if the scrambles that we've installed so far have actually resulted in more fewer accidents and fewer car pedestrian impacts? I I can't say uh off the top of my head if we've done a pre and post uh safety analysis for scramble locations in general. I mean, it's it's something that maybe uh we we could potentially look into and assess. Be nice to know if they actually work. if we're going to do more of them. So, yeah. Um, so is Santa Monica Boulevard still a state highway or is it a city street now? It's wrapped in two. So, Santa Monica Boulevard is uh part of historic Route 66. Uh, celebrating their centennial pretty soon. Um, if my my uh reading if I can remember uh some of the

the pamphlets and history uh records on the street, it was a state highway or state highway until it was um or part of Route 66 until it was decommissioned and then the city uh has sort of uh taken it as um as a city-owned street. Um, but it's still So that was like in the 80s cuz I think it was like route 173 or something, a state route as well as a federal route during Anyway, I just want to make sure you know that's now. But yeah, so but basically we can do all this. We can do all this. It was relinquished to the city from from my understanding and reading of the document. That's the upstart. We can talk about Route 66 for hours. Absolutely. Um, I have one other question. Oh, yeah. About the young and the old people uh being most impacted. Is that because they're less likely to be driving cars than people in between or do we or is it that they're actually those categories are more vulnerable? Uh, it could be a combination of both those things. um on this uh study in this study in particular we didn't dig too deep into the you know why but I know of um other research that indicates that younger people in particular children have um issues sort of perceiving speeds and speeds of vehicles um and similar sort of approach can apply to older adults. Um so they're generally more vulnerable in perceiving speeds and also um sort of reacting to oncoming traffic. Um, and then to your point, yes, you know, many cases they are, you know, without a a vehicle. They don't own or operate a vehicle in some cases, and they're, you know, out on the street. But, as I mentioned in the in the stats, um, compared to their respective age groups throughout the city, there's just more young people and

older adults um, involved in crashes. Uh, even though there's, you know, there's not more older adults and younger people in the city. But to your point, it could be that there's more people just walking those groups walking. Right. Right. Um Okay, those are my questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Hamilton. Yeah. Um, thank you for a great presentation and um, I you answered a lot of my questions and the report also addresses a lot of the concerns I do have about Santa Monica Boulevard. Um, I have obviously driven up and down it many times. I've probably also walked or jogged up it, you know, I don't know, 30, 40 times. So, I know the the boulevard really well. And um and I know it I think you know my my concerns are really more about the experience as as a either a pedestrian or a person on a bicycle. So I really appreciate the the time you took to really make those two uses a safer uh experience for everybody. Um I have a couple questions and then uh I want to talk about McKinley Elementary for a minute or two. Then I have sort of an overarching question about how the city assesses all of its streets uh for safety um when uh when there is uh not a CALR uh uh grant funding in place. So um you mentioned that uh 26% of the accidents involved a bicycle. Is that a car on bike accident or is that just a bicycle crashing into something? uh it's um vehicle bicycle uh crash and the bicycle and scooter data was paired together for that statistic. So it's in those cases where I mentioned a pedestrian crash, it's a vehicle

pedestrian and for bicyclist it would be vehicle bicycle. Okay. Um a number of the uh intersections currently on Santa Monica have no accommodation for pedestrians. I think 19th, 12th, and 10th don't have any accommodation. and it looks like you're addressing that. So, I think that's great. Um, I want to just call special attention to 19th Street. That's a to me a very dangerous intersection to try to cross across 19th and and right there on a uh cars are just moving at a high rate of speed at that point. Um there's also a lot of intersections where uh like for for example like 16th Street and it's also there's an illustration of of this in on one of your slides um where there's only one crosswalk that goes across Santa Monica Boulevard and there's so it's like the west side the west side of the let's say on 16th Street for example only the eastern side of 16th Street has a crosswalk, but the western side doesn't. So, if I'm on the west west side corner of 16th and Santa Monica and I want to go to the other side, I have to cross a street a street three times. And it looks like that's a design element that you're maintaining on a number of inter these intersections. I'd say 18th, 19th, Uklid, 15th, 16th, and Princeton and Stanford. And in and Stanford, too. Yeah. um what is the logic or walk me through the the reasoning of only having one crosswalk that goes across Santa Monica and not the east and the west side together. That's a great question and uh in looking um at some of the crosswalks uh we have out there today and I'll use Wilshire Boulevard as an example where we had uh

two crosswalks crossing Wilshire Boulevard at most of these intersections. um maintaining that second crosswalk is um at I think was decided to be a good thing, right? To give pedestrian options and not necessarily take away from the pedestrian. Um maintaining one crosswalk leg and not adding the second one. It um in some cases encourages pedestrians to cross at one location so that you can minimize those turning movement conflicts with traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. Um so that's one argument for maintaining um one crosswalk. Uh that paired with the flashing beacons and other sort of infrastructure that's included um creates a simpler intersection essentially um and maintains visibility. Adding a second crosswalk leg could have um sort of parking impacts and other sort of sighteline impacts. Um, and it's it's something that, you know, maybe we can further investigate and curious to know if there's any other history. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, Kyle Kosar, uh, principal transportation planner. I work with Carlos on this project. Um yeah, I think everything Carlos said is right and I think the only other thing I would add is that uh you know like on Wilshire um when you have those two it starts to create especially on multi-lane roads it starts to make confusion because uh you have to have the flashing beacons as like the indicator on all four corners and in some cases you have them on all and they have to be coordinated. So, a lot of times what happens is motorists when it's a situation like that will see the flashing beacon, but the pedestrian might not be right there near there because it might be happening on the crosswalk on the other side of the intersection. And so, it starts it can start to kind of create a little bit of confusion. And so, um, you know, we've thought a lot about this with Wilshire

because at Wilshire those crosswalks were existing and so we weren't going to remove a leg. So, we just went ahead and and you know ramped up and did all the flashing beacons on all the corners. Um, but I think from a as a best practice perspective, uh, focusing the crossings, especially on those multi-lane arterials, it kind of clarifies for motorists to be able to see kind of where the pedestrian is and it they can be at one of two places rather than at four where if there's a median, possibly six places that they're scanning for. And then if they don't see them, there's a potential for the conflict and it can also create um non-compliance if they start to not see the pedestrian and they just start ignoring the flashing beacons in general. So I like that's a pattern of non-compliance. So yeah, but I mean I think the experience of of being on a street where you know say the that western side of 16th in Santa Monica and say I have a young child in tow. I I have to cross a street three times as a pedestrian. Um and um what I'm hearing so I would say that like the to the extent that we can have a a simple four four directional crosswalk I understand there's the the flashing light aspect of it but um it's just I mean to me it's like that is putting that that that is a pedestrian is not a ideal experience and for whatever reason there's a lot of those types of intersections on Santa Monica. And so I would just give you my feedback that having crosswalks on both sides would be really helpful and honestly I would feel a lot safer as a pedestrian crossing it. Um the other uh question I had is uh what kind of further I mean I like the idea of the scramble on 20th Street and in that intersection. You mentioned it's subject of further study. what what

types of things are you going to be looking for to make that decision? So, we are conducting an operations analysis of the corridor and looking at um what sort of delay looks like today, vehicle delay looks like um as well as what it could look like given some enhancements on the corridor. We do know that the segment from 20th to Cloverfield in particular is uh one of the most sort of congested in terms of um bus speeds, in terms of um sort of vehicle throughput. Um it's the main entrance to the hospital. Um sort of the side entrance, if you will, to McKinley. And there's a lot of commuter traffic that cuts uh southbound on 23rd Street, makes a left Santa Monica Boulevard and a right on Cloverfield. Um, so these are we want to make sure that we don't experience um or that people don't experience more delay in that segment when there's an additional phase introduced to 20th Street. So an exclusive pedestrian phase would basically stop all traffic in all directions, even those right turns. Um, so we that's something that we just want to further study before we have, you know, traffic backed up to 26th Street and then, you know, that sort of becomes the the focus of the project. So that's something we're investigating right now. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. There's just a lot of dis density on that particular street corner and the fact there is a lot of pedestrians that use that intersection and a scramble just seems like a good idea. Um, I want to talk real quickly about McKinley. I think it's a really important oversight that we need to draw attention to. If you look at the boundary of of who goes to McKinley, I would say 3/4 of that or is south of Santa Monica Boulevard and these are students are going to have to cross Santa Monica to get to school.

Um, you mentioned you got a lot of community feedback about that intersection at Chelsea and really it's park that then crosses Santa Monica I think then turns into Chelsea. I I really want to emphasize that uh right now there's no pedestrian accommodation. Um, I think that there needs to be as much accommodation as we can make for students crossing there because if you're coming ac if you're coming from south and going across Santa Monica Boulevard and you're on foot or if you're on on a bike and you're a young kid, there is not you have to you have 26th Street and then you have Cloverfield and that whole stretch in between is is a pretty high uh corridor. are. So, I would say putting a a a marked bike lane across Park uh into Chelsea and protecting that to the extent possible. Maybe putting a pedestrian refuge island in in the street there with flashing lights. Also, 25th Street. Right now, there uh as you go from Broadway, uh north on 25th to Santa Monica, um there are uh big concrete planters that block that street so cars can't travel through, but I think it's a overall a pretty quiet street. And if you took one of those planters out and you just put a bike lane through there, um that could be another way for kids to get from Broadway to Santa Monica safely and then they can then use the pedestrian crossing that we'd like to create at Chelsea, which is just one block away from that. Um, I think that's just two opportunities to take into consideration the fact that we have a lot of elementary school kids going to that school who are coming who have to cross Santa Monica Boulevard to make that as

safe as possible for them. Right. Thank you, Commissioner Jaco. Thank you. Appreciate the presentation, Carlos. I have a few questions and some clarifications. Um, I wasn't able to tell from the maps, but are you proposing curb extensions at all locations where there are um through and right turn restrictions on unsalized intersections at this point? That is correct. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that. I wasn't able to tell, but I assume that there would be a concern about higher speeds at intersections if they weren't. Yeah, and that's what the data shows. Obviously, the severity is higher at those unsalized intersections. So, where there is a crosswalk, adding curb extensions, where there is no crosswalk, adding a crosswalk and the curb extensions. I see. Great. Glad to hear that. Um, also very glad to hear that you're looking looking at signal timing between 20th and 26th. Great to hear that. Um, I noticed that in one of the early slides, uh, where you're showing the location of crashes, uh, Fourth Street, the intersection at Fourth Street really lights up. Yeah. But I haven't seen much attention paid in the recommendations to that. So, I was curious to see what's behind that. Yeah, that's a great observation. Um we obviously like Fort Street stands out in terms of crash history when you look at sort of all crashes that have occurred there and that includes um property damage only. So like fender benders and things like that. So it's going to light up. Um there's just a lot of activity in that intersection generally and we are looking to recommendations for that intersection. Um we didn't show you those recommendations. I think it's still part of our investigation. Um, Fourth Street does have a scramble uh crosswalk right now. There's there's pretty much most of the improvements

that can be, you know, take place there have already been implemented. Um, so we'll give it another pass and see if what other things um what's happening on Fort Street and what we can recommend. But a lot of the crashes are sort of those non-cevere crashes on Fort Street. Um in the early part of the presentation you showed the slide where the 85th percentile uh speeds are shown as higher than the posted speed limits and I'm assuming that a lot of the proposed changes are intended to try to bring those down. Correct. Does the scope of the study involve coming back after to see how effective they are in terms of reducing speeds? So this study does not have um a post installation uh evaluation to it. I think uh that would be a separate effort. Um so this study is meant to document sort of the historic crash patterns, put some recommendations together um which would be approved in a plan. Uh we would then need to find funding to implement these uh recommendations at which point we can add sort of a pre and post analysis. Um so that would be you know down the line. Um you know so it's it's not this is just the plan to to kick off the project and any evaluation can be done carried you know once construction takes place. Great. Thanks. Um and lastly I think I just like to reiterate uh what Commissioner Hamilton said regarding the support for having crosswalks on all sides infections. Thank you. Thank you. Just uh one quick one. Um, I was just thinking about this particularly with what Commissioner Hamilton was saying about the areas around McKinley. Um, one of the things that I've noticed at uh,

Pico and 20th Street is that ever since um, crossing on the flashing red became legal, uh, there's there it can be difficult at peak hours to make a right turn onto 20th Street from Pico Westbound. um particularly when SMC is letting out or about to start and it's because what happens is there's no dedicated right turn and people are crossing that intersection heading east in particular uh and they use the entire time and then you get a line of cars that are trying to turn right. Um fortunately I mean I've never seen that it's led to any kind of a a more than just an impatient conflict. Um, but I worry about it. And so I'm wondering whether you have considered um no rights on red at any intersections off of Santa Monica, particularly around uh McKinley and around the hospitals. Uh but also dedicated uh green right, you know, green arrows so that you could, you know, even if you're not doing a full scramble. Yeah. Uh, and if you do a scramble, maybe let's have no rights on red, like nobody moves during the pedestrian scramble. And then if you're not doing a scramble, look for some opportunities to really mode separate uh vehicles and pedestrians cuz I see it in the context of a relatively busy intersection elsewhere in the city near a school. Um, and I, you know, I worry like I I I genuinely worry at some point that, um, somebody's going to get impatient or, um, you know, something something bad's going to happen. And then the other thing, of course, that happens is when as those cars line up,

uh, people duck up 21st Street and then and then jog over or even the alley. So, we want to avoid that on Santa Monica as well. And that's why I framed the question that way. Absolutely. I think for for 20th Street as an example, um it does warrant further investigation. We're doing a traffic operations analysis for that intersection, but also, you know, east into 26th Street. Um and yeah, that's that's part of what it will look at. And we ultimately have to have some recommendations for uh how we best separate movements, whether that's through the existing left turn green arrows or right turn green arrows or a scramble with the no right turn on red or extend you know pedestrian walk times um or even you know flashing yellow left turn arrows. So there's uh quite a few tools in the tool box but it does warrant some additional study at this moment. Thanks. Yeah, I noticed you're looking at a scramble at at 20th Street in Santa Monica, and I think that would be really really important to have no car movement during the pedestrian walk time uh at a place like that where it's functionally one campus right around the right near the hospital. So, I I wor and to your point about 19th earlier, it's not just it's 19th, 18th, 17th. It's that whole because people do park. I mean, I still remember um walking around there. If you're well, I'll make this personal. If your if your spouse is in labor and you need to run for, I don't know, donuts, that's where you go. You leave UCLA and you walk south on 16th or 17th and there just happens to be an excellent doughnut shop. But you take your life into your hands as you cross Santa Monica to get there. Absolutely. I think DK Donuts in this case on the corridor is a major destination. I have a question for you. An excellent presentation by the way.

