Last Tuesday, the city of Culver City held a public workshop to discuss its updating of the Housing Element portion of the city’s General Plan.
The stated purposes of this workshop were to introduce this activity and to solicit public input.
Reflecting on this afterward, I believe that the city employees and John Douglas, a planning consultant from Conexus, did a thorough job explaining what the Housing Element is and means, and why it is let important or useful to review and revise this document every six years.
Thus, the seminar portion of this experience met the city’s first purpose very well.
However, I strongly feel that MEANINGFUL public input, the city’s second purpose, will be unlikely as a result of this workshop for two reasons:
First of all, 80 percent of the public attending the workshop were city employees connected to the Community Development Dept., Planning Commission or City Council, or activists/professionals working in the housing industry.
Residents of Culver City made a dismal showing, particularly in light of the strong community objections a variety of housing-related projects have garnered over the past few years in our city.
If residents don’t educate themselves about the reality of housing needs and requirements in our city, and don’t participate in influencing the policies and goals that will guide the development of housing, we will have only ourselves to blame when the results don’t suit us.
Secondly, although this gathering clearly explained the why and the how of this process, it did not present enough of the what.
In that way, it was a partial experience, so public input can only be partial and premature.
What was needed (but missing) was an explanation by the city of what the Housing Element presently contains and an evaluation of how we have done over the past six years since it was last reviewed.
Knowing what our goals and obligations have been and where we have succeeded and failed in meeting them, we would have had substance to reflect upon.
That might have yielded substantive public comment from the non-professionals participating, allowing the city to more meaningfully gauge residents’ concerns, needs, interests and hopes.
It would be extremely useful if the city would call another workshop to address this omission before the draft report is completed.
