THE PARKING GANGS OF VENICE


By John Davis

As the Coastal Commission pretends to act as a legitimate regulatory authority of the State, local interests such as the County and City of Los Angels are exploiting this failure of due process in an orgy of greed.


Together this gang of three have and are giving public parking in the Coastal Zone away to private for profit corporations in apparent violation of the State Constitution and the California Coastal Act .

The City of Los Angles, utilizing a proposed and unapproved component of the future Venice Local Coastal Plan, grants what it terms hardship exemptions to new commercial development.

Since the new commercial developments are excused from providing the requisite number of parking places for their customers, private for profit corporations encroach on parking Californians use to visit the sea. Why, because the value of a square inch of real estate near the coast has rocketed into the stratosphere.

For instance, if a new commercial development cannot meet it’s Coastal Act parking requirements for customers, the City allows the developers to pay an “in lieu” fee to exchange existing public parking (access to the sea) for business parking places (access for business parking). That fee is then placed into a City fund that promises to someday replace that parking, someplace, but is not required to be in the Coastal Zone. Perhaps they intend to replace access to the sea in the mountains.

This is no different than if the City approved two Walmarts in Venice, granted them hardship exemptions for parking, and gave over to the corporate giant all public parking places in Venice. Think of how much those square inches of public parking would be worth in combination.

A laughable mitigation accepted by the City and Coastal Commission is that armies of parking Valet Companies will somehow save the day. In reality those same companies will simply stand on public property, charge the public money, then park the autos on, you guessed, it, public property.

One of the most obvious and damning rogue valet solutions is apparent on Abbot Kinney Blvd. near the intersection of California. A public parking lot has been fenced off by a local business, denying the public access to the Vera Davis Center. The community center is just across the street from the parking lot and hosts meetings of the Venice Neighborhood Council, it’s committees, and many worthwhile public functions. Yet patrons are forced to seek street-parking blocks away when that public lot across the street should be open. It should provide handicapped parking for those too frail to make a three block hike to the public meeting place.

Look at Washington Blvd. near the Venice pier. This is one of the most important access points to the sea. Walk on the pier and you can see a diversity of cultures. In the evening many fishermen of lower economic stature fish for entertainment and to sometimes provide food for their families.

Yet, another brigade level force of valets has moved in and taken over about 12 parking places. Their cadre of drivers quickly drive high end sports cars and limos to another public parking location and sprint back across all traffic signals for the next race like crisscross.

The City continues approving even more parking giveaways for almost all major development and the County follows suit.

For a slightly different public parking scheme we need only to look to Deauville apartments and anchorage in Marina del Rey. MDR is a publicly owned small craft harbor authorized by the U.S. Rivers and Harbors Act of 1954 and the 84th Congress. The County, a subset of the State of California, utilized loans from State Tidelands funds, Bond Revenue Measures, and the United States to finance the public resource.

But now the County pretends it may treat the public small craft harbor as a mini Playa Vista.

In Deauville Marina, an old County Lease is controlled by an interesting group of local millionaires, second most well known of which is attorney and real estate developer Douglas R. Ring.

The first best known of the larger group is City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski.

When attending a town hall meeting of the Venice Neighborhood Council she was asked about the holdings in Marina del Rey. In answer those holdings were characterized as those of her husband, Doug Ring. Well that was half-true, but can you expect from some L.A. City Council Members?

Another parking twist has been made at Cindy and Doug’s County leasehold. The new plans call for tearing down existing housing and replacing it with higher density luxury apartments, but more parking was needed.

The County and Coastal Commission found it in the form of existing boater parking.

So the gang’s parking solution was to claim existing small boater parking. On the Deauville project each boat slip requires three quarters of a parking place to conform to County ordinances in addition to provisions for the handicapped. Parking for the established use, (boater parking) must remain at the same location of the use.

How to steal it from the public though?

This plan required the removal of a substantial amount of small boat slips. Then incorporate that parking into new luxury residential development. The certified Marina Local Coastal Plan states in the Land Use Plan that Boating is a priority in the public marina and residential is not.

Yet the County is now proposing to allow hotels to be placed on the entirety of the last remaining public parking lots in the Marina, at Mothers Beach, at the public lot next to the Waterfowl refuge on Admiralty and in the area of the public launch ramp. Traffic from those projects will quickly overwhelm Pacific, Ocean, Abbot Kinney, and other North West streets not to mention impacting shrinking parking in Venice.

In 1994 Coastal Commission Staff advised the County those parking lots would be best utilized by providing Venice Beach parking and running shuttles. What happened to that very good advice?

Is access to the sea (parking) legally transferable to private interests that will greedily devour it? Should access to the Sea be only for those wealthy enough to dine at high end restaurants staffed by valet mercenaries?

Hell no, law prohibits it.

Article 16 of the California prohibits the gifting of public property without adequate compensation. Payment of in lieu fees are not sufficient in Venice and the promise to replace existing boater parking in MDR somewhere else in the future is not enough.

Even if the Constitution did not speak to the matter the California Coastal Act does.

Section 30211 of the Coastal Act reads as follows, “Development shall not interfere with the public’s right of access to the sea where acquired through use or legislative authorization, including, but not limited to, the use of dry sand and rocky coastal beaches to the first line of terrestrial vegetation.

Public Parking in the Coastal Zone is access acquired by decades of use.

Is the gang of three interfering with the public’s access rights to the sea? Decide the next time you need public parking in the Coastal Zone and are waved away by one of the local Valet Mafia.

Posted: Mon - December 1, 2003 at 03:47 PM          

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