Thank you. Um is there any as part of this putting electronic warnings to people who were speeding permanently on places like Santa Monica Boulevard? Is there anything part of this? So, in other uh agencies that I've worked for, speed feedback signs, I believe is what you're referring to, where if you're traveling above a certain speed, there's a sign that indicates what your speed is. Um, and I think there are some in Santa Monica. I'm thinking of my route to to home on my bike on uh 23rd Street, for example, on the downhill part. Uh it has shown some um success in terms of crash reduction factor um although minimal uh and in some cases shown sort of the reverse effect but in some rare cases where people sort of try to well it seems like speeding speeding could be the cause of a lot of these accidents with bikes and other cars and whatever. It it could certainly be uh a tool that we use. I think uh it it would warrant uh further discussion with our team but that's a good recommendation. Thank you. One more comment, Sam. Just one more comment. Yeah. Um I I wanted to make just one more comment. Um you know, in terms of going back to this uh protecting the crossing at Chelsea, uh we did the city did put in a flashing uh pedestrian crosswalk um at at St. John's crossing Santa Monica. And um I just think that's more kind of more support for this idea of doing something like that uh for the benefit of McKinley. Um so I think that's just wanted to mention that also because I have you and because we've brought up some other streets uh in Santa Monica. I'd be remiss if I didn't raise and we we've talked about

this Kyle I think before um the issue of speeding on San Vicenti Boulevard. Um, as someone who lives approximate to Saneni, I will say that it is a uh ongoing and repeated problem of of freeway speeds up and down um throughout the day. And it's it's a unique boulevard. It's a two-way uh divided highway. It was uh it really is designed for cars to travel at very high speed. And um and I'm talking about 50 to 60 to sometimes 70. Um and so what we need to have is I don't want to talk about Saneni. Uh there's no no reason to talk about solutions here, but what needs to happen is the Santa Monica Police Department needs to have a dialogue with mobility so that both of you guys are able to talk because we talked to the city of the the police department. They're well aware of the speeding issue. Um, mobility needs to also be aware that this is a a real issue and is honestly I've seen some very serious crashes or some very close call. So, I just want to call that to your attention while I have you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? I have one public input from Jerry Rubin. Uh, thanks again and thank you for this timely and important presentation on traffic safety. I never had a car, never had a driver's license, and I was hit by a car a few years ago right in Ocean Park forth in Bicknell and it was a mess. I was pretty careful as I always am, but I can guarantee you I'm going to

I'm even more careful now no matter what. And I urge everyone to be careful whether you're driving or biking or walking. Don't be in so much of a hurry. Don't bring those cell phones out. Whether you're walking across the street or whether you're driving or biking, my leg was injured. I could walk thankfully, but I was never able to run again and the guy that hit me. St. John's took good care of me though and the rehab. As far as uh transit stuff, uh I support the big blue bus. I think it's a safety thing that we don't have all uh automatic stuff. People put those dollar bills in, it interferes with the driver. Sometimes they are driving and people come up and try to put that dollar bill in and the driver tries to help. And I liked it better when we try to get to cashless just cards and I know there was a backlash on that so they switched back but I'm hoping they can go back again because it's a safety issue. So, I think education is one of the main things and I think we're doing pretty good on that and I think we ought to just continue to remind people to be careful no matter what we are doing. And the other thing is those scrambles are pretty good. I think they're pretty good. The only problem I see is the bikes go through sometimes there's crowds of people right up where the light rail is especially. And that's an accident waiting to happen. So, how do you keep that from happening? When those scrambles are happening, you have to think of a way to make sure the bikes aren't going through and the bikes are obeying the rules and stopping at stop signs and not speeding through. Because you get hit by a bike,

it's going to hurt pretty bad. And I think we're improving because the bike coalition are educating people. But it's still a problem. When we use the word vehicles in this report, let's not forget bikes are vehicles, too. So, it should be automobiles and bikes, not because bikes are vehicles. And um thank you again for your report. Um Nancy Gordon, I think we are the we need to um vote to allow for extra public comment. Is that what Yeah, this was a late chit. So, the commission needs to vote to hear. Okay. Late chit. I move that we hear. Second. All those in favor? I I Thank you for that. And and per your rules of order, you'll have one minute. One minute. Right. Oh, instead of Well, thank you very much for taking that. Um I just want to comment really quickly that things have gotten really bad on California. Um I live at four fourth well north of California but from 12th or maybe not even St. Monica's yeah probably from 12th on down they're flying through the four-way stops come on the cross streets across California. I've myself am also been almost been hit quite a bit. They don't even come to a full stop and I guess it's because of 34 seconds because of cell phones. They don't even look left, right or left anymore. They just got the tunnel vision. They just tap and go when I'm in the intersection. Don't come. So, if we could see if Santa Monica Police Department could do some um it would be revenue for the city, a lot of traffic enforcement because this really getting out of hand. Thank you for so much for letting me speak late. Chair, I think that's all we Oh, go ahead. Are we through with this item?

Can we What? Are we through with this item? Okay. Um, I would like to suggest that we move item 8 C next because we have a lot of people in the audience who are here to speak and I don't know how much longer they're going to last. They they've been very patient. I have no problem with that. Okay. Do we need a vote? Yeah. Do we need Yes. Then I move we uh move 8 C up to the next be the next item. Second. Is our staff ready for that? Yes, they are. We need to vote. I I just I mean, these people probably have to get home and I'm sure they have homes and families. It' be nice to actually let them go. We need to vote. Can we just have a vote on moving item 8 C up? All those in favor say I. I. I. I. We have staff presentation. Yes. Hi everyone. Can I sorry can I chair I think it might be appropriate in case people are not aware that this is a study session and that I' I've received an email earlier asking if we were making recommendations just to remind the public that we are not taking action tonight. So um we're we're learning along with them. Thank you. But we can certainly express opinions. Oh yeah. But we're not vote we're not I understand we're not voting. Yeah. Hi. Uh, thank you for having me today, commissioners. My name is Tony Lopez. I am the city's senior park planner as of just over a year ago. Um, I am part of the airport conversion project team. Uh, and this is my first time presenting to you. I've been here with Amber in the past, but uh, uh, Peter might be joining in. He's coming in from the airport this evening. But I will go ahead and get us started. It's nice, too. I usually have to plug in myself. Um, so today we're going to do a little bit of a project overview. Uh, give you some input on

where we're uh where we currently stand in the project. Uh, give a little bit of an introduction to the site design layers, the vees, the survey and the letters of interest and the next steps for the project. Uh as we all uh you may or may not know uh the Santa Monica airport conversion project uh the airport closure has been decided uh per the February 28th, 2017 city council resolution number 11026. Um the project will explore the feasibility of a preferred oh of a preferred scenario uh for the conversion of the Santa Monica airport centered on a great park. Currently we are in phase 3A which is defining the future uh with three scenarios. Uh currently we have our community engagement scheduled for May 17th Saturday at the airport. Uh and we have already uh posted the virtual education session number four and the first online survey for this phase 3A. There will be another subsequent survey that goes live on 517 as well. Uh that will uh be more focused on the three scenarios. Uh just for everyone's uh reification uh we are looking at studying the whole 192 acres actually 191.6 acres. Uh and just as a general kind of u understanding of where you we are on the airport site, uh we typically uh in conversations refer to the north zone which is everything north of the runway and taxiways directly adjacent to the Santa Monica business park, the runway and taxiways and then the south zone which uh currently has like our airport park and Barker hanger in that uh most of that area. Uh phase one community engagement uh went really well and uh we are pleased to say that with each phase we're it's getting better and better

more and more participation from the community. Uh and we had a community workshop in each phase of the project followed by popup events a project website update virtual education sessions that correlate with the information that will be presented to the community in that phase as well as an online survey. And you might have noticed over the last I think it was the last phase there was a couple different surveys and this is another phase where we'll have a couple different surveys and we're really doing our best to really get those surveys down uh in terms of time but of course there's a lot of information to present so we want to be sure that we provide as much information as we can to the community. Phase two as I mentioned continuing to grow in the complete responses. Um phase two was all about establishing the guiding principles. Um in uh January of this past year, council confirmed what at the end of last year were the draft guiding principles. Uh the five you see here start with nature, inspire wonder, balance economics, amplify versatility, and celebrate place. All of these are our guiding principles for the project at which we will use as benchmarks for decisions that are being made throughout the design process for the three scenarios. So a bit of an introduction to the site design layers. Now, as planners, as designers, uh it's very easy to want to jump into the the fun part, the drawing, but we we realize that as part of that process, there's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that create the justification for why certain design decisions are made, which is what we in this uh particular project began to call the site design layers. Those elements of the project that form the creation of what ultimately becomes the fun part. What we really wanted to do was bring the community along in that process to help un everyone understand the thinking behind such a robust project. It's 192 acres. It's huge. It's it it's bigger than any of the parks we have. The site

alone is larger than all of our park acorage combined. So thinking about how all that all those uh layers work together like connectivity and mobility, water and topography, um active recreation, passive recreation, all how all those things work together. It's a very complex uh series of questions that we have to ask each other about. So we wanted to extend those questions out to the community. Uh the phase 3A and 3B timeline. Uh in uh December we had our phase 2 community event which we introduced the draft guiding principles. In January of 25 we uh presented those draft guiding principles to council at which point with one minor edit to the first uh became the guiding principles for the project. In April uh we distributed the online survey for the design layers. May 17th as mentioned will be our community event which is being held at the airport. uh and uh that will be the first time the community uh will see the three test fit scenarios and also we are tracking to also make uh the all the information that we we received from the online survey 3A at that event. So currently it's we had about 5,000 people respond to the survey with about 2,000 completed responses. So a lot of people are dedicated to the project itself and so it's a lot of information to collate tabulate put together to present. So at that meeting at that community event that's the first time that will be public. At the same time that information will be made available online as well. In July we have our council meeting to present all that information including the three scenarios to council and in fall we'll hopefully be moving into our preferred scenario. So what is a design site design layer? As mentioned, a site design layer represents different ways of composing the most prominent considerations for a project. As I mentioned, connectivity, mobility, water, topography, how all

those things work together to essentially create what will ultimately be a scenario. So the site design layers that we looked at for uh this phase again connectivity and mobility, water and topography, ecology and passive uses, active park uses, housing because this is the first time based on council direction in January that housing was introduced as a component of the project and revenue generation because again uh the project must be self- sustaining from an economic standpoint. Want to hop in? They're doing great. Okay. Um so as part of the 3A survey uh the committee was presented with uh four different versions of each of these six layers. So on the left were the least intense on the right the most intense interpretation of those uh different layers. So for example connectivity and mobility uh option A there was no introduction of roads but in option D there was three new roads. So, as you can see, it kind of uh created a range of uh um intensity within each of those layers. Um how fast should we go through these? Uh just okay. Let's see how it goes. There's a lot of them. Uh so, when it comes to connectivity and mobility, uh we ask ourselves how does this layer connect to the guiding principles? How does the site context influence opportunities and constraints? and what are the different potential approaches to this layer on the site. So these three questions are the primary questions that were asked when evaluating each of these layers. Um each layers uh each layer conversation was presented with the initial introdu reintroduction of the site analysis that was conducted in phase one and then uh four options were presented for the connectivity and mobility layer. Uh again option A the most simple, option D

the most complex. And with that uh each of those options was paired with an analysis of the pedestrian experience, the number of site access points and gateways and the vehicular connectivity access to the site. So not only is it about the layers, but it's about all these nuances within that layer that help to reinforce the identity of what ultimately defines that layer. water and topography. Again, uh introducing the information that was uh collated through the site analysis uh inventory in phase one. And again, four options of least intense to most intense. And then again the evaluation of the different components within water and topography like the distribution of the water on the site, the approach to topography as a result of that water introduction and the experience of water recreation in and of itself within that layer or ecology and passive uses. Again, uh reintroducing the site analysis and inventory as a basis of uh the study of that layer. Currently the site is about 20% pvious landscape with the remaining being impervious. And of course you know as uh we transition from phase one into phase two and understanding the desired uses that we heard from the community uh throughout that engagement process. This is where we start to layer in more information on the specificity on the particular uses related to the passive uses. And you will see a little bit more on the active uses in terms of how we start to fold in some of those uses as part of the uh I'll say the the the two-dimensional study of how this part can potentially lay out relative to a scenario. Again, when it comes to ecology and passive uses, least intense A, most intense D. And you can start to see how the in this particular layer,

you're starting to get a little bit more design introduced because a lot of these e ecology and passive uses start to inform the the organization of space and it can start to help uh create the identity of what a particular scenario might become. Again, areas dedicated to ecology and passive uses change from A to D with A being least intense, D being most. the organization of ecology and passes uses. Now this becomes a bit bit of a study in design and organization through the site as you can see something a little bit more rectalinear versus something more organic and the amount and distribution of ecology and other uses throughout the site from more sporadic and throughout versus more condensed and organized into one central location. active park uses. Again, this is where we start to pull in the inventory of our current park network, which coincidentally I will present after this on the park and recre master plan. Uh but this is an inventory of our current park network as it stands today at 144.31 acres uh and uh distribution throughout our city. Again, uh when it comes to active uses, uh reinforcing that all of this uh effort is based on the community input input and what they had expressed as their uh primary preferred uses. And that was correlated into these uh seven primary bubbles, if you will, that can help us uh preliminarily kind of organize those through the site as you can see here represented by these these graphics. And so, um, A looks at kind of sprinkling the intensity of those uses throughout the site. B is start to kind of give them a little bit more organization around a central urban green. C looks at combining all those active uses into a centralized location. And D looks at a similar approach, but really thinks about how those uses start to grow and

expand as well. So, A is their their comprehensive location throughout the site and their scale. And as you get to D, that scale grows and their locations with one within one another get closer and closer together. Housing, you want to jump in on this one? I can. Sure. Good evening, Planning Commission. Peter James, fresh off an airplane from Mexico. I'm sorry that I am late. Welcome back. Happy birthday. Thank you. Uh, and happy birthday. Um, so as Tony mentioned, uh, the council introduced the notion of studying housing at the airport at, uh, their meeting back, uh, early January, I believe. Um, and as a way to introduce housing to the conversation. Um, we added it as a layer. It's really the reason that we stepped into the layer uh, methodology as opposed to coming out with three test fits just initially as was the original plan. Our assumption was that if we created two polarities, a no housing option and a option that had housing, we would not have as much information on some of the building blocks of the site, connectivity, water topography, etc. So housing becomes this is the way that we introduce housing to the site. Um, and on that spectrum that Tony has described, you can see that option A has no housing. that is the no vote option which was also um a recommendation from the council that at least one of the three test fit scenarios is a no vote option. Um the other uh they also asked for an option that did include and I quote some housing. So uh fairly nebulous uh um direction there and we're trying our best here to get our heads around where would the best location for that housing um be accommodated? uh is it centralized in one portion of the site? Is it

