Thanks for emailing Coastal Commission in opposition to Agenda Item #18a for Wednesday to extend the deadline for their premature approval for the land use plan changes to allow for the Venice Dell project.
Your response was affirming as always, with roughly 200 emails sent to the Commissioners and copied to City Officials, who need to know we will continue to respond to those who refuse to accept the absurdity of this failed project and who need to allow the City to explore sustainable alternate affordable housing options.
We expect many from the Venice Dell developers’ side to be on the Zoom hearing supporting Coastal’s extension, yet as pointed out by Coastal staff back in December: “…ultimately the City owns the project site and is the final arbiter of what development may occur there”. The City determined this lot was not feasible for the project. The City has not asked for this extension. No land, no project- and still, here we go again…
Please go online and submit a “speaker card” for Wednesday’s agenda item (even if you are not available to speak, sign up for a speaker card anyway- it helps demonstrate public interest and concern). This should be done by Tuesday at 5 pm if possible but you can submit a speaker card online up to the start of the item’s hearing.
Full Instructions:
Go to the Coastal Commission agenda:
https://www.coastal.ca.gov/meetings/agenda/#/2025/6
Click on “Submit Speaker Request Here.”
Select Wednesday.
Provide your email, name, phone number, and other miscellaneous info.
For the last question select “A specific Agendized Item,” then select “Next”
At the top of the next page, choose agenda item 18a.
Then choose “9. I am an interested member of the public.”
For “Is there more than one person speaking along with you” select “No.”
Select “I wish to speak.”
Select “I oppose the staff recommendation”, then select “Next”
On the next page, for “Name of your group?” select “Next.”
On the next page, for “Visual aid?” select “No,” then select “Next”.
On the next page, for “Campaign contribution” select “No.”
Scroll down and select “Submit.”
You will receive two emails, one confirmation and the other with information for Wednesday’s meeting, including the zoom link.
On Wednesday, log onto the zoom starting at 9 am and monitor the progress of the agenda. Usually the hearing goes pretty quickly and we estimate this agenda item could come up late morning, even though it is near the end of the agenda.
At the start of the hearing for the agenda item, click on “Raise Hand.”
Suggested Comments:
▪ The December 11, 2024 Coastal approval was premature and out of sequence. Coastal should have listened to the City Attorney and waited for the City to complete the Transportation Commission hearing before proceeding with their hearing. The City’s hearing exposed many additional flaws of the project related to the parking garage in the middle of the project, with housing units sharing a wall with the garage, risks of liability if needing repair or in a disaster, as well as the recognition that building a $25-million dollar parking garage was not feasible for a City in a fiscal crisis.
▪ If the Coastal Commission feels the need to invest itself in the creation of affordable housing rather than focus on the clear standard of review with respect to the many serious environmental flaws and violations of the Coastal Act regarding beach access for all visitors, it should recognize the Lot 701 alternative proposed by the City and stop aligning with the developers, who are stalling the process for production of actual feasible affordable housing.
▪ Recent rhetoric from Venice Dell supporters takes a newly threatened demand from opportunists for a possible $10 million in supposed damages, and contends that eliminating this legal exposure by moving ahead with the project is equivalent to saving 100 jobs from being cut in the budget process. If this is the math game they are playing, the likely $25 million to build the new garage would in their own terms cost the city 250 jobs in that same budget- so they need to stop the game playing. Please do not contribute to this waste of time and money. Do not approve the extension and stop the opportunists.
▪ Outrageous monetary demands are now coming from opportunists and bad actors, which Coastal’s extension of the ill-fated approval only enables. Please put an end to this nonsense and do not approve the extension.
▪ Please let the adults in the room do their job and build affordable housing that doesn’t have to cost $1.4 million per small 400 sq.ft. unit a block from the beach in a FEMA flood zone. There is an alternative directly next door to the original project site, but that is not enough for the desperate developers who want their Venice Dell boondoggle at the taxpayers’ expense. It’s time to move on and Coastal needs to let this go. Please stop the insanity (the ultimate display here of doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result), and do not approve the extension.
▪ Question for Coastal Staff: have you read the Transportation Commission’s fact based report? If so, we expect that this extension request most likely would not be on the agenda today. Enough already! No extensions, no excuses, let the City do its job!
Thank you for continuing to speak out!
With Appreciation-
The Team at Safe Coastal Development
P.S. We’re still trying to pay our lawyers- please donate if you can!