MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING
“The Future of Housing in Del Rey – Boom or Gloom?”
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Playa del Rey Elementary School
Recorded by cable channel 35

Flag Salute – Venice Japanese Community Center Explorer Post 764.

Introductions - DRHNA Board and Advisors; the committee that planned the meeting; the new editor of the newsletter, Mary Anderson.
Del Rey Day will be on Saturday, October 28, not October 21 (error in newsletter).

Opening Remarks by Moderator Councilman Bill Rosendahl:
1. Home Depot has purchased the 20 acre Jefferson Blvd. post office site for $75 million, and Home Depot has committed to give five acres of the land for use as a park.
2. Affordable housing is disappearing from the 11th Council District. Fifty per cent of Del Rey’s residents are renters. Councilman Rosendahl negotiated to triple the exit money that was paid to residents of Lincoln Place in Venice. [They disrupted the DRHNA’s Fall General Meeting in 2005.]
3. The City of Los Angeles will be posting signs to indicate the boundaries of the Del Rey part of Los Angeles.
4. He supports Proposition H ($1 billion housing bond) on the November 7, 2006, ballot.
5. He has moved for a moratorium on condominium conversions in the district. Public discussion of his proposal probably will occur around Thanksgiving.

Beth Steckler, policy director for Livable Places.
1. A member of The Alliance for A Livable Los Angeles.
2. Los Angeles County’s population was three million in 1940. Population grew between 1980 and 2000, but the area lost 250,000 jobs. By 2030, the county will have about 30% more residents, primarily because the birth rate is higher than the death rate.
3. In the 1990s the county acquired 650,000 new residents, but only 120,000 new homes were built.
4. Morning rush hour speeds averaged 31 mph in 1998, and will be 15 mph by 2025.
5. Traffic is caused 13% by population growth, 35% by increased trip length and 18% by an increase in the number of trips taken.
6. “Smart Growth” can be encouraged with:
a. Infill v. sprawl
b. Use of transit v. traffic
c. Main street v. malls
d. People space v. Car space.
e. Investment v. Neglect
f. Holistic v. Piecemeal
7. The city needs a unifying vision, with public policies that “preserve the choice to stay” [in the city].
8. The City of Los Angeles has a General Plan Framework, and the Southern California Growth Vision is called COMPASS.
9. See www.smartgrowthamerica.org and www.livableplaces. Org

Sara Dassault, adviser to Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti.
Formerly the assistant deputy mayor on Housing and Homelessness.
If Proposition H passes, the money will be used as follows to promote affordable housing:
1. $250 million on permanent supportive housing for the homeless i.e. people who earn 0 – 30% of the median income. There are 48,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County on any given night.
2. $350 million for more affordable rental housing. The City can leverage available HUD funding.
3. $250 million to promote homeownership by helping tenants to buy their units if they become condominiums.

Jonathan Neumann, construction manager for Tri-Cal Construction; Area A representative on the Del Rey Neighborhood Council. 1. The Maxella-Glencoe Specific Plan (mplemented 1993) was designed to be smart growth. The area had been primarily industrial, but that was no longer working.
2. The “Residential Accessory Services Zones” in the plan penalized people who developed commercial property so an exception was requested to allow commercial/mixed uses.
3. As of 2006, 1717 new housing units are being build in Area A of the Del Rey Neighborhood Council (now also part of the DRHNA).
4. Glencoe will be widened 30 feet. Redwood will be widened 18 feet. Beach will be widened 10 feet. There will be curb parking. Each unit will have 1Ú2 parking space for guest parking.
5. Goal is to have residents within walking distance of service businesses.
6. In the past, the Del Rey Terrace generated $160,000 in property taxes. The 96 new homes will generate $627,400 in property taxes. The development will contribute $252,000 of Quimby Funds and $340,000 of school tax fees. All of Area A will generate $5 million in Quimby Funds, which must be used within one-half mile of the development.

