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Johnson Thurston <[email protected]>
Monday, March 21, 2016 10:32 AM
Kevin McKeown Fwd; Tony Vazquez; Gleam Davis; Sue Himmelrich; Pam OConnor;
Terry O’Day; Ted Winterer; councilmtgitems
Public Comment for 3/22/2016 8B - Parks Needed
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Dear City Council,
Thank you for taking time to address the cities dire need for more green space. As mentioned in the report,
"Santa Monica has 134 park acres with a resident population of more than 92,000, which equates to
approximately 1.4 park acres per 1,000 residents. The County average is 3.3 acres [of parkland] per
1,000 residents”
Furthermore, I suspect this metric only takes into account residents and not the influx of visitors, so the
disparity might be even higher.
For your priorities, please consider remember the needs map on Study Area report page 18. (I attached a screen
shot below)
Please allocate the LA county 10 points
TOP PRIORITY
1) Badly needed new park in the red zones (3 points) <= if possible, spend extra points here
2) Build a sports field at the Civic Center (2 points)
3) Build a park at the 4th/5th Streets and Arizona Ave. site (using part of the site and/or all of the site) (2 points)
4) Replace existing or add new drinking fountains to parks (with bottle fillers and/or dog bowls) (1 point)
Of note, I am very supportive of the Airport Park, but I agree with Staff recommendation that LA funds not be
used as it may muck up and slow down the airport process.
On behalf of my friends and neighbors,
thank you again!
Johnson Thurston
Santa Monica CA
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councilmtgitems
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Monday, March 21, 2016 3:59 PM
councilmtgitems
FW: A Master Plan of Pocket Parks for Santa Monica
SM STREETS City Council Mtg 3-22-2016.ppsx
From: Ron Goldman [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 3:45 PM To: Council Mailbox <[email protected]>; Gleam Davis <[email protected]>; Kevin McKeown Fwd <[email protected]>; Pam OConnor <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Ted Winterer <[email protected]>; Terry O’Day <[email protected]>; Tony Vazquez <[email protected]>; Rick Cole <[email protected]> Subject: A Master Plan of Pocket Parks for Santa Monica Attached is a simple but potentially far‐reaching concept of re‐purposing excess infrastructure, i.e. ½ block “side streets,” into a master plan of parks throughout Santa Monica without any impacts to basic residential circulation or emergency and maintenance access, and with no land acquisition time or cost. Knowing I’m pursuing this program for South Central neighborhoods, at the invitation of LA County Parks & Recreation Countywide Park Needs Assessment, I presented this concept at a meeting of their 25 member “planning & development” staff which was positively received and I believe they would welcome “pocket parks” and “more community garden space” as a priority. Additionally, Rick Cole previously received this and expressed a very positive reaction. It was presented to the Parks Commission where it fits their priorities of “small/pocket parks” and “more community gardens.” This was also presented at NOMA and F.O.S.P. meetings and again positively received. Thank you for your consideration. Ron Goldman Ron Goldman FAIA Goldman Firth Rossi Architects 24955 Pacific Coast Highway Suite C201 Malibu, CA 90265 310 456 1831 www.gfarchitects.com 1
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councilmtgitems
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Council Mailbox
Monday, March 21, 2016 3:59 PM
Tony Vazquez; Ted Winterer; Pam OConnor; Sue Himmelrich; Gleam Davis; Terry O’Day;
Kevin McKeown Fwd
councilmtgitems; Karen Ginsberg
FW: Item 8B: County Funding for New Parks
Council‐ Please see the below email re: County park funding. Clerk‐ Add‐to for 3/22 Council meeting. Thanks, Stephanie From: Mike Feinstein [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 1:45 PM To: Council Mailbox <[email protected]> Subject: Item 8B: County Funding for New Parks Dear Councilmembers
My column in today’s Santa Monica Daily Press regarding item 8B, in favor of the staff recommendation.
I also agree with the Airport2Park letter, that we don’t try to add a multi-use facility to the 12 acres at the
airport, and instead we continue to expedite the field space there.
Inside/Outside, March 21, 2016: County Funding for New Parks
By Michael Feinstein
In our highly dense City, the need for more public open space is acute. Even if we doubled our current amount
tomorrow, we would still be far below the bare minimum recommended for U.S. cities.
In the early-to-mid 1990s this scarcity led to a broad movement uniting the local sports and open
space communities, as well as Santa Monica's neighborhood groups, to strongly advocate for more
parks, recreational facilities and open space.
