After hearing the noted developer Wally Marks say that the quickest route to a successful community project was to adhere to the current zoning code and not to seek entitlements, an anonymous member of the City Council spoke up. Casting the criticism cynically, the member said such a seemingly foolproof tactic would not work in Culver City. Which standards do you follow? the Council member wondered. The ones going out or the ones that may be coming in?
Will the War Recede?
Last nights brilliantly organized and luminously elaborate Council meeting was billed as an opening move to end this fraying war without the Council looking as if it were surrendering or retreating.
It was intended by the Council to build a bridge toward a hoped-for cease fire in the antagonizing philosophical civil war that has been convulsing the community for months.
A clearly split majority of the City Council, three of the five members, directed the Community Development Dept. staff of Director Sol Blumenfeld to draw up a revised zoning ordinance applicable to pending and future redevelopment projects.
The City Councils shakily proffered recommendations are generously surrounded by shrubbery in the form of details that allow certain variations and exceptions.
The New Rules, Possibly
But essentially, the hot numbers are these:
The Councils informal proposals would reduce the housing unit maximum per acre from 65 to 35. The building height max would plummet from 56 feet to 43 feet in most cases where a project is adjacent to residential properties.
For those who are distracted by eye-candy in the business sense, a fragrant but vague fillip called community benefits was inserted into all four staff-written options. If an incentive-minded developer is willing to perfume his project with an aesthetically pleasing bonus piece, City Hall would reward him by stretching the housing limit to 50 or the height limit to 56 feet.
Mr. Blumenfeld indicated his people will return in a month with an ordinance for the City Councils guaranteed critical scrutiny.
A Meeting of the Mine Fields
By the darnedest coincidence, this computes to Sept. 10, the first Monday after Labor Day.
This just happens to be the new date for the third but by no means necessarily final public hearing on the controversial redevelopment of 9900 Culver Blvd., which is threatening the Broadway record of My Fair Lady for the longest running play.
If City Manager Jerry Fulwood finds himself in one of his playful late-summer moods, he could dramatically schedule 9900 and voting on the new ordinance for the same night. In that case, the long-feared Big One, which earthquake-mongers fantasize about, may actually rumble across Culver City.
The City Council divided curiously over the proposed new restrictions for present and future developers. No formal vote was taken. Each Councilperson was asked to make his own casual recommendation to City Hall staffers.
The Winning Team
On probably the wordiest evening in Council history, Vice Mayor Carol Gross, and Councilmen Scott Malsin and Steve Rose, for different and sometimes for competing reasons, favored the second of four staff-generated options, which struck them as a mild compromise.
Navigating toward their bottom lines seemed to require uncommon presence for listeners.
Mr. Malsin is credited as the godfather of the present apparent sweeping overhaul of zoning regulations applicable to redevelopment projects.
Breaking a Record
However, he caused considerable rustling and eye-rolling in Council Chambers, among city officials and the audience, when he persisted in setting a marathon record. Declaiming for 33 consecutive minutes, Mr. Malsin trumped the old record, established by Ms. Gross. Last night, or was it this morning, Ms. Gross herself held the floor for 30 consecutive minutes. But in fairness to the vice mayor, she interspersed 4 questions to staffers, which broke the oration into smaller pieces. Mr. Rose, by a bunch, was the most judicious Councilman. He spoke only 8 minutes.
For his part, Mayor Alan Corlin did not state a preference.
In a familiar spirit of protest, Councilman Gary Silbiger refused to submit any suggestions . One reason, he said, was that the public had been insufficiently notified of the meetings contents. The pivotal decisions before the Council were too important, he argued, for the five of them to render verdicts without wider community input.
Mr. Corlin spoke for a well-paced 14 minutes and Mr. Silbiger checked in at 16.
They Might Have Replied
Can a single evening, that started at 6 oclock and sleepily concluded at 12:30 this morning, begin to heal a swelling environment of nastiness? All of the community observers who usually are polled were still in the arms of Morpheus when the question was posed this morning.
Going into last night, the strongest fear of some members of the City Council was that their eager colleagues would tilt too far to one side probably a populist direction in their ardor to sue for peace.
For the last two Nyquil hours of the unique meeting, the Council wallowed in the filibuster follies, a fast-rising ocean of amplified verbiage that threatened to wash over or put to sleep all within sight. Most members of the large audience stubbornly remained in their seats until the end. They were either impressively loyal, drivingly curious, snoozing with their eyes wide-open, or perhaps a jokester had nailed their shoes to the floor.
Sleepless in Culver City
His impeccable sense of timing unimpaired by the pumpkin hour, Mayor Corlins creative sense of humor served as a badly needed injection. Suspecting that creeping sleep-deprivation was engineering a sneak attack in Chambers, just before he spoke at 12:05, Mr. Corlin asked everyone to stand and stretch. This assured him of the most alert fleet of listeners all evening.
The mayor cracked that if he saw one more person yawn, he would go to sleep or maybe he said he would go back to sleep.
The evenings unusual format drawn up innovatively by Mr. Blumenfeld, Community Development Administrator Todd Tripton and Planning Manager Thomas Gorham was advertised as a study session.
From newcomer to oldtimer, the three gentlemen were keenly aware of how deeply the thorny zoning regulations have electrified the community, creating a spate of new activists in the process.
Moving Day
To develop a warmer, more intimate environment, the City Council was moved out of its chairs on the elevated dais and onto the Chambers floor. Two long tables and 10 chairs were arranged in an L-shape. The Council took one set of 5 chairs. The other 5, at various times, were occupied by City Hall officials or a panel of outside experts.
Anticipating a large and well-informed crowd, which, in fact, materialized, Messrs. Blumenfeld, Tipton and Gorham designed an accessible, collegial, education-based format that insured the evenings success.
Follow the Leaders
With Elaine Gerety Warner and Mr. Tipton serving as the mistress and master of ceremonies, every person in the building, from elected officials to the plainest citizen, was given one of 5 color-coded stickers, creating 5 instant breakout groups.
The idea was to take interested persons at all levels on a tour of the entire redevelopment process. Five workshops were set up in 5 different areas, in or adjacent to Council Chambers. With acknowledged experts at the helm in each venue, the 5 groups rotated, spending 10 minutes in each setting becoming educated.
The activists Rich Kissell, Loni Anderson and John Wacker lavishly praised the program for its sensitivity, balance and for the volume of fundamental but little known information.
Silence Golden or Rusty?
At the conclusion, everyone returned to Chambers, where the public posed a dozen more questions to the panel of mavens.
At an unusually late hour, the actual Council meeting began. Their job was to ponder and respond.
Effectively, no Council member spoke for the first 4 1/2 hours of the City Council meeting, eternity for a politician. Once unharnessed, though, at 10:30, the members unleashed their talking tornado.
