Protect Our Coastal Zone

AFTER AN EIGHT YEAR BATTLE AND TWO LAWSUITS, THE COALITION’S WORK PREVAILED! HERE’S THE BULLET VENICE JUST DODGED:

THE VENICE MEDIAN PROJECT – THE MOST EXPENSIVE “AFFORDABLE HOUSING” IN THE COUNTRY:

Costing over $1.2 million per average 460 sq.ft. unit!

Investing an estimated $200 million (including land value and replacement parking costs) to build a project a block from the beach, in a FEMA designated flood zone should never have required hours of community time and money invested to expose this project in court, which became necessary after our concerns were ignored by the city and developers.

WE’VE TAKEN TWO CASES TO COURT:

1) CEQA case- the Coalition learned Judge Fruin was determined to green light any “affordable housing”. We continue to believe that building housing at this extraordinary taxpayer cost, that disregards environmental impacts, is irresponsible and negligent.

The Coalition appealed Fruin’s decision to the higher court, but was forced to withdraw due to the extreme cost of going up against one of the largest law firms in the world, working pro bono for the developers while trying to recover costs from us.

2) The DDA lawsuit (the DDA is the disposition and development agreement that gives away our land to a Hollywood Developer for a $1/year lease for 99 years). While we did not win in court, the lawsuit exposed and accomplished the goals we were trying to achieve.

The court confirmed the City must take the project back to City Council before “conveying” the lease agreement. The judge agreed with us that “these sneaky deals should be revealed earlier in the process”.

5-5-24 Trial Transcript. Judge Chalfant to the Coalition’s Attorney, Jamie Hall:

A significant win in the case was the admission by the City that the missed planning step of going to the City Transportation Commission would be corrected. We also exposed the reuse-analysis that was commissioned by the City and showed many risks of the project that was never shared with the public or the City Council (including the fraudulent-appearing appraisal valuing this 40 lots, a block from the beach at $3.4 million when a few years earlier the same land was appraised by the City’s independent appraiser at $34 million).

We were assured in court, that after Transportation Commission, our Councilwoman would have an an opportunity to take all of this information back to Council before the final “conveyance” of the lease.

OUR EMAIL BLAST RECAPS WHERE WE ARE NOW:

First, Transportation Commission-

For those of you who joined us downtown at Transportation Commission, thank you! You showed up for our community, for all of Venice and for all Angelenos and visitors to the beach, and we are truly grateful!

Transportation Commission was both impressive and inspiring. To finally have our concerns (and a few additional concerns) addressed by true transportation experts in a transparent presentation is a demonstration of how the City process was intended to operate. The developers’ attorneys argued the Commission had no business reviewing a new parking structure. This is simply not true- it is one of the primary functions of the Commission and a reason our DDA lawsuit challenged the City when they had not completed this step.

We applaud the DOT and the Transportation Commission for their thorough and thoughtful review of this rare and valuable piece of Venice property and commend their common sense findings and recommendations on what best benefits all of Venice and Los Angeles.

We also appreciate that despite a very busy City Council day our Councilwoman, Traci Park, made time to come to the hearing and comment on behalf of her district.

And then there was Coastal Commission-

We were prepared for Coastal to approve the project no matter what. The project was even posted on their website as if already approved, with a fact sheet saying they have “never said no to an affordable housing project”. Despite this, we had a great turnout, both in person and online, to take our efforts through to the end of the Coastal process. Thank you to all those who made the trip to Newport and called in on zoom. Many powerful statements were made for the record and our speakers did an amazing job!

Coastal’s decision was disheartening as it seems they are prioritizing affordable housing at any cost over protecting and enhancing access to our coast.

Our urgent need now is to pay our lawyers! A lot happened quickly and our legal team was persistent and stayed with us throughout. Please help us pay for their epic work!