Closing Remarks – Bill Rosendahl

1. Playa Vista put $2.2 million into Transportation mitigation.
2. The Sepulveda Streetscape Project will spend up to $8 million on transportation mitigation.
3. The Councilman is working on getting left turn lanes, signage throughout the 11th District, which runs from Mulholland to Imperial, from the 405 freeway to the ocean.
4. Santa Monica has dropped from 97,000 residents to 84,000 residents. It offers nine per cent of the jobs in the county, but has only three per cent of the population.

Question/Answer
1. The affordable rental units are offered subject to a 35 – 55 year covenant that the units must remain affordable. The goal is to have the tenants buy out the investors within 15 years. They will be townhomes, not condominiums.
2. Beth Strickler said that there are about 75 nonprofit housing developers in Los Angeles County, and they might be interested in keeping the affordability covenants in effect after 55 years. There are 6000 units of affordable housing in downtown Los Angeles,
3. All speakers spoke well of Gail Goldberg, the new head of the Los Angeles Planning Commission. According to Jonathan Neumann her vision is that Los Angeles will be a town made of many villages. [We should invite her to speak to DRHNA about the General Plan for Del Rey.]
4. Everything west of Lincoln Blvd. is in the Coastal Zone. Anyone seeking approval for a demolition or conversion permit in the Coastal Zone must comply with California Government Code sections 65590 and 65590.1 (the 1982 Mello Act), which seeks to preserve housing for persons and families with low and moderate incomes in the Coastal Zone.
5. Several apartment owners spoke, expressing concern that the property owners are being expected to pay increasing costs, and yet their incomes are limited by rent control. Sara Dassault responded that the City adopted its Major Rehabilitation Initiative one year ago so that landlords can make capital improvements to their properties.
6. The fees charged for the Systematic Code Enforcement Program are levied annually but were calculated assuming the inspections would be triannual.
7. Arnie Carlin, a director of the Apartment Association of Los Angeles, wanted to know when the existing Housing Authority would be made responsible for its failure to effectively administer the funds already available to it for affordable housing. Sara Dassault responded that there has been turnover in the management at the Authority. The current general manager of the Los Angeles Housing Department, Mercedes Marquez, is working to address the issue of why the Authority has not been using its resources.
8. Comments by Bill Rosendahl:
a. The Expo Line will run from downtown to the beach (the Sears Roebuck site in Santa Monica) within the next seven to nine years.
b. He wants to see the Playa Vista Phase II EIR right away.
c. The Harbor light rail line (runs along Slauson Ave.) will be extended so that it will link to the airport.
d. He is pushing for the Green Line to run from the South Bay to Santa Monica.
e. Mayor Villaraigosa supports having a subway down Wilshire Blvd.
f. By putting housing and public transit near each other, one reduces the need for parking.
9. Some audience members commented that in the past, people who could not afford housing simply worked and waited until they could afford to buy or build. Why should there be subsidies for people?
10. Keith Lambert of the Mar Vista Community Council spoke of the need to have places for businesses that are not so clean. He suggested that the parking requirements for new apartment buildings make the costs of building rental housing prohibitive.
a. The panelists responded that in some areas, the parking requirements have been reduced for affordable housing units, particularly those located near public transit.
b. Do our parking requirements match our vision for the area?
c. Presently, there is a freeze on converting industrial property for residential use.
d. Is 2.5 parking spaces per housing unit enough? Is the Planning Department rubberstamping condominium projects?
e. Should Del Rey adopt Santa Monica’s plan of having parking districts?
f. There is a limit to the number of service businesses that can survive in a residential area.

Before the meeting, there was discussion of whether questions should have to be submitted in writing or if people could ask questions from the floor. Councilman Rosendahl said that as moderator, he would handle disruptive questioners, so we did not require that questions be submitted in writing. Questioners did have to speak from the lectern, though, because the proceedings were being taped for broadcast.