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City Preps Residents to Defend Beach Parking Zones

By Jorge Casuso

On the surface, it seemed just another meeting of city staff and their constituents.

But with seven Ocean Park preferential parking zones on the line - all of them more than 10 years old -, Saturday's meeting at the Ken Edwards Center was anything but routine.

Instead of just providing information and listening to concerns, planning department staff helped coach and organize some three dozen residents for a crucial Coastal Commission meeting Tuesday morning.

After a year's delay, the commission finally will decide the fate of 936 preferential parking spaces south of Pico Boulevard and east of Lincoln Boulevard that were created by the city without commission approval between 1983 and 1989. The commission discovered the spaces in 1998, while considering the Edgemar Development project on Main Street.

"Don't be exclusionary," Planning Director Suzanne Frick advised the residents. "What is important is to put a face on this issue. We don't want to alienate this commission."

Among the key points city staff encouraged residents to make are the dearth of street parking, the availability of parking in beach lots and the make up of the community (it is not just rich homeowners).

Residents who spoke at Saturday's meeting said they feared that if preferential parking is revoked they wouldn't be able to move their cars or entertain guests, especially on weekends, because there will often be nowhere to park near their homes.

"I can't leave during the day, but there are empty spaces on the beach," said one resident who lives in a zone near Main Street with no daytime restrictions. "As usual, the residents are going to be caught in the middle of this squabble."

While there are 2,400 spaces in Ocean Park's two beach lots, it costs $7 to park ($6 during the winter.) By comparison, unrestricted street parking is free.

Frick, however, warned against bringing up the underused lot, saying that lowering the rates - which already are cheaper than the rates at Venice Beach and Will Rogers State Park - is not on the table.

She did encourage residents who blamed the parking woes not on beach goers, but on employees and customers of Main Street businesses, to speak out on Tuesday.

"It's a major impact," said Roger Genser, a 22-year resident of Ocean Park who helped organize the first Ocean Park zone in 1983. "It was a reaction against Main Street. It had nothing to do with beach parking."

Tuesday's decision will center on whether Santa Monica's zones restrict access to the beach, which the Coastal Commission was created in 1976 to protect.

Commission staff has recommended that the seven zones be retained - with the caveat that the city must reapply for the permits in three years. The city opposes that condition, saying it would be too costly, inhibit long-range planning and leave residents in limbo. Instead city staff is proposing to conduct a parking monitoring program and file a report within five years.

Commission staff also is requiring the city to create 154 spaces to help replenish those taken up by preferential parking. Of these, 65 already have been created. The city also must keep the Tide and Pier beach shuttles running during the summer months.

While Coastal Commission staff seems sympathetic to the plight of beach area residents, it is impossible to predict what the commission will do, Frick said. One warning sign was a complaint by a commissioner who visited the beach to watch the sunset and found no place to park.

"We've been discussing this with the staff for a year and a half," Frick said. "I think this really boils down to philosophical issues with the commission."

Although the city has been negotiating with commission staff, it also has made it clear that it is prepared to file a lawsuit if the commission revokes the zones.

"We have a difference of legal opinion as to whether the Coastal Commission even has authority," Frick said. "We would prefer to go through the process and have a positive outcome."

Since the Coastal Act was passed in 1976, the Coastal Commission has required cities to apply for permits for the special parking zones.

Historically, the Coastal Commission has granted permission for preferential parking zones in coastal communities, often imposing strict conditions to ensure plenty of public parking and beach access.

Since 1982 the commission has approved three applications from Hermosa Beach, Santa Cruz and Capitola. The commission, however, has denied preferential parking permits for Santa Monica's closest neighbors - Venice to the south and Pacific Palisades to the north.

In 1998 approximately 7.5 million visitors flocked to Santa Monica beaches. Over the past 28 years beach attendance has grown by 20 percent.

City Manager Susan McCarthy, who did not attend the meeting, said it would be "unforgivable" if residents weren't prepared given what's at stake.

"The Coastal Commission has a relatively clear mission laid out in the law, and in this situation, it may not be a mission that is sympathetic," McCarthy said. "This would certainly be a profound change."

The Coastal Commission will meet Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the Four Points Sheraton, 530 Pico Blvd.

Staff writer Teresa Rochester contributed to this report.

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  Council Ends Snap, Crackle and Pop

By Teresa Rochester

Hoping to end the snap, crackle, pop of electrical wires next to their homes, residents jockeyed to be first on a list of areas slated to have the buzzing wires moved underground.

More than a dozen residents told the City Council Tuesday night they have waited a long time for the high tension wires in their neighborhood to be moved below ground. However, residents argued that the priority list of five locations selected for a 10-year plan to do the work favored commercial areas over residential ones.

"This is something that our neighbors and myself have been waiting a long time for," said Andrew Gomez, a Marine Street resident. "We've been waiting for over 20 years for this. There is a power pole 20 feet from my living room. It [the list] is pitting neighborhood groups against each other."

After hearing from speakers who described wires that sparked and popped in foggy weather, scaring children and visitors, the council voted 6 to 1 to give priority to residential neighborhoods but not before engaging in a long debate on setting future policy for selecting "undergrounding" locations.

'We need to refine the policy," Mayor Pro Tem Pam O'Connor said. "There may be some kind of sliding scale we can use."

The list presented to the council for approval included four residential locations; Marine Street from Frederick Street to Lincoln Boulevard, 20th Street from Pearl Street to Ocean Boulevard and 18th Street from Ocean Park Boulevard to Ashland Place North and to 16th Street. It also included 18th Court from Pico Boulevard to Pearl Street, which is an alley that backs up to Santa Monica College and commercial corridor Olympic Boulevard from Stewart St. to 22nd Street

The designated locations were selected by city staff, who used criteria set by the Public Utilities Commission order to rank priority, including streets with a heavy volume of pedestrian and vehicle traffic and streets that pass by a civic public recreation or scenic area.

Arguing that 18th Court serves as a pedestrian and service thoroughfare for Santa Monica College and that the stretch of Olympic Boulevard carries highest volume of traffic, city staff put the two locations at the top of their list to have power lines burried within six years, much to the chagrin of residents who would have had to wait another decade.

"Eating in my backyard is like eating in Frankenstein's lab," said Randy Levinson, who lives in the Ashland, Hill Street neighborhood, which was last on the list. "Friends ask 'what is wrong with your backyard?"

Ross Lacey said he put speakers in his backyard to drown out the buzz of the wires.

Wayne Black, who lives in the Ashland neighborhood, invited council members to live with him for a week to understand residents' plight.

"Come on, my wife's a good cook," Black said. "We have to do something. We have to bury those wires."

In the end, council members bumped Olympic Boulevard from the list and directed staff to create a policy based on the number of residents, the scale of the poles and the sensitivity of a location to them.

The council also voted to contact Santa Monica College about participating in placing the 18th Court wires underground.

Councilman Michael Feinstein, who for the second time Tuesday night cast the lone dissenting vote, said he did not feel well enough informed to make a decision.

"Let the record show I agree with prioritizing residential over commercial areas," Feinstein said. "Without knowing how many residents per street, I don't feel I have enough information."

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