distributed? Um or is it organized along a series of interior roadway networks that really comport with the connectivity layer. Um it's important to note some of the subcategories that is presented on this slide. um a some of the correspondence that you received today um uh crit criticized uh some of this and so I wanted to explain a little bit why things like revenue potential is mentioned um uh here as a as a a metric. Um the main direction that we've have received from the project onset is that this project be self- sustaining both in terms of its capital costs as well as ongoing operations and maintenance. Um uh we have uh very little uh development opportunity um uh based on measure LC that is the the A version here that puts us into the realm of adaptive reuse uh potential potentially some leasable space uh for sports and recreation and then on the other end of the spectrum is neighborhood development. Um and so those those are in fact important um concepts for us to consider as we design uh the balance of uses and activities at the airport site. We have not waited into what type of housing that may be, what the densities are uh because we're really just testing the use. As you're all aware, uh housing is a prohibited use at the airport per measure LC. And so, uh, we wanted to ease into the conversation by just asking the community if they what they thought about these general sizes of development pads and the locations. And we can get more into the um um the discussion of of the correspondence you received at a at a

later time if you'd like. Uh, the last layer is revenue generation. So, this ties into what I was saying before about the the prevalence of uh adaptive reuse sites potentially if we stay with a an LC compliant option on the site. Um, this graphic here shows uh the location of many of the of the hangers um uh their uh cultural significance um and their likelihood uh to be adaptively reused. And this is based on the cultural resources report um that Nina sent us some correspondence about earlier this week. Um a lot of the um uses the the structures that are present on the site may uh in fact lend themselves to some type of revenue generation in a land use pattern that was uh preferred by the community in the first survey. So things like restaurants and food halls and and farmers markets um amphitheaters, things of that nature, uh may find a home in some of these spaces uh presently at the airport. Um but of course we're looking for uh perhaps quicker implementation, a more robust program. So, we began to expand the the uh inventory of options that we study uh in this master planning effort. Um all the way from just uh simply recreation on the runway to revenue generating opportunities that would bring some dollars to the project um accelerate the time frame and provide more of the amenities that the community has indicated they want um in in shorter time. Um and so this spectrum uh uh really looks at ways where we can adaptively reuse uh the hangar space at the airport that's both in the the north and the south part uh of the airport and really begin to reuse the runway as the central recreation space. And on the far extreme

side on D, that's where those revenue generating u development pads come into play. uh linked with roadway networks, pedestrian access points, and new gateways um to connect to connect users to the park. Um our pie charts up here are interesting, although I don't think they're uh su very successfully expressed. They're really meant to show the um portion of of the airport site that is converted to green space. So there the for an example section A where you see the hatched line around the green and the gray that is showing the portion of the airport that is a recreation space but you can see half of it's gray because it's still tarmac because there aren't enough dollars likely enough dollars to support um uh conversion of the asphalt to green space. Whereas on the extreme end on D you can see that the gray is gone. that space has been converted. And these are based on assumptions that still need to be uh validated through robust economic testing and that process is underway right now. And there there you can see the little clock is is showing that that uh implementation time frame which could or could not be an important component of this for the community. Still testing that. Um so our survey closed or I'm sorry this is not the survey. This is about the letter of interest. Uh we published a letter of interest. We sent it out into the world um asking folks uh to describe to us proposals for what their concepts were for activities at the airport site um that could generate revenue. And that closed on uh the 28th, which was Monday. We had originally attempted to close it on Sunday, but we uh some community members asked us for an extension so they could inform their local churches or groups that gather on

Sundays. And we received 69 responses from that. Um we have not gone through them yet. A lot of us have been traveling. Tony and I are here tonight because the rest of our team is in Portland receiving the uh living building challenge certificate for the city hall building next door. Um, so when they get back, we'll all sit together as a team and um and go through that list. Uh, Tony has already uh advertised the event on Saturday, May 17th. We invite uh as many of you who can possibly come to come. We're going to be running bus tours. So, that's a plug for anybody in the audience. Uh, if you want to get on the tarmac, roll around the runway, um, see how physically large the site is and appreciate uh, the edge conditions. Um, for the sake of of uh, urban design, we invite you to come out. We'll also be um, showcasing the results of that survey. will be uh unveiling the three test fit scenarios that are taking all of the information from the layers and putting them into three different scenarios uh for the as we move into phase 3B. And here's just a little bit of an abbreviated timeline as we march towards that council meeting in July. And I think I'll stop there. Tony, thank you very much for covering and we're happy to take your questions. Do you want to do questions before with the public? Are we going to do questions from most to staff at this point? What are we doing? Yeah. Can we take the public comment first and then just public? Let's do the public comment first. We have a lot of How many do we have? Two minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes.

Yeah. Two minutes a piece. Yeah. Yeah. The first person is uh Vivian Rosstein. Can you call three? Call the first three. So Vivian and um an Bowman and Jerry Rubin again. Hi. If Ann and Jerry can line up behind Vivian, that'd be great. Thank you. Good evening. I have uh two points I'd like to make. Um the same evening tonight, you're going to also be considering the park's master plan. And uh that report indicates that uh actually the area that is slated for this great park is an area with the least need for open space in the entire city. and the the the real need is in an in in an other much more densely populated area. So I think um it kind of uh all the push on a park um as if this area I live in Sunset Park. I've lived here there for 43 years. I use the Cloverfield Park a lot and I'm aware of the open space that's available and it's mostly single family homes in that area. Not entirely but mostly. And um it really is not an area of major need. Um I'd also like to say that um in looking at the need for park and the proposal for a park in this area, uh there is really disregard for the amount of open space that's available in our beachfront. Three and a half miles a beachfront two and 245 acres of sand with many recreational activities. It doesn't matter that it's run by the county and not by us. We all use it.

Most of us use it and it's enormous. So, um it feels to me that there's really um there's there's some kind of shutters on people's eyes that are that are going through this process. And I I really encourage you to take yours off and look at actually what the situation is uh with parks in this city. Um as opposed to the need for housing. We're in a county with a with a countywide extreme housing crisis. Um, but the um the second thing I'd like to mention is that the input process designed by the Suzaki company in my mind and in the mind of many of us has been impenetrable. Uh, every single Okay. Thanks. Good evening. My name is Anne Bowman. I'm one of your recreation and parks commissioners. I've never addressed the commission before. Delighted to be here. Going to speak really fast. I'm only speaking as an individual, but I want to throw some facts at you. First of all, just a reminder that the measure LC city charter amendment amendment was voted on by almost 16,000 people in our city, passed by over 60% of the voters. Some people probably like everyone in this room knew that a ballot measure right could overrule it at some point. But most people voting I think thought they were voting for a park and they're excited about it and that's what we're hearing on the ground level as wreck and parks commissioners. Um a couple of other facts. Yes, we do have a beach. Um it offers different things than our parks do. It's not green. It's not regenerative. It's also maybe going to go away in 50 to 100 years. Sustainability right now is doing dune and habitat restoration to address sea level rise. that ironically is impacting the recreation spaces that the community and all of our tourists and visitors use. So keep that in mind. Um we also are an extremely park poor city. We only

have 1.4 acres of parks per thousand residents. That's only 2 acres more than the city of Compton, which is terrible for Compton and it's sad for Santa Monica. As good planners, planning is about building, right? and all the traffic safety and those types of of considerations that we all do, but it's also about balancing that density with open space. It's a yin and a yang. If you read the 1997 open space element, which I reread recently, you'll be a little bit sad because, you know, as you know, we're rfping for Bergammont, we're rfping for 45th in Arizona. Um, we've developed the civic center with buildings and we've lost a lot of kind of the vision for open space that the city set forth in that plan. So, it did kind of make me sad. Um, we are a city. So, I was just in New York City. The only thing that makes New York City livable is Central Park. Um, the land that we have to envision is less than a fourth the size of Central Park. We need to build our park. Thank you so much. But Jerry Jerry before you start um Frank Rubert, Denny Zayn and Rabbi Neil Komas Daniels are next on the list. Okay. And so who's after Neil? Uh Joe Pertell. It's your stack right here. Uh Joey Rubin. Uh I'm a member of the urban forest task force, but I'm speaking just for myself. We need a vision. A vision that mother nature would be proud of. One of the highest goals here was nature. And we should be proud that our community is in the surveys have said that it means we as Santa Monicans

respect mother nature and want this parkland. There are still people that will try to do anything to divide people to figure out ways to keep the airport open. That shouldn't happen. And we need to respect the ballot initiative and what the people voted for. As Ann had said, yeah, we have a lot of beach space, but you can't plant trees in the sand. Sure, we could have beach volleyball. We started it here. Can't play soccer in the sand. Kids are going to need a lot more soccer fields like the one we just dedicated so honorably right over there across from Samo High. We're going to need lots of them. Don't forget culture and art is part of our sustainable city plan and we're going to have that and it's going to be allowed. I'm a big housing supporter. We need it. We need to convince the nimbies that don't want it in their neighborhoods that we can get it there, even if we have to go a little bit higher. And we need to unite the housing activists and the environmental activists to make sure that we're not going to lose everything we gained because people are going to want to divide us. We need housing. the business park, the perimeters on the transit corridors, everywhere in our city, downtown and you name it. But not there. And there is a wonderful, wonderful program and a plan put out by the sustainable committee of the great park that talks about the financial viability of this. It's not going to be needed to be all in place right at 2028 when it's ended, but it'll gradually grow and mother nature will be happy.

Hi, good evening, Frank Gruber. Um, uh, I wasn't going to come tonight, uh, but I I I'm here because of the attacks on the airport conversion process that I read about in the in the public comments for tonight's meeting. No process is perfect, but based on the public involvement so far, this process has been one of the most successful I've seen in the 35 years I've been paying attention to planning in Santa Monica. Unfortunately, people who don't like the results of a process typically attack the process itself. This goes back to the first process I was involved in for the original civic center plan in the early 90s, and I've seen it many times since. In the case of the current process, there is no basis for attacks from my friends in the proousousing side. There has always been opportunity to show support for housing. What the housing supporters don't like is that the planners in public works have been clear to show that housing would require a vote to amend measure LC. The public knows that a vote would stop the process in its tracks and nothing would be planned by the time the airport closes. But even more important, housing is being considered in the process. There were always going to be considered three schematic planning templates and city council made it clear that one would would include housing. We park supporters have never had any problem with housing being studied in the planning process. Let's continue the process for planning the most important Santa Monica land use decision in generations. Let's create a great park and a great legacy for future generations. Thank you. I have a question. Frank, I'm confused. You said you say that you don't have a problem with housing on the property. Am I hearing you correctly? I didn't say that. I I I want to plan for a park. We have no problem with it being studied, but what's the point of studying it if you don't believe it should happen? Well, you study to see if it's it it could help with the financing of the park. You never know. But that would take the LC reversal, right? Well, but we we don't want anything to happen before closure basically. Uh that that what we don't like about what's going on right now is that without saying to

people that it would stop this process with a ballot measure, that's what's being in effect proposed. So, you think the airport people would would band together and if we put it on the ballot before 28 that that would all go kabooy? Absolutely. I mean, they've already gone to the the airport commission with plans for investing millions of dollars in Atlantic Aviation. Uh they've talked about vertical takeoff and landing things. They are we believe we I'm not speaking for airport to park tonight, but I will in that sense I can't speak for them. Uh we are very anxious uh nervous uh that the aviation industry will come back with another ballot measure and um if they will if they can show as they as they were did in 2014 if if their ar their argument will be they'll build another p of vista there. They won't necessarily say what would would be a plan. They'll they'll say you know something uh huge and they'll they'll say we need the airport for fires. They'll say you'll be able to get on a VT V to take you to Las Vegas. They'll say anything. And if if we present a bait and switch to the public who voted for a park and say we're going to stop this process and start planning housing, um I think they'll win. They they got 40% last time. Uh 40% of Santa Monica's voted for an airport. They don't have to get much more than that to to win another uh B. I don't agree with you, but I you know we I can we can talk privately or I can invite. I mean I'm just I'm just giving you what By the way, I'm I'm an old white Sunset Park homeowner and I want to see housing at the airport. Well, that's fine. I I mean I understand that I'm I'm not again I as you know I for a long time I've been for 30 years I've been probably the most pro-ousing person involved in Santa Monica politics. uh and uh and uh but in this case this land is what we need for a great park. Now there's uh as you will

see on as we know there are buildings on it there not all those 192 acres can be a park. Uh everything should be explored. There's there we're going to be using money from it to build the park to maintain it. Uh but this process has to continue the way it's going to conclusion to get an environmental review for a project for a park project. They can they alternatives in the IR they can look at them but let's get a park plan okay going. I next person please. Excuse me. Next person. Okay. Is it Mr. Zay or Denny? Yes. Is it Denny or Denny? Okay. Yeah. Community members, I'm Denny Zayn, planning commissioners. It's good to see you all. Um, I'm a former council member, former mayor here, been around working in this community a long time. Um, this is an extraordinary opportunity. It is an extraordinary opportunity for two really important objectives. One of which is a great park, another of which is good opportunity for significant affordable housing. Now, um I think when people voted on the ballot measure um to close the airport, they were voting to close the airport. Um and it was really not front of mind about um uh about it being a exclusively used as a park. But be that as it may, nobody I know has any interest in a ballot measure um before 2028 at all, except perhaps airport advocates. And I agree with Frank that we should be unified to make sure it's never uh going to continue to be an airport. U but that means we should figure out a both end a collaboration between us about how a great park can happen and how we can meet what we think is frankly a community and moral obligation to help address the housing needs um of our of our community and our region. That's what we're looking for here is some acknowledgment that we have

an obligation as a community to use this land to its most effective public purpose. Park is certainly one of those most effective public purposes, but affordable housing is another and I'm speaking here um on behalf of Santa Monans for renters's rights. I do want to say that the survey that we took um did not in our view adequately assess uh public community feeling about housing at the park because it really framed it all as a revenue uh generator, not at all as meeting the objectives of affordable housing in the community as a social objective. And I think that really is what motivates the housing advocates here is to try to meet social responsibilities, not revenue generation objectives. there are other ways to meet revenue generation objectives and I look forward to having that discussion in the future. Um but for now please it's not a both and it's it's not a either or it's a both and thank you Denny um I actually have a question about the study process because I read the SMUR letter and I'm curious um whether Smur and others are engaging beyond the boundaries of the park. Obviously, there are substantial uh there there is the the the business park just north where there are questions about the future of that site and whether or not that might not include housing. uh essentially I'm curious whether there's been I mean I've asked this question you know in this process before but I'm wondering whether there is a broader community conversation because to the extent that um there is a need to think through uh to think through the the development of housing in that neighborhood largely uh it strikes me that there is a there's an advantage to thinking about it holistically um from all the way from Santa Monica college all the way north to Ocean Park and from Sentinela all the