In March 1995 the Santa Monica Youth Athletic Foundation was founded, with a 50 member board uniting
leaders from the sports and business communities, youth-serving non-profits, and representatives from the City,
School District and College.
They published a landmark document called “A Call to Action: An Assessment of Athletic Facility Needs in
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Our Community”. At 44 pages, A Call to Action comprehensively identified needs, problems and03/22/2016
solutions for
a wide range of sports, and helped make addressing them a campaign issue in the 1996 City Council elections.
By Summer 1997, the City Council approved an ambitious Open Space
Element (http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/PCD/Plans/General-Plan/Open-SpaceElement/Adopted-Open-Space-Element-1997.pdf), and a Recreation and Parks Master Plan. The City has made
a lot of progress since then, improving existing parks, building great new ones, and implementing the school
parks program with the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District.
At the same time – especially in Santa Monica, where available land is scarce and expensive – it's not easy to
gain new open space on the scale and pace we'd like, let alone fund its construction, programming, operation
and maintenance.
Open Space Budget Set-asides
In response to community calls, the Council put aside $3.5 million for open space acquisition in the FY19971998 budget. This gave the City flexibility to make a key purchase when land became available - which it did
at 2101 and 2115 Pico Boulevard (the old Plastic Mart and the building adjacent) next to Virginia Ave. Park.
Those buildings were renovated and became part of the Park, and today house approximately 14,600 square feet
for youth oriented program activities.
Smaller budget set-asides for open space acquisition were approved by the Council the next two years. Then the
practice disappeared, as competing priorities began to take precedent. At the same time, City revenue fell
substantially as a result of the recession of 2001 and the effects of September 11th upon tourism. Then the state
of California began taking money from cities to balance its own budget, compounding the problem. All of that
meant fewer available dollars for discretionary projects and programs, including land acquisition. But the City
still had its Redevelopment Agency (RDA) funds, which allowed it to continue to do many great things.
Then in 2011 Governor Jerry Brown took a meat cleaver to the RDA Funds, cutting off a major source of City
funding for affordable housing, parks, libraries and earthquake retrofits (of public parking structures) since the
late 1990s, after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake led to the creation of a redevelopment area in
Santa Monica. (http://www.smgov.net/Departments/HED/Housing_and_Redevelopment/RDA/Key_Redevelop
ment_Projects.aspx )
The Cost of Gentrification
The irony is that what we do in Santa Monica to promote a high quality of life here also raises the cost of land,
and therefore makes it more expensive to accomplish many public policy goals. The RDA funds gave Santa
Monica a chance to reinvest part of that increased value – generated by public investment and public policy
– back into the community.
Now the RDA funds are gone, but the cost of land continues to rise. With the advent of the Expo light rail line,
it is even more so – gentrification accelerated by the expenditure of public dollars, but without a tax strategy to
recycle that gentrification back for public purposes. (Amending statewide Proposition 13 via a Land Value
Tax that would raise the tax on land, and lower it on structures, would address this.)
At the same time, the local election ballot has been crowded with numerous other revenue measures. Since the
passage of the Open Space Element in 1997, Santa Monica voters have seen $427 million in local School
District bonds, $590 million in Santa Monica College bonds, School District parcel taxes, a $42 million City
library bond and a Clean Beaches and Oceans Parcel Tax, along with amending the Transit Occupancy Tax, the
Real Estate Transfer Tax and the Transactions and Use Tax. And that doesn't include the multiple county and
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state bonds and revenue measures during this time.
So even in a community like Santa Monica, where open space and recreational facility expansion is a hight
priority, and meaningful resources exists, there are many competing and complicating factors. That's why two
unique opportunities for new open space should be celebrated – the Countywide Parks Needs Assessment, and
proposed new urban open space at the 5th/Broadway.
Countywide Parks Needs Assessment
The County of Los Angeles is conducting a Countywide Parks Needs Assessment. The goal is to inform future
open space planning and funding needs countywide. The County is identifying priority projects for 189 study
areas. Santa Monica is one of them.
On Tuesday the City Council will vote to transmit Santa Monica's priority list to the County Department of
Parks & Recreation. The Countywide Assessment will go to the Board of Supervisors in May. While the
assessment is formally separate and distinct from any future bond measure, there is the expectation that the
Supervisors will ultimately place a county wide parks bond on a future ballot.
