Sparks To Fly at Planning Session

Controversial Virginia Avenue Park Expansion on Tonight’s Agenda

Clara Sturak
Associate editor

   Santa Monica’s Planning Commission will vote on whether to approve the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the expansion of Virginia Avenue Park tonight, December 19, but not before it hears from neighbors who are “not happy” with the project.
   After almost two decades of planning and replanning the expansion of the Pico Neighborhood park, City planning staff is in the home stretch, making the rounds to the Virginia Avenue Park Advisory Board (VAPAB) and Recreation and Parks Commission (which both already approved the final EIR), and now the Planning Commission.
   Angry neighbors continue to feel that their voices haven’t been heard in the public process leading up to the approval of the EIR, and in fact say that recent “last minute” changes to the project “have made a bad plan worse.”
   This last statement was made by 22nd Street resident and neighborhood activist Duke Kelso. Kelso, a contractor by trade, purchased his home in 1986, and says he has been involved in discussions about the Virginia Avenue Park expansion since. Kelso does not mince words when he shares his outrage over the project in its current state: “The bottom line is, this is a bad plan by a planning department whose team can’t get it together.”
   Insisting that the Planning Commission’s mission to “promote the health, safety and general welfare by encouraging the most appropriate use of land [and] provide open spaces” is not being met by the revised Virginia Avenue Park expansion plan, Kelso uses an effective comparison: Memorial Park (at Olympic Boulevard and 14th Street) is 10.4 acres. The proposed expansion of Virginia Avenue Park (at Pico and Cloverfield Boulevards) would be 9.5 acres. Memorial Park has 6 baseball fields, 1 soccer field, a gym, a volleyball court, picnic tables and 63 parking spaces. The proposed Virginia Avenue Park expansion has no baseball fields, no soccer fields, and no picnic tables (it does include a volleyball court, two basketball courts and a gym), and 228 parking spaces. The difference in parking is due to the weekly parking needed for Saturday Farmers Market customers, but Kelso feels it simply takes up too much space that should be used as park land, “Less than 50 percent of the park is green,” he says.
   Kelso adds that he and other residents have major concerns regarding noise levels created by proposed outdoor performance space and the planned wading pool; the potential increase in traffic from the increased number of parking spaces, and the fact that those spaces may be made up of a crushed granite gravel surface, which will cover more than 2 acres of the park’s area.
   Kelso and fellow Virginia Park neighbor, Peter Tigler have gone as far as to create maps showing the amount of space in the park dedicated to gravel parking lot, as well as the ratio of space used for buildings and parking to green open space. (See graphic, page 10.) The two will present their maps at Wednesday’s meeting. They and other neighborhood activists intend to make it known to the Commission that they feel they have not been listened to and that City planners have not addressed their concerns. “It’s a disgrace,” says Kelso.
   “That’s interesting,” says City Planner Karen Ginsburg after hearing Kelso’s allegations. “In response, I’d say, look at pages 6 and 7 of the staff report, which details the public process we’ve gone through.” Indeed, pages 6 and 7 of the planning staff report to the Commission do detail many community meetings, VAPAB meetings, and Virginia Avenue Park Working Group (comprised of three Recreation and Parks Commissioners, three VAPAB members, a Planning Commissioner and two youth representatives) meetings. In some cases, the report lists community issues that were brought up, then addressed by planning staff, “Several comments expressed concern that the proposed wading pool and play area location were too close to residences. In response to this concern, the site plan has been revised…” In other cases, the results were less conclusive: “Due to a lack of quorum, the Board (VAPAB) was unable to take action at this meeting, but did provide individual comments.”
   The staff report only details the public process from 1998 forward, although the project itself has been in the works since 1984. And in truth, the Pico and Sunset Park residents potentially affected by the Virginia Avenue Park expansion have never spoken as one. Over the years, as the project has changed in scope and design, some residents have supported it, hoping for a park that would benefit families in the neighborhood and improve the run-down nature of the intersection of Pico and Cloverfield. Those who have not supported it say they are after the same results as their neighbors, but feel strongly that the City has either not heard their concerns, not understood them, or not bothered to take them seriously. Those residents will, once again, attempt to make themselves heard on Wednesday.
   Ginsburg is convinced that experts who will be on hand at the meeting will be able to satisfy many of the concerns she’s heard expressed so often. She also says, with confidence, “There has been considerable public process at every juncture of the project. We are happy with the project and we hope to be under construction this coming fall.”
   The Planning Commission meeting will be held tonight at 7 p.m. in City Council chambers.
For more on this issue, see Point of View (Editorials page).