way uh all the way west to essentially 25th Street. So in fact I think the affordable housing question housing question generally speaking is an 8 square mile question for us and it evolves into our community. Um certainly it's the case that the that the business park um on the south side north side of the airport is an opportunity for housing. it's also in private ownership and they're going to dictate the outcome far more than we are. Um though I think we should try to work with them to try to ensure a significant part of our affordable housing obligation is met there. But I don't think that relieves us of the obligation to look at the public land as well to help meet that. And again, not 100%. Um, we're looking I think I think if we had a I know many of the people who work on the great park um advocacy effort and I know many of them are affordable housing advocates as well and I know that they're sympathetic with some of these objectives and I know that our SMUR advocates and SMUR members are also very sympathetic with the objective of a great park and if we really want to make it happen we should I think collaborate unite and make sure the airport operators don't put something on the ballot the keeps keeps the airport open. We can do that. And then just as far on the revenue generation side, are you I'm struck that you said, you know, we shouldn't do anything that would that would create a ballot measure before 2028. Um revenue generation for the park is is itself a challenge as we all know. Um but revenue generation for affordable housing itself is now under profound existential threat from Washington. So, you know, is there thought is there are there discussions about how that housing would be financed no matter where it is located? Well, you may know that my professional life is I do is involved very heavily in the questions of how we generate resources for affordable

housing, transit, and other public objectives. So, yeah, it's always on my mind. I do think that ballot measures will be one of our most important tools there because uh to local government's tools are limited state government's tools are limited limited by Prop 13 if as well as other uh legislation. So, um, if we want to have significant resources, not give the land away to commercial purposes to address those park needs or housing needs for that matter, um, we should be thinking about ballot measures, but after 2028. Got it. Thank you. I just have one quick question. I I want some clarification. Do you say we should not actually determine a scenario with housing and EIR, etc. before 2028? I'm not, you know, I'm not saying that. I'm not I'm sure I know my opinion about this. you shouldn't be doing a ballot measure before 2028. Okay. Um at so I don't really know where that worry comes from. I do think there's a worry about the airport folks trying to do another ballot measure but I think that happens anyway and we need to unite to defeat it Joe. And then but who are the next three? Yeah. Do you want Right. But let's line up Susan Jolene, Kathy Jen, uh, Gentiel, and Jonah and Jonah Brazlow. Yep. There you go. All set. Uh, hi folks. Um, good evening. My name is Joe Patell. Um, I'm a member of the airport commission for the last several years. I'm one of the founders of the Great Park Coalition. I'm a public interest attorney spending most of my life working in the inner city and I'm also a long-term resident of Sunset Park. I had some short prepared remarks, but since I'm on the airport commission, I did want to share some information which I'd be more than happy to to send you folks uh which is in regard to the the threat of a potential ballot measure

from aviation. Um, and I've shared this with Mr. Zayn and um and Mr. Solaf just last week. we had coffee together and we we we discussed this. Um and and the threat of aviation is is is real. For example, there are two electric vertical takeoff companies, Joby and Archer Aviation. They're the ones that want to do sort of the the drone like helicopters. They're very serious about moving into Santa Monica in the next year or two. They have a vision of having at least eight of those operating here by the time the Olympics. If you look at their hub, Santa Monica is right in the center of it. If you look at their public statements, they are very serious about coming in. They've come in front of the airport commission and told us specifically they have ambitious goals to be in the airport. Why do I believe them? Because Atlantic Aviation, which is the fixed carrier operator at the airport, they provide the ramp services. They submitted to the airport commission on January 25th this year a proposal to electrify the ramp to provide electricity to these EV tolls. It includes schematic drawings. This is a multi-million dollar process. And if you think about it from a business perspective, why on earth would they be investing millions of dollars to electrify the ramp if they're planning to be out of business in two years? They're very serious about coming in here. There's another data point that I I think you should consider and it's another group of people. It I could if you like What is the other group of people? The Okay, you'll have to wait until next time. No, no, the other folks um that is Sling Aviation, S L I N G. It is a fixedwing electric airplane um flight school which announced just like a week ago that they're going to start up their operations. If you look at their public statements, it was in the Santa Monica Daily Press, I think it was at the end of March, I mean end of April, like a week and a half ago. Again, they've

invested millions of dollars. They chose four locations in the state of California to do their investment. One of them and the only one in LA County was at Santa Monica airport. If you look at what they're saying publicly, they're saying they're incredibly disappointed with the public officials who are not present at their grand opening, but they don't really care because they have a lot of money that they're planning to invest. So, if you want to wonder, it's not my paranoia, my fear. If you just look at what they're saying and more importantly what they're doing, investing millions of dollars. I share with with Mr. Gruber and other folks that these people are quite serious and they're going to try to divide us. They're going to try to get Mr. Zayn and myself, people who are supportive of housing and people who are supportive of the environment to fight each other so they can walk in because there are a lot of people in the city who don't want any housing. That's not what most of our coalition wants, but that's what they're going to try to play upon. Um, and if you'd like, I can send you those materials. I I have them scanned. If you'd like, I can send them to the planning commission. Thank you. Good evening. Uh, my name is Dr. Susan Jane and I'm the vice chair of the arts commission and a geo lead for the UC Master Gardener program and I'm a Sunset Park 20-y year plus resident. Clover Park is my park and I'm on the um advisory board of the Santa Monica Great Park Coalition. When I heard that the Santa Monica Airport Conversion team would be presenting tonight, I wanted to stop by and say thank you. Um, thank you Amber Tony Peter Company for your outreach and for showing up and most importantly for listening. Back in 24, we made our voices heard. We voted overwhelmingly to close the airport and return this land to the community. What we asked for was very simple, a park. Over the past year, the Smack team seems to be everywhere. I've run into them at the farmers market, city councils, libraries, public events. That December event was amazing. And recently they presented to the sustainability and the

arts commission. Um through all that outreach, presentations, conversations, and surveys, we've become familiar with what measure C allows, the five guiding principles, and the overall timeline for that project. And I want to highlight something especially important. The planning process so far has been both transparent and accessible. These things we deeply appreciate. Thank you. Um it has built trust and invited real participation from the community. With that foundation in p in place last week um the an arts working group of the great park coalition submitted a letter of interest to the city. In it we shared a vision for how arts and culture can help shape the future park. A vision rooted in nature. Rooted in nature. a vision where arts and culture act as the connective tissue linking the unique parts of the living park into a breathing cultural ecosystem. Thank you all for all that you've done so far. And I must say in others have mentioned the um if the ballot measure comes up and the airport comes back, I've had several of my neighbors said, "I'm voting for the airport." If housing comes forward, I'm sorry. If if housing comes forward, they'll say, "I'm it's a bait and switch. They're already ready for it, and I'm going to vote to keep the airport." Thank you. Good evening. My name is Kathy Gentilli. I am a almost 40-year resident of Sunset Park. I have a young adult daughter who's gainfully employed and cannot afford to live in the neighborhood where she was raised, which is Sunset Park. We've lived in the same place uh since before she was born because housing is not affordable for single people who make under $100,000 a year. I am hoping, but I don't think

this is going to happen that the airport land will be turned into housing. Uh, an LC does not prohibit housing, but years ago there was something called RENA, and I'm sorry I don't remember what it stands for, but some of you do know what it stands for. Said that the city needed to build over 8,000 units of housing. Did, as a member of the League of Women Voters, we supported that. I don't think that's happened. There have not been 8,000 units of housing built since whenever this was written. So, what is the city planning on doing about that? Are they going to continue to build affordable housing, whatever you want to call it, lowincome housing? Is this another word for we don't want people of color to be able to afford to live in Santa Monica? Okay. Well, pardon my French, but screw that. My daughter is not a person of color, but she is a person and she deserves a place to live. Just as the people her age and under, she's almost 40 and under, can't afford to live in Santa Monica. They're going out beyond West Los Angeles, beyond Palms. They're going way out and driving in to the city. Thank you. for Jonah. Let's get the Can we get three more up behind Jonah? Yeah. Lynn, let's get uh Hold on a minute. Let's get Lupe. Uh Lupe Stevenson. Uh Lillian Espinosa or Mendoza. Mendoza. Liliana Mendoza. And uh Marvin Espinosa. Maria.

Maria. Maria Espinosa. Maria. Yeah. Are they is are they all here? Okay, thanks. Great. They may be gone. Yeah. No, they're here. Good evening. My name is Jonah Brezlau. I'm here on behalf of you here local 11. Uh I'm a former Santa Monica resident uh and a former worker here in Santa Monica. Uh and you know, I was unable to continue living in Santa Monica. It was too expensive. This was 10 years ago. Um, so we're here to express concerns regarding what we believe is a flawed and inadequate procedure for soliciting the public's input regarding the potential uses of the Santa Monica airport once it's decommissioned at the end of 2028. The city's plans for this land are of the utmost important to our members, thousands of whom work or live in Santa Monica. Unfortunately, the process has failed to provide an effective means of participation for renters, for low-income people, people of color, and people whose primary language is not English like many of our union members. Uh, and these issues have structurally impeded the ability of the public to express support for housing as a potential use of a portion of the airport land even though access to affordable housing is clearly of significant interest to many in the Santa Monica community and including our members. So to name a few issues in particular, it was very hard for our members and for any of us really to figure out how to do the survey in Spanish uh which required clicking like this small globe in the corner and none of the images were translated. And even if you went to the Smack Project website and went to the Spanish version, if you clicked on the link, which was labeled wrong, it took you to the English survey. uh it was really hard to do it on a cell phone uh which was difficult for our members who didn't have home computers and and then you know these questions about street connectivity and water features which uh just didn't really resonate. I found them confusing. I have no idea what the street

connectivity should be. It just felt like you know a a pmpkin village of participation um the the the theater of presentation of participation without giving people meaningful options. And so we we developed our own survey uh of questions about housing. We have 142 of our members who responded about uh how they whether or not they want housing as well as their experiences with housing insecurity that I wanted to to bring to the commission. Thank you. Thank you. If I can bring this up and you can pass them around and take a look at some of our members what they say. How many are next person? Lupe. Lupe. Lupe. Yeah, that's me. Hi, my name is Lupe Stevenson. I've been living in Santa Monica for 38 years. Working in Santa Monica for 35. Working at the Fermon Miramar for 25 years. I live in one of those apartments low income. And I had two kids. They can't even leave my house because they can afford it. And now when this project that you guys say that you don't going to make an uh housing low income is those kids are going to go uh homeless and what you going to do you park maybe the homeless they're going to park over there in your park. Please uh supporting us supporting even if I'm brown I still working in Santa Monica and working for you guys. Thank you. Um um Roberto, there was an a mistake with the name. They put Liliana instead of my name. Sorry. Uh Roberto. Yeah. Instead of Yeah, they they put Lilana Hernandez instead of my name, but I was the one that signed up for I went to grab pizza for the workers. They came here after work, so they need to eat the

whole time. No, no, I know. I'll just make a motion to hear. Uh what's your name? Roberto Masaros. Roberto uh in lie of Miss Mendoza. Is that all right? Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. I asked her name. Um good evening. Uh my name is Roberto Masaros. I'm an organizer here in Santa Monica. I also attend the school here to Santa Monica, but don't leave here because I can't afford it. the survey. I just want to start first of all um look there's a famous quote by Kobe Bryant says like you know how you going to be remembered is very important so don't take it lightly um and I think this city once again once again cuz I've been working in this city for a long time um has opportunity to lead the way to be an example of what things can be in different cities and we've done it with minimum wages and all these things and you have another one in front of you uh but I want to let you know that the survey right was by default only in English. The Spanish language translation was extremely difficult to find on the website as my colleague here said uh it was we found it later uh but it took a long time to for us to figure that out. We couldn't really do it on the cell phone so you had to get a laptop. So we do have members that live in Santa Monica that you know the time and being able to afford a laptop is doesn't really go along with that. Um, you know, we decided to take medicine into our own hands and did in just one day we did 140 surveys from workers that work and live here in Santa Monica as well that don't live here in Santa Monica. Um, you know, I'm here to say we could do both, right? But who am I to say that? Um, I want to say I I did visit in New York not long ago. Uh, I did go to Central Park. Central Park is in one part beautiful, but in another part is what I think is going to happen at that place if we do a huge park, which is a lot of homeless people are going to get there, right? cuz we don't have the houses, but we're building the space. And I know Central Park got this, you know, policing and everything that they don't allowed in camping, but they still do it. I was there not long ago. Believe me, it's a

good park, but it turns night and day. Um, we do have the Santa Monica Mountains. I we do have a lot of parks out here. I know we don't have the park that we're trying to vision with the, you know, the landing and bringing birds and all of that. Um, but we have mountains. You know, we got to look at the real problem here, and that's housing. That's about it. Oh, let's get the last three more names. Matthew Matthew, is it Horn? Haven Horn. Matthew Horn. Yeah. And then Lillian Vilifana. Lorena. Lorena Vana. And that's it. Okay. Santa Monica Santa Monica. Um, so this is Maria Espinosa. I'm here to express my concerns about the outreach process for the Santa Monica airport conversion pro project. I work at the Sanborn Hotel as a and in the uh laundry area. Um, you know, this in-person meeting on on Saturday the 17th might be a better way than the complicated online survey to hear from some workingclass people.

Uh, but I'm concerned that some hospitality workers like me will not be available on Saturday because Saturdays are some of our busiest days. I will likely have to work that day. I cannot miss work that day to give my input on this and I worry you will hear hear from more homeowners, retirees and professionals than people like me who who work on the weekends. During the fourth and fifth in Arizona development process, the city held some meetings at night and in Spanish to talk with hotel workers about that project. these those meetings at night were important measures to ensure that all kinds of voices could be heard in the outreach process. These planning commission meetings are at night, but they are long and it is hard for us to wait here and not know when we might speak after a long day at work. Please consider dedicated meetings for Santa Monica's hospitality workers to explain our views on the future of the airport. Thank you. Good idea. Thank you.

