How Long?
The rest period could last as long as a year, or the recommendation never could be implemented.
Both the future of the Citizens Advisory Committee and the course if the recommendation is rejected are fuzzy.
Ultimately, the call will be up to the City Council, at a date to be determined. I am guessing it could come before us within a couple months, Mayor Alan Corlin said.
Last nights unanticipated ending was sparked by a generic, shakily supported motion offered by Committee member Loni Anderson.
It was made in direct response to the bevy of protests, especially over the density and the planned heights of the 12 1/2 acre redevelopment.
What They Asked
The nine-member volunteer group suggested that a bureaucratic concept known as a Specific Plan be written for the Sepulveda corridor with community input before proceeding with any redevelopment.
Sol Blumenfeld, completing his first month as the new Community Development Director, estimated City Hall would need nine to 12 months to craft a Specific Plan.
The Next Move
First, though, the City Council would need to formally authorize such a plan, and it is not clear which way the vote will trend.
Critics found the call for design of a Specific Plan to be frustratingly abstract, saying, not for attribution, that a Stop sign has been hoisted without mapping out a course to be followed from here.
Initially, Committee members Laura Stuart and Marianne Kim resisted the Anderson motion. They seemed to prefer to keep the momentum going that has been built up over the last half-year.
Clarity Missing
Marla Osband also did not want to stop.
She issued two objections. I dont think going back to square one will accomplish anything, Ms.Osband said. We need to give (the city) more specific guidelines. The motion is too broad.
Ms. Stuart criticized the motion as too narrow. There is no defined time-frame, she said.
Monday Nights Agenda
Crucial to the delicate state of the South Sepulveda redevelopment, the Redevelopment Agency is scheduled to discuss proposed changes in the citys density and height regulations at Monday nights 7 oclock meeting at City Hall.
With the machinery in place to alter the most heavily protested points about the South Sepulveda plan, Ms. Stuart said this was no time to start the project over.
Especially, she added, since the developer, Bob Champion, pointedly has said he was willing to work within revised or present building code guidelines.
Target of Fury
Mr. Champion and others noted that the anger of opponents was not really aimed at the developer but at disputed city height and density laws.
Which brought this comment later from Scott Malsin, Chair of the Redevelopment Agency:
Champion said he was building the project our zoning code outlined. I dont blame him for doing what makes business sense. But it is important to remember we have to do what makes sense for the community.
Diversity Blooms
In spite of Chair Alan Goldmans sturdy and repeated denials, an insinuation was made several times during the first three Committee meetings that the volunteers were a tool of either the developer or of City Hall.
Given the diversity of opinions that blossomed last night, that accusation probably was firmly buried.
Behind the Motion
Ms. Anderson was asked what information was lacking that prompted her to introduce the motion.
It seemed like that was the solution, she said. That was what people wanted. They wanted the input, and developing a Specific Plan would do that.
Smiling as she approached Mr. Blumenfeld, the newest official in the room, as the crowd was filing out, Ms. Anderson asked, Did I create more work for you?
No Disappointments
The long and loud evening delivered all of the neighborhood drama that had been promised.
But the two- or three-note protests played out before a smaller-than-expected crowd, with perhaps one-third of the 200 folding chairs being occupied.
For Sunkist Park residents and a scattering of business owners opposed to the redevelopment project as presently envisioned, the meeting was intended strictly as a stage to vent their feelings.
One Dissenter
Twenty of 21 public speakers largely echoed each other. The single person who ardently advocated change in the form of redevelopment identifying herself as a 32-year Sunkist Park resident seemed to be treated as an anomaly. All other speakers were applauded at the end. She was not, in part because several persons called out, Dont clap for her.
As the meeting wore on, however, the onesidedness, the anti-change mode steadily eroded.
The turnaround came from the front of the room.
Members of the Citizens Advisory Committee with all present for the first time in four meetings finally spoke up.
Reversing Momentum?
One by one, at first almost shyly and then more boldly, members conceded that the aging business personality of the west side of South Sepulveda, especially from Sawtelle to Berryman, needed sprucing up.
From the audience, Peter Messinger, owner of The Aquarium, suggested returning to a several-years-old City Hall plan to gussy-up the facades of storefronts that have been celebrating birthdays for at least a half-century.
Champion: In Limbo?
Where the uncertain ending of last nights meeting leaves the developer Mr. Champion is indeterminative this morning.
It would be logical for him to be discouraged today, friends said, without predicting whether he or City Hall would make the next move.
For all of the controversy associated with him, and for all of the venom that shrill-speaking residents vehemently have sprayed on Mr. Champion to and in his face he has acquitted himself with the complete command, the coolness, the savvy and the pristine professional discipline that befits his surname.
Partisans Unfazed
His wizardic forthrightness, his disarming candor and his unflappable demeanor have impressed visitors and civic leaders at the meetings of the Citizens Advisory Committee.
But they have not even made a tiny dent in the armor or the furor of the partisans who have spoken with flaming ardor against the project.
Same people, same sounds, same thundering criticism that has been the pattern of the Committee meetings.
Unsatisfactory Ending
Among officials, some were dazed, others were angry, and many were trying to defog a confusing series of events in the final half-hour of a 3 1/2-hour meeting.
At the end, when Mr. Goldman called for a hand vote on Ms. Andersons motion, he who tallied the score needed to be imaginative, deciding what constituted a raised hand. The vote seemed unanimous. But a feathery breeze might have altered the count.