If passed, the City would get a proportionate share of the revenue. The highest priorities identified in the City
Staff Recommendation include three long-standing community goals and
plans (http://santamonicacityca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_LegiFile.aspx?Frame=&MeetingID=1059&MediaPo
sition=&ID=1728&CssClass=):
• Expanding Memorial Park to include the 2.91 acre former Fisher Lumber site
• Building a sports field at 4th/Pico (on a portion of the land that currently serves as the Civic Center Parking
Lot)
• Expanding Airport Park on 12 acres of non-aviation land (over which the City regained control after
the expiration of the 1984 Agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration in July 2015).
Fortunately in all three of these cases, the City already owns the land, and now 'only' needs to fund design and
construction. The County will be doing a cost estimate, as if all of the projects identified in the report were to be
implemented. Then there will be a process to align those desires with a dollar amount the voters would approve.
Although there is no guarantee about which if any of Santa Monica's priorities would be funded, the City has a
positive record with past County bonds.
In 1992, County Proposition A provided $540 million in funding over a 22-year period for parks and recreation
projects countywide, including approximately $10 million for Santa Monica – including $3.9 for Palisades Park
improvements (http://www.wrtdesign.com/projects/detail/south-beach-improvements-santa-monica-beachimprovement-group/164), as part of the late 1990s/early 2000s BIG (Beach Improvement Group) Project
(http://www.smgov.net/portals/culture/Content.aspx?id=20006), which also included renovation of Ocean Front
Walk south of the Pier to Marine St. (https://www.asla.org/meetings/awards/awds02/santamonica.html). County
funds have also funded improvements for Clover, Euclid, Joslyn, Marine, Ozone and Reed parks. (The County
has an online mapping tool parksprojects.lacounty.gov that is searchable by city and can be referenced for
grant-funded projects including dollar amounts allocated and a concise summary of what each
project entailed.) A supplemental measure to Proposition A passed in 1996 and provided an additional
$319 million in funding, and will expire in 2017. So the time to plan the next County bond is now.
Whether the new County bond will fund all or only part of Santa Monica's priority list, its going to help move
some important long-awaited local projects forward, just like it has in the past. This is a critical momentum step
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for our local open space movement. If you haven't already made yourself heard, let the City Council
know
03/22/2016
your thoughts via email <[email protected]> or come to City Hall on Tuesday night. It is item #8B, following
#8A, the Santa Monica Airport Leasing Policy item. So it should be a fascinating night at City Hall.
Urban Open Space at 5th/Broadway
One way of gaining new open space is acquiring more publicly-owned land. As we’ve seen, that can be
expensive. Another is having it included as part of private development. That can be tricky.
While most private projects are built on smaller parcels where open space potential is limited, in a handful of
cases in our downtown, there are parcels large enough to provide interesting and relatively sizable open spaces.
But that requires the right zoning and two parties willing to negotiate. Can we take advantage of these
limited and unique opportunities?
Next week I'll explore one such opportunity, where an interesting urban open space is proposed for the SE
corner of 5th/Broadway, as part of a project proposed for the 'Fred Segal' site there.
------------------------------------
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councilmtgitems
From:
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Council Mailbox
Monday, March 21, 2016 4:01 PM
Tony Vazquez; Ted Winterer; Pam OConnor; Sue Himmelrich; Gleam Davis; Terry O’Day;
Kevin McKeown Fwd
councilmtgitems; Karen Ginsberg; Elaine Polachek
FW: Airport Park plans
Follow Up Flag:
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Council‐ Please see email below re: County park funding. Clerk‐ Add‐to for 3/22 meeting. Thanks, Stephanie From: Debbie [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 9:58 AM To: Council Mailbox <[email protected]> Subject: Airport Park plans Dear Cith Council:
I read with interest your choices of parks you wish to obtain county funds for. For a very long time, I've looked
at the back side of Airport Park, from 23rd St., and thought it would be a wonderful place for a botanical
garden.
World class cities have botanical gardens, with a strong volunteer component. I believe we Santa Monicans can
have a wonderful one, similar to the UC Davis Botanical garden (long park with bicycle trails within). I even
envision a bicycle map and route that links our parks, along pretty residential streets, so everyone can enjoy
them via bike.
When you consider land use of Airport Park land, please consider making a botanical garden as a skirt around
the very large park. Please don't forget that many of us locals love to garden and will help to make it a very
beautiful park, full of native trees, shrubs, plants and life.
Thanks so much for keeping this in the back of your minds. And thank you for anything you do by increasing
outdoor spaces for all of us.
http://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/
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Debbie Ford,(avid organic gardener)
2514 Euclid St.
Santa Monica, CA
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