Uh good evening honorable members of the planning commission. My name is Matthew H and I'm an organizer with clue clergy and ley united for economic justice. Um since um our founding in 1996, we have shown up with the workers and the communities and the renters of this beloved city to fight for economic racial immigrant justice. and we're so proud uh proud to be here in solidarity with the uh Cloverfield Commons Coalition and everyone from our community who is advocating for housing as well as a park in uh the Santa Monica airport site. Um so we've already heard from um these hospitality workers and other community leaders why we've had so many reasons to be concerned about the phase 3A outreach process. But I wanted to highlight um one specific reason um why we feel this way that is also worth consideration which is that there wasn't any way for workers who make Santa Monica function but who can't afford to live here in the city to identify that fact to identify the fact that even though they don't live here they do work here. Um they weren't able to express that particular reason why they support housing as well as a park on the airport site. And this was really a critical error that meant that the survey couldn't easily highlight the views of such an essential constituency for the city. The working poor are so essential for Santa Monica's success. So why shouldn't they have a voice in this process? And I'm not just speaking about um the amazing hotel workers of Santa Monica, but what about the nurses, the teachers, and city staff and so on? Uh the housing crisis uh affects so many of us. Uh we need a process that engages our entire beloved community. And with the time I have, I just want to mention that on April 15th, so many of us came together, faith leaders, um, community organiz organizations and so on to advocate, speak out for housing, commemorating Holy Week and Passover from our diverse faith traditions and the needs of the youth and so many of us to have this housing. Thank you so much

and um, have a blessed evening. Thank you. It's cool. Hello everybody. Um, Santa Monica. Hi, my name is Lorena and I'm here to express my frustration with the outreach process for the Santa Monica airport conversion project. Santa Monica. Um, so I've worked uh as a public areas attendant in a hotel here in Santa Monica for three years, but my husband has worked here in Santa Monica for 30 years. So th this survey was extremely long and complex which discouraged participation from working people like me. After gathering demographic information, early questions focused on technical issues such as the shape of water features and exactly how many street connections there should be to neighboring areas. So, I we all know that uh the biggest debates are about housing and green

space, and I support housing in a park at the airport, but I'm worried other people may not have made it through the survey to let the city know they feel the same way. Perfect. [Music] [Music] All right. So, um, you know, please look at our survey results, which we're figuring out. Maybe we'll get you guys some summaries or uh but uh and see how working people in Santa Monica really feel. And also Lorena uh uh she said more than Yeah. I've lived here more more than being a worker. I'm also a Santa Monica resident for more than 19 years. Thank you. Thank you. Uh perhaps we can take a 10-minute break. Is that all the public comment? What is that? All the public comment. Is that Yeah, that's all the public comment. Yeah. Amen.

There you go. Here we go. Let's go. Here. How did you get that? I'm liable to break this. Sam only has a handful more meetings and he wants to use the gavvel. I can say I used a gavvel. That's right. All right. What's going on here? We don't have any more public input. No worries. So, into discussion questions and discussion. Yeah. Any more questions of the staff? Well, let's see. Ethan, are we back up? Missing a lot of commissioners. They'll get here. Um, but chair, I have two questions. A button. Are we just gonna go? I just No, I just have to say chair. Hello, Sam. I have a migraine headache and I need to go home. Oh, no. So, I just You have Are you No qu No thoughts, questions, comments. You have to go. I'll be I Yeah, I I'm You want to go first? No, I'm good. I just I'm sorry. I forgot my pills. I just I'll take my pillow. I have some pills. Do we have to Josh? Are you coming back? Josh, are you coming back? Thank you. It's never been a secret. I haven't found a meeting. I haven't done a meeting. I have a question. I have many questions. Do you have questions for the staff? Should we just go down the line

one direction or another? Yeah. Any questions? Jim. Jim. I mean, I don't really have questions. Mine will be very quick. Commissioner Ree. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation and for the the listening to all the public comments. We appreciate that. I appreciate it just because I'm, you know, learning more and more about where the where the vision is and and how it's it's going how it's going forward, but I still get caught up on the economic sides of this and I want to hear a little bit more about how you're what you're looking at in terms of funding for at least just for the park. um because I just don't it's this is a huge opportunity to have a beautiful park, but I just don't see a city in our in our position right now being able to finance something like this. So, anything more you can enlighten me on what what you're thinking about for economics and what studies are still to come, I would appreciate. I would be delighted to. Um so, we are looking at a variety of different funding mechanisms, tools, sources uh to fund the park. uh some of the uses and experiences that people have asked for. Um we're calling it a capital stack. So if you can imagine a sort of a vertical uh column different sedimentary layers where we have public philanthropy, we have value capture, we have revenue generation, we have ticketed leasable events and spaces um grants uh you know any anything and special financing districts uh tax increment financing me districts uh things of that nature. um that is all happening in the background. Um as we're sort of assessing the landscape of financing tools, when we have a clearer

view of what the program is um for the three scenarios, then we can begin to assign the strategies for financing certain components and begin to develop implementation time frames. And that becomes particularly acute when we go from three scenarios down to the preferred scenario. Uh which of course would be the sort of the final hybridized version uh that has enjoyed community input. Uh another round with with you all as well as other boards and commissions and the city council. And at that point, we'll do a very uh detailed and scrutinous financial analysis and begin to really li uh draw straight lines from components of the park uh to their financing mechanisms. Um try to develop some type of implementation time frame. Uh but it's really going to be based on what the program is. Um, and it may end up being less of an implementation like phasing approach that we see in other plans and more of sort of like a um uh like a constitution that we use to take advantage of opportunities that that may arise um throughout the 20 to 50 75 year time cycle of the parks construction slash neighborhood development. Okay. Um, I'm going to pass on the rest of my comments right now, but I might reserve the right to come back with another Oh, here this is the other thing is I think I remember the last time we talked about this is is you're doing this envir you have to put together you have to do an environmental just to close the close the we do not to close it not not to for what it will become I think be when we when we close the airport, it becomes something else. And so, yes, we have to we have to do environmental kind of for both. Yeah. I was under the impression from one of

your last presentations we heard here is that there was a certain amount of environmental you had to do just for the closure itself and then the concept was since I'm in that process, you said otherwise just after. Yes. So initially I think when we came the last time this um what had gone well what we had discovered in some questions that came up and I believe it was the airport commission or one of the other commissions asked do we need a EIR to close the airport but because the decision to close the airport already happened with the consent decree we don't have to do an EIR for that it's we have to do an EI for what will happen after the closure but not to close it. Okay. Well, that that last part makes sense, but I thought I had heard you had to do something before. Yeah. I I think I was confused about the the question. Yeah. The um the the council made that decision in 2017 to close the airport. We've now confirmed with the city attorney's office that that was the decision. The SQA we will use to convert the use. Um which is also a part of that is also ceasing operations at the at the airport. So, in order for SQA to happen, we have to have the program and we have to understand the parameters. Um, and we've given ourselves uh two-year time frame post conclusion of this framework planning process to do the SQL work and we will be studying alternatives if that was another follow-up question. Of course, we'll be studying a variety of alternatives. Okay. And you guys haven't last we talked I think you hadn't gotten very far into the kind of the testing of of the you know the environment out there because it was still an operational we have done some limited I think phase one they're referred to um sampling um uh the city attorney's office has been working with us on that aspect of uh assessing the contamination

um and the results I think are in I don't think we have finalized the results yet. Yeah. But I I think we we all presume there's going to be something that we're going to have to contend with in the years um following closure. Okay. Thank you. My my questions also center around um how we're going to pay for the the park on an ongoing basis. I think I've said before, I think that the there's going to be funding available, I think, to build the park. I think that's something a little easier to understand. What I'm what I'm what I'm focused on is how do we keep this park from uh impacting the city's revenues? And I I I have a question. And I know we're approaching uh I think the next phase is to present kind of three design sharets or options and from that we're going to take an like an amalgam of those and create a final option. Um are we going to have in in order to I think review uh each of those different designs I think it would be really helpful to have a price tag associated with each. Yeah. uh not only to build the park and create it but also to sustain it. And I think that will are we going to have that option available? Um are we doing the studies now to know what the ongoing costs are going to be for each of these different options? Yes. Yes, we are. So um we have a very we have a sizable subconsultant team um on this project. being the prime and then we have HRNA which has worked with the planning commission and with the city of Santa Monica for a long time. um they are the uh consultant team that is uh

identifying the rough order magnitude costs at this point for the three scenarios the conceptual scenarios they're looking at the capital costs they're looking at the ongoing operations and maintenance um and that includes also like not just you know um uh adaptive reuse uh leasable spaces some of the development you saw on the housing slides ides um ticketed events um and and also assessing sort of the the philanthropic well within Los Angeles for this type of uh project. Um so they they are are bringing all that together. The council is very clear that they don't want us to come back with options that are in feasible and sort of sell a dream to the community that is not achievable. Right. Um and so it is uh I think we will come right down to the wire on the 17th of having you know finished some rough order magnitude analysis of that. Um because the layer survey closed on the 20 closed on the past Monday Monday which was the 5th. Oh wait sorry was it last Monday? Last Monday. Last Monday. And we only have about a month of time before we publish the scenarios. and the scenarios are informed by the layers information. So, everybody's kind of spinning plates right now um working it out. But with HRNA's experience in pricing, capital operating and maintenance of parks as they as Sasaki works concurrently and taking the information from the survey saying, "Hey, we're kind of steering based on those results that we're probably going to have x amount of this." HRNA is able to say okay we'll tap away at like this amount of that is approximately this capital cost this operations and maintenance. So as Peter said these things are kind of happening in lock step as decisions are

made HRA is working concurrently. So again it gets down to the wire but at a certain point there is the the scenario and the correlating amounts. So, so three scenarios, three rough kind of budgets for ongoing maintenance for each. And then we've we're also talking about revenue generation. Um, and how to cover those ongoing costs. Uh, will we also have when we when we look at these three different designs and each are going to have their own source of revenue generation, I would assume. Are they going to have um you know an estimate of how much each type of land use could actually generate uh to are they gonna have a budget for okay revenue as well not just cost but actual revenues. Yeah. I think that factors into the financial. Okay. Yeah. And we've also had great conversations as an example with California State Parks who manages uh the historic park uh in Chinatown uh who does does large scale events and we've connected them with HRNA to help them understand what their revenue generating potential is on some of their quarterly events that they held to help support the ongoing maintenance that stems from not only refurbishing the land that was used for the event, but maintaining those those lands so that they are creating a hospital environment to host more events. Yeah. Yeah. And the last piece I'll add is that there then there's we're also talking with our municipal partners about the ways in which their operations might shift. Okay. Based on the you know the large uh upscaling of the city's park network. Um and uh you know and also like public safety uh given that surveillance is a big concern that we've heard throughout the community. How do we keep that place secure? Yeah. Um so there's a lot of not just cost but like

sort of investment in human capital as well that we're considering. Are we are we to assume that the city of Santa Monica is wholly responsible for the ongoing maintenance and support of this park or are you seeing other sources out there maybe at the county level or even with the city of Los Angeles that could provide help? It's possible. Yeah, I think at at this scale this is definitely a regional endeavor. Um, I should mention that, you know, to the governance question, um, uh, the city managing it is one option, but we're also looking at, uh, perhaps like a nonprofit, uh, like friends of Okay. organization that could, um, shoulder the the burden a little bit. Um, and that's also, uh, a task that's under HRNA's Yeah. scope. Yeah. I I I'll just say real quickly, I do support the idea of housing being an element in the design of this park. Um but I do think that um in order for us to put together a good case for that housing, it needs to be shown as a not only a social good in terms of creating affordable housing, but as a way to support the park itself. And so housing needs to be seen um in that context. It's not housing just for the sake of housing um but housing uh at all income levels as a way to support the bigger plan of building this park. I think if this housing is seen as being insupportive of a well-maintained park that the community really wants as an amenity, um that's how I would position this housing argue this housing um discussion. Um, but I'm I'm in support of of of that being a a really uh well integrated use in this park. So, thank you, Peter. I have a question for you.

Yes, sir. This tonight was the first time I've heard that the aviation industry is planning a big either a ballot measure or something to defeat the whole thing. Have you heard more about this? And what is the city what can the city do to prevent those? Well, I think there's always been and and Tony chime in too. I think there's there has always been an assumption that uh if we were to present uh option, you know, if the process provided an opening for the aviation community to insert their agenda, they would try. And so I think the concern has been broadcast over the course of several years that we need to be extremely careful to not give the aviation industry the opportunity to support another ballot measure. Um and that's where that 2028 timeline comes into play. And and we we are carefully considering it. We're working with all levels of local government to understand and assess the threat level and also to navigate our path through it. Right. Um, I'll say that as a, you know, somebody that worked in the planning department for a long time on a lot of the long range projects over the past 15 years, you know, it takes a long time to adjudicate some of these choices and and and um uh because of the 2028 time frame, uh, we're kind of on a fast train uh to come to some decisions. So, I think we are at a point where we need to be really cautious about h how we proceed and and we're and we're doing our very best to like understand uh what the risks are um and moving forward and and being very careful with the the housing discussion uh because it is a new input into the process. Commissioner Cho. Oh, I thought we're

going down the line. Oh, okay. Um so, uh thank you again. Um, so just going down on the the question of of legal obligations, at what point does the airport property attract the attention of HCD with respect to our arena obligations? Not yet. Did you hear that? The answer is not yet. But is are we are we tracking? We are and in fact we are in communication with HCD trying to understand the surplus land act better and so that is a conversation we're having with in coordination with our city attorney's office um because part of the strategy is really trying to address all of all community preferences in a very sort of democratic way um and design a strategy uh to satisfy the community to the largest extent possible. And that involves really understanding um the ways in which the SLA works um the ways in which you can enact certain district or zoning measures uh to conserve portions of land, right? Um and then what the process is for that disposition um if you you know it if that's the circumstance that you find yourself in at some point. So um I think they're aware of us. We're certainly aware of them. uh we have a legal team on the third floor uh that continues to monitor and assess and advise and and I would also you know sort of note on that that there is a state of California and a state of California government and set of priorities that extends beyond HCD. In other words, without, you know, there is a housing crisis, there is also an open

space issue, there are also other concerns. And so I I do, you know, it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the city is making use of all its relationships with the state uh to priorit as you say, to prioritize conservation and parkland creation, which is also a priority of the state of California. Um, so if that's I hope that's correct. Okay. Yeah, that is that is correct. And um you know, we're we're looking at we went to speak with somebody from the uh Bologona watershed which receives I think something like $48 million a year that they have to distribute across their their watershed. Um but a portion of it is in Santa Monica and they're they're kind of like the biggest bang for your buck type of organization. And so um Oh, that's interesting. that is another avenue for us to pursue and considering ways in which we can conserve land um fund fund a capital improvement on it um etc. Okay. And then I'm going to renew my question of every time we hear this is how are we thinking uh beyond the airport parcels themselves in terms of what may or may not be happening in what's currently zoned as the business district currently owned by a single owner. Um, what you know, as I asked Danny Zayn, right, like thinking about this as Sentinel to 25th Street, um, or even further west, right, to to torn um, and Airport Avenue to Ocean Park and recognizing that, for example, any conversation about housing, um, as important as it is, is a conversation that has a context because there are other parties potentially interested in developing housing um and incurring

