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A disturbing populist culture is gripping the City Council at the throat, and the debilitating attitude may harm the natural growth chances of a revived community that is struggling to break free of its old-time stodgy image.
The delicate, sensitive balance between the oft-competing needs/desires of residents and those of business proprietors forms the oxygen that every successful city needs to breathe and prosper.
The City Council’s responsibility is to supervise and to administer the balance, issuing judicious, impersonal decisions following a period of sober deliberation.
These fragile fundamentals lately have been kicked aside.
It has become almost axiomatic for two members of the Council, Gary Silbiger and Chris Armenta, to throw up jail bars around whatever developer is in the dock. They vow not to liberate him until he satisfies the least whims of residents who reflexively object to any development.
Viewed only with dark suspicion, the hapless builder is grilled and treated as if he surely is concealing hideous facts. Conversely, the protesting residents are celebrated. They are received in Council Chambers as if they were visiting royalty who have come to educate us slow-learners in how to live in a sin-free world.
I exaggerate, but not by much.
Just as the human body needs to feed itself daily to remain healthy, communities large, small and uncertain must fiscally and aesthetically replenish themselves regularly in order to remain vibrant, to prevent turning into a deadwood ghost town.
This rudimentary principle appears to have eluded the two Councilmen and protesting residents who have virtually merged to become a single entity.
At last Monday’s Council meeting, to consider intended office condos at 8665 Hayden Pl., in the Hayden Tract, I met the builder, Greg Reitz, at the door. Beckoning to one of Chief Pedersen’s finest, I asked him to frisk Mr. Reitz. I wanted to be certain that he was not secretly smuggling a new strain of deadly influenza with him into Chambers. Can’t be too careful of builders these days, we have been warned.
Succinct History Lesson
Let’s take a step back into history. In the giddy immediate post-war years of the late 1940s, television was gaining ground and the studios were starting to contract their formerly vast properties. In that environment, the still somewhat mysterious commercial-industrial Hayden Tract was born just off Downtown about 60 years ago.
When every single resident who has protested to Mr. Reitz during the last 16 months moved into the adjacent residential region known as Rancho Higuera, he knew what he was getting. He realized the Hayden Tract, an organic complex, not a cemetery, was next door. He did not choose the plot of land in quest of quiet and peace. That was not the School for the Deaf next door. He was not settling on an isolated acre in Death Valley where the nearest neighbor was 14 miles distant.
You may not move within the orbit of the Santa Monica Airport and then beef to the community fathers about the noise of jets taking off and landing.
When I was listening to the terminal tongue-wagging over traffic — from residents, Mr., Armenta, Mr. Silbiger and, not least, city traffic maven Barry Kurtz — I felt as if I were being assaulted by a swarm of bees, and I was forced to count the older ones each time they rotated before my eyes.
There Goes No. 4339
Figuring out that there are 4400 vehicle trips a day down one of those darned streets and that Mr. Reitz’s development will add 575 new trips a day is the kind of obscure, maddening mental game that you play while driving across Texas. Surely that is not a respectable pastime for a sane person.
Do I know how many car trips there are each day on my pretty busy residential street? Not the foggiest. Do I know the difference between 4400 and 575? All I remember is one of those numbers represents the number of trips I have made to Divorce Court and the other signifies the number of arguments we had to drive us there.
I presume Mr. Kurtz is a nice fellow. I would not dare say his wife nodded off at their wedding. But I got dizzy listening to him arithmetically explain whether Mr. Reitz’s development will add or subtract traffic, divide the neighbors or multiply my headaches.
Everything Offends Them
As a first-year Councilman, the extremely sincere Mr. Armenta naturally wants to please the largest number of people, but I hope he does not overlook the fact that builders vote, too. Perhaps the most curious observation he made last Monday was the puzzling, “I have difficulty with development projects when they are at the expense of residents.” What did he mean? Did Mr. Armenta forget that residents deliberately bought homes across the street from Mr. Reitz’s property, an old warehouse. They probably were hoping the warehouse was owned and occupied by dead men.
“I have always said we must exercise great care when developing near residences,” said Mr. Armenta. “We want development. But we keep hearing that somebody is opposed to development and somebody is for development. Finding a balance is very subjective. For me, I have difficulty with developments when they are at the expense of residents. I cannot support this project, which is higher than the 43 feet (zoned for the area) and higher than the 56 feet the residents of Culver City voted for.”
What Mr. Armenta overlooked was that Mr. Reitz reduced the visible portion of his building on the residential end to 31 feet. If even that was offensive, he clouded the sightline with trees.
Mr. Armenta also bypassed the responsibility that residents have to share their space with the far more dominant Hayden Tract businesses who, by the way, were in position first.
