[img]2014|right|Steve Rose||no_popup[/img]Criticism is increasing as the distance grows between the City Council’s bumpy decision Monday evening on the Culver City Ice Arena and the present.
Just before property owner Michael Karagozian’s dark assessment of Monday’s vote makes it into print later today, former Councilman Steve Rose this afternoon expanded on and hardened his earlier critique of the call.
Mr. Rose, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, said the Council’s decision to apply the middle historical rating to the building – Significant instead of third-choice Recognized – “was a bad business move. One reason is the Significant designation will cost the property owner tens of thousands of dollars and delays. Calling the building ‘Recognized’ would not have cost anything.”
Mr. Rose said that the chosen branding will “needlessly cost the property owner money because of an antiquated grading system that (city) staff has not updated in over 20 years.”
Because of the Significant ranking, Mr. Karagozian will be required to authorize an environmental impact report.
“Because of the designation the Council approved,” Mr. Rose said, “the property owner will have to go through one more (expensive) hoop.”
The 52-year-old Ice Arena has been closed to the public for six months as of Saturday because of a complex of disputes.
Last January, at the request of a private citizen, the advisory Cultural Affairs Commission began to investigate the possibility of presumably enhancing civic prestige and the ice rink’s by labeling it a place of historic importance.
But now that the Council’s affirmation has come down, messiness is setting in.