affordable housing production obligations along the way. And currently, I mean, currently, and I genuinely hope it stays that way, the city still has some um discretionary authority for parcels bigger than an acre. So, you know, how are we making use of those tools um to to get the park in its most livable, usable, workable, transitable context. I'll start by saying that I agree with you on taking the long view and and stretching out the boundaries to Ocean Park Boulevard and Ocean Sentinel to 25th. I mean, if you recall, the general plan talks about exactly that, like a coordinated neighborhood, right specific plan, neighborhood uh project. Um where we began to evaluate the connections through both properties, um reimagine Ocean Park Boulevard. Um um that's not the way we're doing this. Um, and I don't blame the business park for wanting to decouple from this highly sensitive political city process that may or may not require a ballot measure. Um, that being said, uh, we are, um, we've begun to meet with BXP. Um, everyone's kind of pretty playing their cards pretty close to their chest right now. Um, but at least begin to anticipate each other's moves. Our our process is completely transparent. So they will see where our desire lines are written for the roadway network. They will see where we want to accentuate gateways. Um they will see where we have um you know concentrated certain uses or experiences. Um and all of that is is not really designed for for them but it's really um to to broadcast what our intentions are in terms of sort of conceptual planning. Uh we've also met

with the city of LA several times because that there's that portion of the land 17 acres that's on LA's side of the fence. Um and we met with uh West LA West LA Council District uh they're No, I can't remember what they're called. CD11. Oh yeah, sorry. Yeah, CD CD11. Right. And I think eventually we'll begin to um have meetings with with supervisors and we talked about meeting with SCAG um SMC SMC I don't think we have I don't think we have they also have plans that they've published so we know what they're up to. They've thought about housing too there. Yeah, I believe that they're student housing. Yeah, like twotory student housing on on their part of the airport that having people I mean that's to our advantage, right? If there are a bunch of students living there and potentially spending time and money at the park critical mass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and and because of that critical mass and um you know that that tends to inform the way in which we're beginning to organize the site in all of the three different concepts. So, um, did you you took the survey, right? Uh, I went or you read through it? I went through I studied it deeply and then Yeah. Yeah. There's some moves in there that I I hope we get a chance to explain to you at the May 17th workshop. Okay. Um, but it it the there is like there is community input, there is city policy, and then we have, you know, professional staff that are helping us uh design these concepts. And there's also regional plans, you know, the RTP. we have uh the sustainable communities uh stuff. There's a lot of input into this work. Um so as we collaborate more with our neighbors um I hope that we can uh find an understanding and and uh not

foreclose upon each other's opportunities. There used to be an organization called the LA the regional open space and housing collaborative LA Rosa. Huh. Um, I went to one of their meet I mean I went to at least one of their meetings super helpful in terms of thinking about how you do housing and open space together in a way that is um mutually supporting. uh they weren't focused on the west side but um but there was there's quite a lot of thought and given the kind of density that I'm seeing being proposed uh it may be worth looking at you know some of the best best practices that they identified and this was back in 2018 2019 LA Ah the Los Angeles region I want to say regional open space and housing collaborative something like that. Okay, I'll Google it. Yeah, thanks. Are you done? I am. Okay. Um I just wanted to bring up because Sean mentioned the business park. Um I do know and I heard this from several sources that they're talking about a lot of housing on that on that property on the properties. They actually even have a project now I think in the pipeline across the street from Clover Park or about to be in the pipeline. So we're talking about lots and lots and lots of housing. The LES does not require a joint specific plan unless it's commercial and it's not commercial, it's residential. Um, and it's all market rate, you know, so with the except the inclusionary units, but it is generally a market rate project. So, in that regard, I I don't know if you're looking at the tax increment financing district tool, uh, including the business park could be very lucrative. Um, yes. Yes. Um, and that would take some of the burden off the housing having to pay for the maintenance of the park. But as someone who's actually trying to build a park in Hollywood, God be with you. Uh

um my other question is like for one thing I understand the survey is very important as are the 150 letters that we got from the people here tonight. How do we fit in that? I mean what is our input in terms you know visav all the survey stuff you've gotten? It means uh commission specific input. Yes. Well, uh, just in the months of April and May, we have 17 night meetings. Oh, the question is, how important is it? Oh, it's it's important. You're you are advis Why are we sitting here? Advisory to the council. So, uh, we take your input very seriously and we are taking a lot of input from the council's boards and commissions. Okay. Let me go on record that I really want to see some housing on the site. And how much it is, I you know, I don't know what it is, but I think it would be unconscionable to waste public land and not do some housing on that property. And in terms of HCD, the current housing element in Raina are irrelevant. It's really the next cycle of the housing element. And if we have a as big arena as we have this time and we say to and we basically densified all the city we wanted to densify and what are we going to do? And we're going to say, well, except that we have this 200 acre park. So, you know, that's we're going to do that, but the housing, you know, so that's just something to think about for you guys. I understand. Um, the other question is who's who is doing the EIR on the reuse of the land? Um I don't think we have a consultant for that yet. We have a separate pot of money that we're holding in reserves for the time when uh we understand what the project is. And and how specific if for example the housing option is the one that people vote for and I don't know if that's going to happen. How detailed does that have to be be before you can do an EI? Maybe Jing and Heidi can help me out on this but my understanding is that we need to establish maximum parameters. So we would have to if if the question is about housing, I think we'd have to understand unit count, general location, uh the ways in which people bedrooms. Yeah. Uh yeah, the the the road the mix the mix the road network, right? Right. Not income mix but bedroom mix. But I don't need I

don't think we need to like understand the building typology. The what I'm sorry the building typology. What type of building it is? I'm asking because would this suffice as a specific plan to be incorporated into the loose? And if not, why are we doing it? I mean, I think the the process that's laid out, it may end up being a specific plan, you know, right? It's obviously that's may be where it it ends up, you know. Um, I think the timing of it speaks to, you know, 2029. I mean, that's basically the sort of like expiration date, if you will, of the current loose we have, you know. So um there'll be the confluence of the new loose the seventh cycle housing element and the closure of the airport kind of all happening around the same time. Um you know so I think it'll be an opportunity to obviously look at you know where this fits into kind of the citywide vision and um uh you know I think re revisit some of the commitments in the loose with respect to this property because we obviously know a lot more now you know than we did in 2010. Okay. My my question goes to I assume that the property is going to have to be reszoned. It will need zoning and and if we don't have a specific plan, how do we reszone it? No, I mean I think that you Yeah, I mean I mean I think that's that's the idea is I guess it just depends, you know, on like how the scenarios plan out and that's what I mean. I don't I don't think that we we're presupposing an outcome of what what deliverables at the end. I'm just talking about the process and how it all fits. Well, I in my mind I feel like what we're doing Yeah. I I think that's the piece I'm like it doesn't have to be a specific It doesn't have to, but it but it may well be. Yeah. Right. Like I think what we're not trying to get to the level of specificity right now about what the widths of the streets are, what type of trees we're planting in the parkway or what paving material the plazas are made out of. But there's going to be an EI done on whatever it is you E will be

done on the program. Um I I think of it as this will be a sort of program level EIR for a master plan that may enjoy the detail of a specific plan in a subsequent photon. Um and finally um this question came up at council some time ago. What is the impact of the requirements of the surplus property act or surplus lands act and and measure LC because the land the surplus property act requires affordable housing as being one of the priorities for disposition of surplus property with LC we couldn't do that. So I think Mr. James can confirm this but I believe that is what he was speaking about with the city exploring how the surplus lands act would intersect with this airport closure process. It's actually quite complicated and there's lots of different uh overlapping regulations. So I think that's being studied. Um but you are correct. The general rule is is that you know you offer up land pri you know as the first option is affordable housing when it's being disposed of. But again there's a lot more complication to that and I think that's really what the city is trying to understand as as part of this whole planning process with respect to the closure and future use. So the question is whether LC supersedes the surplus land act or vice versa. In part. In part. Right. I think that from the state's pers perspective LC does not override state law. Well, that's a problem, isn't it? Um well it but it's not as Heidi mentioned it's not that simple. It's not that simple. It's not. Nothing ever is. Yeah. Um I wish we had more time to to walk you through the details, but it is okay. I just want to go on the record that I support housing and a park and and maybe 50/50 is the way to go. Um, and I know that people have been proposing 3,000 units. I don't know if that's realistic or not. I mean, it depends on the capacity. And then also the infrastructure costs. I mean, who's going to pay for the the, you

know, the water and the power and the sewage and the streets. I mean, that's it could be a mellow roost bond, but the property owners pay that if it's affordable housing, there's no chance of that. So, who pays for it, right? Those are all questions that we're asking ourselves as we go through the process. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. [Music] Thank you both for your presentation and really appreciate your work on this amazing project. Um I have a few questions. I'm going to try to keep it brief. Um I think you mentioned that your current direction is to study housing among the scenarios that you're looking forward to but I just want to clarify that in the scenarios that you're putting together whether housing will be part of at least one of the scenarios. Yes. Uh the direction was that at least one scenario should study housing and at least one is a no vote option. I see. So uh building on that then since um as you mentioned it's a long process before you get to implementation uh could you walk me through how u if for example housing ends up being part of the preferred scenario how that plays into the timeline with regard to dealing with um a ballot measure etc. and the timing of it relative to to uh other factors that are going on with SQA etc. Well, I think with the housing it becomes been it's a very housing has always been a complex question internally. the the process I think will always be

again collecting the information that we get from the community in terms of as Peter had mentioned earlier is like a sense of what the scale the community is comfortable with first from there the as we move into the preferred scenario I think we will always have this parallel conversation as to not only what the overall composition of a of of a park plus housing approach would be, but also studying continually like, okay, well, what's the next layer of information that must be layered on when we talk about housing? Because, as Peter mentioned before, we're not looking at typologies or anything like that right now. We're just kind of looking at general location, general scale within 192 acres. as we move to a preferred scenario in in in your example that we we have a a scenario direction that has to include housing. Okay. So, we've already introduced the idea that housing exists on the airport. Good. We've already introduced the idea that housing exists on the airport at relatively this size. As we start to develop the rest of the park, we will also correlate a design that gets us to the the level of information that goes into the EIR, which will be um uh what was the phrase the uh the maximum allowable um maximum parameter. So with that goes, okay, well, what is what is the right size of the blocks within that area that the community has already said they're comfortable with the housing being? So, is it a 60x 60 or 200 by 200? uh how tall are we starting to look at now uh within those blocks, how much housing fits in that area, how much of those units can afford to pay for x amount of area on the park. So those two things, housing plus park, will run in parallel as more and more information is integrated into the plan. So um I think I heard in the previous presentation that phasing is going to be part of all

of this that you're talking about, right? So, is it conceivable that as you proceed with looking at scenarios, if um the scenario involves housing that requires a bad measure that it could be put in a later phase of the project without necessarily delaying implementation to some extent on other portions of the site? I I think the the best response to your line of questioning is that we just we don't we don't have a clear view of how how it works um with the ballot measure if that is in fact where we end up. Um because everything that the speaker said earlier tonight is absolutely correct. Like the priority really is on airport closure. even though that has been decided, we want to we want to protect our ability uh to do that. Um, and so at since housing is a relatively new input as as a central theme in the planning process, um, I don't I don't think that we have a great answer for you at this point on how it actually works as we approach the 28 time frame is a a very political question and it's going to require a lot of work from everybody here in the city to figure out if and how we do it. I have two questions. So as a related point though um since implementation is going to take a long time I presume part of your study is going to be looking at interim uses as well during the during during that time period. Yes. And and if you recall um within the the one of the options when it spoke about the active uses as an example um the iteration that noted the the runway as recreation it was just the gray zone. Um, it gets to that conversation about day one people want activity. Day one we might not be able to afford that, but

day one we might be able to program something within that site as an option. Uh, and then it looks to again establishing a precedent for critical mass at that site because as Peter mentioned the the the conversation that is on everyone's mind is safety within our open spaces. So when you have an area like the airport that's 192 acres and it closes and what happens there, we need to find ways to create interim um uh program to help enliven those spaces. So we've already begun the conversations internally about like what those could be. Is it riding bikes on the runway on a regular basis? Is it taking uh some successful program that has occurred in other parks in our history and bringing them to the airport on a regular basis like movie nights in the park, movie nights on the airport, those sorts of things to help activate it and into in some respects continue this level of letters of interest, if you will. As people start to see more and more program happening, they want to get more and more involved. They want to know how they get more and more involved. We have a a a path forward and saying, "This is what we're charting. This is what we like to see. Do you want to participate? Here's what we need to do. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate that some of these questions are hard to answer right now, but I think I do want to say that that in general, I really support the idea of a balanced mix of uses on a site of this size. And I do think that it would be a pity if it is limited in some way just to one use or the other. And I think it would take a broad range of uses to make something like this work. I just have two quick things. I forgot to mention, and you may already know this, but with the tax increment financing district, the state allows up to 25% of the revenues to be used for affordable housing. So, that would be a way to help with the housing production. Um, the other thing, I don't know if

you're familiar with Village Green in Culver City. Yes. To me, that's like a wonderful model of a medium density, green, no cars on the property u development and it started out as affordable. Um so that might be something to look at is is low medium densities like nothing's taller than three stories. I I live uh about a half mile from there and one of our project team members lives there. Oh, really? Wow. That's cool. It's a really neat place. It's actually a national monument. It's not just on the national register. It's a monument. Cool. Okay. Any other questions? Should we go to um Well, Jim said he had stuff to say. No, I'm good. Thank you. Okay, let's go to um presentation of the update of the parks and recreation. A long day. Did is somebody here? That would be me. You mind if I take off? Go ahead. I have the kids alone at home. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Hi again, commissioners. Again, my name is Tony Lopez. I am the senior park planner. And just a little bit of background. Um I didn't share this on the last presentation, but now because it's a little bit more in definitely more in my wheelhouse when it comes to the sea. Uh I come from practicing the in the field of landscape architecture for the last 18 years in the city of Los Angeles. Uh I've worked on campus master plans, streetscape master plans, parks, mixeduse development, landscapes, uh urban forestry projects, etc. And so, uh, last year when I had the opportunity to join the city of Santa Monica, I took advantage of that because I was so much looking at the granular details of things and unfortunately in my history getting mixed up in the egos associated

with design, I wanted to really start to take a look at what envisioning helping the community kind of put into into practice what they really want for this city. So, it's been a quite a pleasure this last year working with everyone in my department and the expanded departments and all the boards and commissions. Um and so that level of background has really made me enthusiastic in taking on this role as a senior park planner and looking at help helping to uh form the vision for the parks in the future. Um so today what we're going to talk about is what the parks and recreation master plan is. I'm sure it's been a long time since you've heard about the park and rec recreation master plan. Uh we're going to get a little bit into the park and recreation master plan to date. uh the goals of the park and recreation master plan update, next step, and some initial feedback that you might have. Now, today it's a short presentation. I'm not presenting the whole any of the master plan update. This is just more of an informative presentation to let you know this process is underway. And uh I will be back in the summer to do a more robust presentation about the actual update uh with the hopes of the the plan going to council in the fall. So, the park and recreation master plan is a long-term strategic plan that responds to today's physical conditions, community needs, values, and opportunities associated with our open space network. It offers a vision for the evolution of our park network through the study of improvements, expansion, and acquisition. And as Jerry mentioned earlier on in public comment, you know, our parks need a vision. Um, the last time our park park and recreation master plan was updated was 1997. These plans are typically 20 to uh 20 to 30year uh updates and we're coming up right on that 30-year mark. So uh the 1997 plans vision was city as park and the the goal of that plan was to look to enliven the street network as a

