Planning Board OKs Virginia Ave. Park Plan

Public Hearing Is Lengthy, Contentious

Clara Sturak
Associate editor

   After hearing from more than two dozen members of the community, the Santa Monica Planning Commission voted to approve the long-anticipated expansion of Virginia Avenue Park on Wednesday, December 19.
   Commissioners and the public endured a longer than usual meeting, as community members took advantage of their three-minute comment periods to raise concerns about several of the proposed expansion’s elements, including increased parking at the park, the addition of a 24 by 72 foot wading pool, and lack of sufficient green space. Others used the time to commend City staff, architect Julie Eisenberg and landscape architect Andy Spurlock on what they felt was a plan that would well serve the residents of the Pico and Sunset Park neighborhoods.
   City planner Sarah Lejeune presented the staff report, standing in for lead planner on the project, Karen Ginsburg, who, for the purposes of the meeting was considered the “applicant.” (A designation that would prove confusing throughout the evening, as Ginsburg would attempt to answer commissioners’ questions to staff, forgetting her temporary position.)
   Ginsburg began the Applicant-City’s presentation by stating that the City had offered “numerous opportunities for public participation” in the project – a statement that would be questioned by some community members as the evening wore on.
   She then gave the floor to Eisenberg and Spurlock, who quickly ran through the elements of the plans for the expanded park, including a “schematic design” using “ribbons of roof,” that would, according to Eisenberg, represent the “linking together of the community as it struggles to find the best use for open space [in its neighborhood.]”
   The choice of the word “struggle,” likely resonated with many in the crowd, as the Virginia Avenue Park expansion project has been mired in delays since it was initiated in the mid-1980s. The architect’s well-meaning language about “linking” the community not-so-subtly referred to the perceived rift between the Latino and African American communities that make up a good portion of the Pico neighborhood.
   This mildly paternalistic tone would be echoed during the course of the meeting, as commissioners, staff, and members of the public spoke of Latina mothers being “very protective” of their children, the park serving as “the living room” or “front and backyard” of the community, and people in the Pico neighborhood being unable to afford cars, and thus unable to go elsewhere to swim or market.
   The first member of the public to speak was Duke Kelso, a Sunset Park resident who felt that noise from events at the proposed outdoor pavilion would disturb neighbors in the area. Referring to the newly-updated Environmental Impact Report (EIR), which the commission was being asked to approve, Kelso said he was disappointed that the sound engineer hired by the City, “does not address [the sound issues], just prefers to dismiss them as ‘not a significant impact.’”
   Kelso was met by an impatient response from commissioners, who made it clear that since the conditional use permit for the park allows only four to five amplified events per year, they felt the discomfort to neighbors would be minor.
   Kelso was followed by a senior at Santa Monica High School, who is a member of the Virginia Avenue Park Design Project. Glancing Kelso’s way, she said, “It seems like a lot of people are against this just because of noise,” adding “It’s time that youth have somewhere to go instead of getting into a lot of trouble.” Members of the Youth Design Project were directly involved in creating much of the proposed park’s youth center, including “loud” and “quiet” spaces for hanging out, listening to music or studying, and the use of recycled trash dumpsters as the center’s awning.
   The inclusion of the Saturday Farmers Market in the park expansion led many people to the podium Wednesday night. Almost everyone praised the market (which currently sets up shop on the empty lot at the corner of Pico and Cloverfield Boulevards), but many complained that extra parking spaces provided for Farmers Market shoppers, along with the actual area set aside for the weekly market, “wastes precious green space.”
   Others spoke out against the “crushed granular material,” or gravel, that is proposed as the ground cover for both the Farmers Market area, and the surrounding parking. (The project’s designers were forced to look into porous materials for these areas due to City regulations limiting water run-off.)
   Pico Neighborhood resident and Virginia Avenue Park Advisory Board (VAPAB) member CeCe Bradley spoke in favor of the Market, stating firmly, “The Farmers Market was born out of this community, and [it] has given back 100-fold to this community.” She praised Pico Farmers Market manager Ted Galvan, and stressed that the health and social benefits of the Market were extremely important to the neighborhood.
   VAPAB Chair Alex Munoz, in response to complaints about lack of public input, said, “We worked very hard to include everyone in the public process. It was both extensive and fair,” adding, “My fear is that if [the expansion is] delayed it will truly demoralize the community.”
   Speaking directly after Munoz, Pico Neighborhood Association member Tarik Ricard countered, “This park process is an abomination…many of our ideas have been ignored…the present plan should not be approved, it should be scrapped.”
   In the end, the Santa Monica Planning Commission did not agree. They discussed amongst themselves issues of their concern — Chair Kelly Olsen did not like the roof elements in the design and felt “the public process may not have served itself right on that point,” Commissioner Geraldine Moyle wanted strong language to limit parking to park visitors, Commissioner Jay Johnson pitched for planting larger trees.
   Satisfied, they began to vote on the first motion before them, when, almost as an afterthought, Chair Olsen stopped to interrupt. “I think that this is the place to get this over with. I’d hate it when I used to sit out there and come and testify to people here, and people would raise a bunch of points over and over and over again and then [the Commissioners would] just act like they weren’t listened to and they didn’t hear them…we really haven’t talked about some of the larger issues here.”
   He then quickly listed concerns and ideas that had been brought up during the course of the evening —including the possibility of moving the Farmers Market to a different location, reducing parking at the park, and addressing noise issues — and the Commission just as quickly shot them down.
Of the process, Commissioner Barbara Brown stated, “Unfortunately, it’s not a situation where everyone can be satisfied – that’s even trite to say…I think, though, in balance, we’re doing the right thing.”
   Commissioner Julie Dad, who had said little during the evening, added, “For the 20 years that I’ve been an activist in Santa Monica I’ve been hearing that the needs of the Pico neighborhood are ignored, that we talk about it but we don’t do anything. It’s here. We have something that we can do, and it is this project.”
After adding its required mitigations to the Conditional Use Permit, including adding a pedestrian gateway on the Pico Boulevard side of the park, prohibition of park parking for non-visitors, disallowing the use of bull-horns, adding an eight foot wall behind the hedge at the western edge of the park, and the use of “truck diapers” or drip pans under Farmers Market vehicles, the commission voted unanimously to approve all 5 elements put before it, so that the expansion of Virginia Avenue Park may go forward.