connectivity green tissue that connected all of our open spaces. So part of this master plan update will establish the new vision for our park network moving forward. Who uses the park and recreation master plan? The community uses it, planners use it, architects use it, and the commission uses it uses it as well. Now, the community uses the park park and recreation master plan as a tool to identify the open spaces opportunities that they have expressed concern over in this outreach process. uh and as a way to benchmark kind of where they are currently within their city and what the city is providing for them in terms of their open space and the program associated with the open space. Planners use it uh to evaluate the potential to amplify complete neighborhoods providing park acreage to meet the need relative to the population growth. Architects use the park and rec master plan as a way to develop comprehensive plans associated with projects that they're working on within the city. how they develop a project to complement the existing network in such a way that their project uh ties in seamlessly with the rest of the network, but also finds ways to add perhaps what's missing. And the planning commission uses it to evaluate and calibrate the impacts of new development relative to the carrying capacity of our existing park network. I'll get into a little bit of the outreach I've done since I've started this process this past year. But what we're I am hearing a lot from the community is that they are very much aware that the city's growing. It will continue to grow and they already are noticing that the parks aren't growing at the same rate. So having the ability to correlate growth with growth of open space is very critical and already on their minds. The park and wreck master plan timeline. So uh the 19 in 1997 uh our open space element was adopted. That same year the first park and rec master

master plan was adopted and has not been updated since. Uh in 2016, LA County conducted a countywide needs assessment that determined the park need for all the various cities within the county. In 2018 to 2019, public outreach was conducted within the city of Santa Monica for what they were planning to be their park and wreck master plan update in 2020. Um in 2019 2020 uh the park and wreck needs assessment report was published and a draft master plan was created. Unfortunately, in 2020, that draft master plan was set to be uh presented to the public in March of 2020. And we all know what happened then. Um the project was put on hold, and it wasn't until uh I came on board in April of last year with the sole intent of taking that park and wreck master plan to the finish line. So, starting in September of last year, I've been working with a the R an RPC uh Wreck and Park Commission ad hoc group, uh looking at the past open space element, the master plan, the draft master plan, the needs assessment, correlating information I've gathered from all of the city's plans and reports and initiatives to create a new version of that master plan update internally. So, I'm the one who's taking all that on. And so uh I felt it the best way for me as a new employee in the city to be ingrained with the commissions and boards in such a way that I can hear from the people who are actually making this decisions in the city to inform this process rather than go through another step of coordinating with the consultant and kind of kind of daisy chain that information. I really wanted to take this as an opportunity to like hear participate reach out to the community and really become engaged in this process. uh in summer of 2025. The hope is to be back in boards and commissions throughout the summer to present the update uh and be very uh

deliberate about the content of that of that uh master plan update uh that relates most to those commissions and boards while giving them a broad overview of the update and vision uh and with the hopes of in fall of 2025 presenting that to council with the commission's boards neighborhood organ organization support. So again, uh 1997, the open space element. Um this is a quote from that, uh document directed towards improving the character and quality of the city's existing open spaces and adding to its future inventory through reuse of public lands, redefinition of streets and transportation corridors, and acquisition of private parcels in key locations. These are these are elements of the open space element that drove the 1997 parks and recreation master plan which noted that the city as park is advanced as a fundamental theme having major implications on the role of the street environment to meet the recreational needs of residents and visitors and as I mentioned that looked at city as park and the connective tissue what it also looked at in 1997 was growing the park acreage from at that time it was about 113 acres in that plan's vision The goal was to get somewhere between 140 and 170 park acres. Currently where we stand is 144 acres. So we hit that benchmark. But now as we come up with this new update, what's the vision that we're going to look back on in 2025 years and say we did that. That's what we want to do with this new update. Again, why now more than ever? Park and recck master plan is typically again a 20 to 30 year vision. Um CO 19 uh really reinforced the reliance on the park network and the open space network. Not only from a social standpoint, but from a resiliency standpoint and the opportunity to utilize open spaces as the community bridge between the home and the community in uh those types of situations. Um again, the community sees the city's growth and its effect on the

carrying capacity of our existing parks. And uh per the LA County needs assessment, there are locations and neighborhoods within the city of Santa Monica that are park poor. Now the countywide assessment defines Santa Monica overall as moderate. But again that that classification is based on several factors. U when we look at the mapping um here this is pulled from that needs assessment. You can see the yellow, the red, the orange, those are all those areas within the city that are park poor or moderate. And so that distribution of that open space shifts and so there are neighborhoods again that uh are very park poor although some of most of them are very close to uh existing parks. Now based on that needs assess assessment the countywide average is 3.3 park acres per 1000 residents. When this assessment was done in 2016 Santa Monica was at 1.4 park acres per 1000. Um, so you can see that from a countywide average perspective, we're not quite there yet. And so we need to be looking at ways to expand and uh acquire new land where possible. Can I just have a question? Is the yellow area the most park poor? It's the red. You could see it's kind of in that Wilmont zone. Yeah, because I think we don't overlook the fact that mo 35% of the cities are one with single family homes and front yards and backyards. So that's the that's the balance where uh we have to take into consideration because uh there is the level of those neighborhoods have are really walkable. They have great streetscapes, robust urban canopy. So there's that balance there and have finding the opportunities to again expand where it makes the most sense and acquire new lands when those opportunities arise. Another quick question. Is this map based on current need or is it projected based on the planning horizon? So this was based on the 2016 moment in time and I'll get

into some uh some more information that'll add to that question. So uh the 2019 needs assessment had highlight had done a robust outreach to the community from which eight strategies emerged that would help guide that current master plan update which never saw the light of day due to the pandemic. Um those eight strategies uh sorry those eight strategies um were utilized in this last year as we created the new update uh alongside some other city initiatives and strategies to find a way to kind of pair down that list because some of these strategies now overlap with most recent council priorities. So there was some overlap of initiatives that were blanket initiatives that covered any kind of city initiative, any kind of city plan report like um um uh sustainability. Uh this these strategies really looked at increasing green infrastructure. So strategies that correlate with existing initiatives, we're trying to find a way to kind of remove those since they are they do apply citywide. Now back to the question about the um the the level of need. So one of the missing components that we discovered in this last year in this update process was that we know we need to expand our parks. We know we need to grow acreage but by how much what do like what's the deliberate metric that's going to guide us moving forward. So what we have been working on uh with the recreation and arts department is a community recreation arts needs assessment. Now that needs assessment is uh using a statistically uh valid survey along with a general population survey. So two types of surveys uh and that will evaluate our current level of service by not only our park network and amenities but also our park program. So it will take our current inventory, our

projected population growth, the feedback of those surveys to understand what people are using, where they're using them, what they don't have opportunity to use because we don't offer enough of it and tell us we need X number more of this, we need more of this, and we need more of this. So that way it'll help us determine when someone says we need 20 new baseball fields. Well, no. based on the survey of what we have now, based on our projected growth and what we want to do as a city, we need six more. And so that way we can make more responsible decisions in terms of how we prioritize new amenities within our part network. So we're not just adding things because we think that's a good number to add. We're adding them because the data is telling us this is what we need to add. Tony, I have a question. Why the hell are we building a great park when we need parks all over the city? Good point. Huh? I'm sorry. No problem. Um, so the goal of the goals of the update are to reinforce and be in alignment with the objectives that uh noted in the open space element. Um, it's also to respond to city council priorities, create an action plan addressing the goals of the open space element. Um now what we really wanted to do with this um with this update was create a strategy that has some accountability to it. Not just say let's expand our open space. Well how are we going to do that? In what manner are we going to do that? So what we've established is an action plan matrix that says if we're going to expand open space these are recommendations on how to do that. They are studies um their plans. their um exercises in creating documents and presentations and metrics that allow us to evaluate the potential opportunities to achieve that. So at any given time when grant funding comes up,

when development impact fees hit, we have those documents and those plans and those strategies already prepared or in the process of being prepared so we can make those decision more quickly and have the numbers associated with those opportunities at hand so we know exactly what we need to ask for and when we need to ask for it. It also connects the community to existing citywide plans and initiatives. The other thing that we've integr started to integrate is a correlation between the master plan and those actions and how they relate to other plans and documents already adopted by the cities so that there is no confusion about what the action is asking that we don't want to make sustainability suggestions that already are mentioned in the cap or differ in some respect to the cap. We want to point readers to the park and rent master plan to the cap so that these these documents start to communicate with one another effectively so that there's oh climate action adaptation plan. Um and it also establishes a sense of accountability to whoever is using the park and wreck master plan from the point of view of a consultant who comes on board to say develop a new design for a park. They look at that park and wreck master plan. That park and recck master plan points them to all these other documents. So they have to be accountable for the knowledge within that master plan and the other plans that it points to. Um this master plan also promotes community engagement. There is a uh a companion narrative within this update that will talk about community outreach and a lot of what we heard tonight and really expanding the robust nature of the outreach in such a way that looks at when community outreach occurs, how often it occurs. um in what typologies does it occur to utilize as many outlets to gain more community comm community feedback and transparency in this process and again it's it's to establish new vision you

know CDS park we did that we grew to 144 acres but what's next we need to start to think about how all of our current initiatives and plans work together to tell anybody who's developing or thinking about developing or expanding or acquiring new land, what exactly we want as a city to reflect our identity. Again, we took those eight strategies that were pulled from the needs assessment, paired them with the council priorities, um the most recent council priorities, and found ways to uh be a little bit more comprehensive about what they're really asking for. And we've uh instead of eight, we now have five with the understanding that three of those original eight are now since the 201819 needs assessment are now city-wide initiatives. So they don't necessarily need to be reinforced in the park and recck master plan because they've already been adopted as citywide initiatives. This is a a sample of the action plans that you will see in the update as it becomes more developed and presented to you back in uh in the summer. um they're all based on principles, five strategies and actions. So the principles are essentially the highlevel networkwide vision. The five strategies are the ways in which we identify the authenticity of the principle. So those are the five strategies that are were pulled from the 2018 and 2019 needs assessment. And the actions are the the literal things that we're going to do to achieve that principle. And within that action there are subactions that are uh let's say for example we want to grow our community garden network. Action 1.1 will be um establish quarterly outreach to community garden advisory council to understand their needs. Another action sub action might be hold annual uh program at the community gardens to

celebrate uh yearly accomplishments. So you can understand that there's a broader action and sub actions that help to again establish that accountability so that it isn't just a highle great idea. Uh this is uh uh some of the list of the citywide plans and initiatives that are being referenced in the update currently. Um these are also citywide plans and initiatives that I have read through all of them including the loose uh all few hundred pages of it. Uh so this is again this is all about the accountability that this document will have for anybody who uses it so that they can understand that this is just a piece of the puzzle when it comes to Santa Monica that this is about the open space network that is linked to all these other different initiatives the bike and pet action plan sustainable city plan um everything uh that we've uh coordinated as a city and a community to really reinforce our city identity um outreach engagement thus far. So again, back in September, uh the Wreck and Park Commission ad hoc began to meet monthly. Uh previously it was about at in that 2020 um uh master plan update process, it was every few months they met. So we've really amped that up to meet monthly. Um recreation and uh park commission ad hocs ran through February of this past year. So, February 25, so five, six months of back and forth with uh the commission. Uh I've met with the arts commission, field sports advisory committee, Santa Monica aquatics advisory committee, public landscape, community gardens advisory committee, and I've met with all seven neighborhood organizations um all to gather that community input. uh this is all to complement the outreach that had occurred in 2018 and 19 but also again as I mentioned this is all about me becoming ingrained in the

city. Um and in addition to that as I mentioned the community recreation arts needs assessment is taking what was done in 2018 and 19 as the outreach and amplifying that even more to really get a datadriven approach to what our park network needs. Again establishing a vision as this plan would be a vision for the future of our network. No particular projects are referenced. Instead, these are about studies and opportunities for feasibility of future projects relative to space, cost, and time. So, within this document, you're not going to see add this at this park or add that at that park. It's all about study the opportunities to integrate this component in the network in some fashion because we don't want to be so specific about a particular project where this master plan becomes about the project within the master plan because it sends us down a whole different EI SQL process that we don't want to go down. The next steps um I again I'm meeting with you today for feedback. I am meeting with sustainability commission next week, week and a half from now. Uh I have my last stop with urban forestry at the end of the month. Uh again, I've met with all the neighborhood organizations, various other commissions and boards. Um, and the hope is that uh before uh the start of summer, I could take this additional feedback that I'm gathering and roll it into this update so that it can be presented throughout the summer again to all these boards and commissions for final round of comment so we can have a solid final draft that goes to council for adoption in the fall. Um, so with that, um, I have some questions. Um, and this is uh more to this is your answers combined with the comment that you might have uh from my presentation. But what stands out to you about our existing open space network that speaks to the identity of our city?

How might open space be a louder voice in conversations regarding the growth of our city? And when considering our existing open space network, what do you envision for its future? Just quick quick quickly, um I'm a strong supporter of neighborhood parks. Um I live across the street from Ashlin Park and and for me that is it's just a wonderful amenity on my street and it's also very safe and easy to patrol, well lit, um clean. It's just, you know, smaller parks are easier to do all that. So that I I don't know, single family lots are very expensive, so I'm not sure how that could happen citywide. Um, this was actually dedicated to the city, this property, but it's it's great. I mean, you know, kids use it, dogs use it. It's it's a really wonderful amenity. So, my preference is small parks. Thank you. Um, I'm think Thank you for this. I'm I'm thinking about there was a conversation about affordable housing um some time ago and um Mike Solaf had this the this idea that the city should simply have continually open RFPs to say hey if you have an idea for a you know for for a for a building um come and pitch it to us right here are here are the specs here's what we want at any given site. Is there a way to get more granular like that here? I mean, we have needed a park in the Wilmont area for as long as I can remember. I mean, I I think we I had a conversation at the Social Services Commission, a presentation from from former parks commission chair Phil Brock back in like 2015, um where we were talking about the need for a park in Wilmont, and we still don't have one 10 years later. That's right. um further north uh sort of um closer to closer to Montana around I think there was a there was a potential

like 19th Streetesque but anyway um why not in the network spec out a series of locations or a series of characteristics and put that menu out there so that if somebody if a large developer is coming in to Santa Monica thinking about I mean who knows if we're going to have DAS in the future, but whatever those projects look like where there is some kind of community benefit as part of the project where somebody says, "Hey, you could you could make this park happen as as a benefit and they could go to that menu and see what's asked for and evaluate whether it's an offer they want to make or an offer they want to make in concert with somebody else who wants to do a project around the same time. I think these strategies are terrific and I think that having a vision for where we want to be is important, but I also think we've got to get specific and say we want an Ashlands size park somewhere in this fiveb block radius that has these and these amenities because these are the kinds of uses that the community wants there. if you're coming into our city to try to do a project, if you can make that happen, you know, we're really interested in your ideas and and get that granular so that it it doesn't stay at the 30,000 foot level. Yeah, Tony, I just wanted to say I know other people want to speak. I really appreciate your presentation and what you're doing. I think it's very important for this city. I think the spread out parks is really more important than neighborhoods. I'm I mean I've expressed myself people know my feelings about the airport and all of that stuff and so but I just wanted to tell you your presentations tonight have been superb.

Thank you. Yeah, Tony, thank you so much. Um just a couple questions and I know we're running it's running late. Um what's the status of the memorial park uh rehabilitation? Uh and there's a big master plan. When are we going to break ground on that? Uh break ground I can confirm with Linda. Uh we are actually presenting she's actually presenting the RPC on that timeline process next week. Um so what I can do is get that information. She has the specifics on when that starts because things have shifted a little bit with some EIR stuff that's come up in the last couple months. So I can definitely get that. I think it I want to say break ground was 2 years because right now they just we just had the kickoff for schematic design a week ago. Mhm. So the goal was like with this shift in the it kind of shifted the rest of the schedule. So I just have to confirm back with her. So you think about two years off from now. Okay. Do we have money to pay for that yet? Is money in the bank for that? There is there is some money. Yes. Uh, and we are also in the process of trying to get another grant to uh, offset some of the other costs. Remind me of that. I I did have a question about the beach. What how does the beach in factor into your park's plan? So, um, that's a really great question. Uh, so when it comes to it's a great question that has some different nuance to it. So I will start with typically any city that is adjacent to a beach, the beach is not counted in the open space calculation because it it'll excuse the evaluation relative to landlocked cities. So it's quantified but it's not included in the the green open space network as a park. Um, so the the because the primarily because the

beach is owned by the state and we operate it. So there's a little bit of nuance in there too. Now when it comes to what's happening at the beach, um, one of the other things I have been tasked to do work on is the beach master plan. So that is something that is there's some money issues in terms of the the the amount of money we have to do that. uh because I have presented the opportunity because of how successful this internalized process has been with the park and wreck master plan that I could harness those relationships and kind of move the needle on that master plan in some respects in terms of developing some uh plans and studies that are called out in the land in the park and wreck master plan to help move uh the study in that beach master plan and work with start to work with the beach crew on establishing kind of what's happening with that. Okay. So, it's it's it's part of it's under your purview. It's just doesn't show up in the beach the parks plan. You have a a beach plan to activate what the city can do to activate that space for recreational uses. Yes. And so the it there it is mentioned in the it will be mentioned in the park and recreation master plan update as its own um action and I have already start to outline the sub actions related to that primary action of establish a beach master plan that would include like these are the things that need to be included in that beach master plan. So essentially a a a rough order of magnitude of the scope of that beach master plan. So that there is some guiding principles in terms of how that would get developed in correlation with the park and rec master plan. Okay. Um one of the elements of the 1997 plan was uh a redefinition of our streets uh thinking of the city as a park uh and the role of the street environment to meet the recreational needs of residents

and visitors which I really like. Um, and it reminds me um of I I've traveled frequently to the Bay Area uh and a lot of the cities up there, particularly Berkeley, have done a really good job in uh dedicating streets as bike bike bike streets and vehicles can still uh drive on those streets. it's accessible for emergency vehicles and things like that, but there's a lot of design elements within those streets that really favor uh bikes and make it and you see kids and families and and people all the you know just regular citizens riding their bikes through these streets. They have, you know, these small little these are residential streets that I'm sure were lightly used um you know, prior to becoming a bike street, but you know, they have um roundabouts in each of the intersections that honestly give a lot of opportunity for trees and other native uh growth and vegetation, but it also slows down cars, but very easy for bikes to maneuver around. And I I really do think that like I would love to have a lot of parks and a lot of small parks, a lot of big parks throughout the city. On a practical level, it's expensive and we do have this existing network of streets and I would like to see a parks plan that and a lot of people use o I love open space. My my child my kid just played a baseball game at Clover Park tonight. Uh we we we go to these parks, but a lot of, you know, everyday recreation is when you want to walk the dog or ride your bike around the neighborhood and just enjoy your community and see your friends. Having one street per neighborhood that is a bike street, um I think expands the idea of what we

think of as parks. that street can become park-like in the in its ability to or availability of our residents to use it as a recreational space. Um I think of streets, you know, like Sanvici and um I'm blanking Olympic that have the medians. I mean that that space can be activated. Right now it's hard to use those medians because of the automobile traffic is so dangerous all around it. But to think of those spaces and all these opportunities that we have um to create a park-like environment within this existing city grid um seems to be um a economical middle ground to uh trying to create bigger open space parks. That's just some feedback. Thank you. And I um what I what was interesting is that this idea of a park street I one of the subactions I was looking at was uh working I think the verbiage was something along the lines of working with neighborhood organizations to identify opportunities to establish streets that can be closed on a regular basis for open space. Um this idea I don't mean to close the street more permanent. Yeah. Yeah. keep the street of you can still drive on that street. It's just a very inconvenient slow drive. It's a slow and there's other there's other there's other streets that you can use if you need to. I mean, but that street is, you know, vehicles can access it for emergency, you know, use and things like that, but it's it's not as you you wouldn't choose to drive on that street. Yeah. Yeah. You would choose to bike or walk on that street. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Um, a couple of comments and then one question. I wanted

to reiterate my support as well for this idea of pocket parks, smaller parks well distributed throughout the city which I think is much needed and particularly with regard to some of the areas that your maps are already showing as being high need or very high need areas. Uh, but I also want to express support for the idea of creative ways to make that happen since that can be difficult. uh whether it's through trying to engage the private sector in various ways, maybe through things like credits for park impact fees for publicly accessible open space on site, things like that. Really interested in seeing strategies associated with that. And then my question today, we saw a lot of discussion about housing versus open space as sort of competing priorities. And it's kind of interesting that you can't have one without the other and they both feed on each other. And I'm sort of curious on how the parks master plan is going to deal with the interaction and relationship with the housing element and the next cycle of it and to get them more aligned because clearly there are some aspects of it that seem to be in conflict right now. Yeah. Um, I think that's a really great question because it's something that I've coming from my particular background, I dealt a lot with um, developers who are coming into a city and are wanting to build five over two or towers. I mean, I'm speaking specifically to downtown Los Angeles where I've done a lot of these high tower works projects. Um, and you know, a lot of it starts with documents like this update that define what we're talking about here tonight of like what is our vision for the growth of the city? You know, like what happens when that building touches the ground or what portion of that

building doesn't touch the ground that creates these areas that are usable and not just open space to say we check the box of providing a little plaza for the public. Done. But really instilling in the document such that yeah, we have an inventory of the amenities within this neighborhood. But what I've also been working on is what are the amenities that we currently offer that we don't have in this neighborhood but will fit. So that when we say a developer comes in and wants to do something in whatever neighborhood, they have to look at this document and say, you know what, we could integrate this amenity on the ground floor within the plaza or within a community room that the public can use during these hours that offsets the need for this amenity within this particular neighborhood. So again, having that level of service needs assessment, having a an inventory that not only accounts for what we have, but what we can at a high level fit will help guide the process of reviewing those projects in a way that is uh responsible and provides the opportunity for us to say, you know what, based on this document, we need this in that neighborhood. It looks to me that you have the same amount of real estate that you're not using or you're just creating hardscape area, but this neighborhood is really lacking that what was the the phrase was the everyday recreation space. Why don't we make that an everyday recreation space? And so having those those opportunities outlined as a way to strategically speak to um those integration will be really critical. Couple of comments and question. Do you know or a question first, do you know how much money we have a open space um development fee. Do you know what's in

there? How much money's in there? The park and wreck impact fee. Yeah. Yes. So after the this past year's reporting, there's about 600 and changek left. Um the the the way the reporting is done, it's a little bit complex to understand because you might you might read it and say, "Oh, we have four million in there." But the 600 is the there's money in there that's already allotted for projects that are underway or about to be underway or are in the process of being worked on. So the money is spoken for. So when you remove that it's about I think it's like 605k. Um there's projected amounts that are coming in with developments that are anticipated to be complete this year and I think it's about a million and a half. Okay. So in either either way you look at that's not a lot of money when you're building when you're building parks. Um, so that it's just a challenge to try to find the money to do it and the land to do it. I would say, you know, you one of your questions on here is what stands out to you about the existence of our open space network that speaks to the identity of the city. My involvement with with Little League and to a lesser degree AYSO, people came to our when we would do tournaments here or when we traveled elsewhere, people would say, "Your fields are so nice compared to ours." So, we maintain our parks to a very high degree. So, that really speaks to me. Um, so I wish we could, you know, try to expand this throughout the city and I also agree that we need to have parks throughout the city. I don't know how we're going to find it in that Midtown area that we're where where it's in the red. It seems to me the only thing we have an option for is doing some kind of transfer of development rights somewhere. And you know, I don't that's that's a big that's a huge task, but we do have 200 acres of land that is needs to be that that we have some redevelopment opportunities with and so maybe there's a way to do

some transfer of development rights. But overall, I'm I'm skeptical and I will say a couple of my experiences really revolve around Bergammont. We when we started the Bergammont master planning in two I remember exactly when it was was after the the loose we talked about how we were going to create a lot of open space in that in that area and it became pretty quickly understood that private developers weren't going to give us their land for open space and we couldn't take it from them and so then the staff started focusing us on well it's really the streets where we're going to have open space and it was kind of a dis it was kind of disappointing that it it came to that. And so I guess I caution you not to oversell how much we can actually accomplish here. Um because that was a case where I think the the community was pretty disappointed with us as a commission that we couldn't come up with more open space. And then we see it again in a few, you know, in the last year and a half. We've tried to create objective design standards where we get open space as one of the things we hold on to. But we heard one of the, you know, major representatives in the city who represents a lot of applicants saying, "Well, that just doesn't really work for us and we'll just we'll just wave or incentivize our way around it." So, again, there's just it's a struggle. What I really liked I liked what I heard from Commissioner um Hamilton tonight is let's repurpose streets because we have control of those. Mhm. Um, and that's what the only things I can think of is repurposing the streets or doing some kind of transfer of development rights for on larger properties elsewhere. That's my input to you. You know, we could upzone the airport to like MUB and then sell the air rights. We'd make a fortune. Well, yeah, you could. Or you could do some kind of a transfer where there's a land transfer, right? you can build your

you can build housing here if you can donate land to us in in the heart of the city. Um but you know it's you you have a a tough task ahead of you um to get more find more parkland. Well I mean from my my focus really in my history has always been design and finding great solutions to design problems. Uh we our big design problem is we don't have enough park space. So it's a tough task, but it's something I'm eager to continue to work on. And again, that's what this master plan update is about is about having not only accountability for everyone outside of the city, but me too being like, okay, what am I doing today? I'm going to tackle this or at least start this thing and find out who I need to talk to to start to facilitate this process so that we can start to find these solutions. And again, at some point some point in time, we have something that we can reference not only the master plan, but these other documents that come out of it as part of that accountability to say, "Oh, didn't we talk about that already? Why don't we bring up that document that we were discussing about what are the opportunities to close streets? Where are they?" And we have that ready. Well, that I mean I I think that's a good idea, but I guess it it just brings back another thought in my head. You were talking about downtown. And I also did a lot of entitlement work in the downtown area. I saw a lot of buildings go up. I mean, I entitled and we saw them go up, but we don't see a lot of parks in the downtown area. And the city of LA, you know, in 2005 or 2006, they had $120 million in park fees. And they still couldn't, you know, accomplish accomplish the goal of creating more parks down there. Yeah. And something else I What? Sorry to de labor the conversation. I hope it's not It's all right. I I went I kept going. So no. Uh it's interesting

because you know something I latched on to in the I think it was the 97 plan was even back then they understood that you know because of the beach and Santa Monica Mountains and city of LA adjacent we're we are landlocked in our our version of landlocked in that sense. And so in that plan almost 30 years ago, it spoke to we're going to run out of space. And so we need to also be available and open to understanding what are our opportunities to reinvigorate the existing parks we have. So, it's maybe looking to infuse more program, infuse more amenities, restructure some things a bit and like I don't know, maybe it's add another like a small tot a couple picnic tables at Ashlin or something like that. You know, thinking about how we start to okay, well, we've had a good base. Now, how do we make it even better while we're also trying to find these other opportunities in things like closing streets or improving the connections? And now I'm believering it. But another thing we talked about in the past was capping the freeway and creating green space on the freeway. And let's not remind me of the federal conversation and the grants that Did you Did you Did you lose your grant? Because I I lost mine. The um the kickoff keeps getting kicked month by month. Don't count on it. I read an article yesterday that No, it's gone. It's gone. So, sorry. Yeah. Well, let me know if you get it. Do you have more? You have more presentations? That's all. If there's no more questions, not right now. Uh, I will continue on my path forward and I will schedule something in the summer and you will be back. There will be a distribution of the update uh beforehand so you can see it and digest it and then I will come to present it and have more

questions. Since there are no continued items and there are no staff items I have because I've been doing some research on this. Um something to bring to the city's attention and the our legislative advocacy team. Um, state law sets the minimum maximum maximum minimum whatever. Uh, ADU rear and side setbacks cannot exceed 4T. Zone zero is 5T. What's zone zero? Zone zero is now the clearance that um the state is beginning to ask us to ensure between buildings and any neighboring shrubbery because of fire. We have a part of the city that was under evacuation in January where I think ADUs are in production. I am very concerned. I had in uh some informal conversations with experts about this. I am actually very concerned that homeowners who build ADUs to the 4-foot setback could find themselves with um difficult to ensure uh ADUs because they will not control the fifth foot of zone zero because it'll literally be in their neighbor's yard. Wow. Um so I want to flag that for staff. I also want to flag that for legislative advocacy because those really need to be aligned. I mean, I would argue for five feet, but um that conversation needs to happen or we're going to get some real problems with ADUs and insurance and general safety. Um and I've seen properties where that's a problem, like potential. Stephen Anderson's

I mean, yeah. So, I just want to flag that that zone zero and set ADU setbacks need to to be to talk to each other. Me too. If there if there are no other questions, it's now 10:08. Yep. And adjourn the meeting. Fantastic.