Community Council Weighs in on Large-Scale County Development

The Pacific Palisades Community Council voted unanimously to support a land use policy that takes into account the citywide impact of major development projects. The vote occurred during the Oct. 13 meeting at the .

According to a guest presentation by John Reed, a member of the Venice Neighborhood Council's Land Use and Planning Committee, there are currently 17 proposed projects within the next five years in the Marina del Rey area targeting land owned by the county. Being that Marina del Rey, Venice and Pacific Palisades are neighboring areas, Reed had been approaching neighborhood councils with this presentation, hoping to encourage Los Angeles County lawmakers to consider how these types of projects impact the environmental and social climate of the specific area in which they are building.

Reed told Patch the 17 proposed Marina del Rey projects were for mixed-use and residential housing developments.

"If you're going to have 17 developments going on within a short period of time ... should those projects be reviewed as a cumulative project?" said Reed, who also heads a Venice-based architectural firm. "So really the question is ... should there be an environmental impact report that reviews all the projects at once when they're proposed at once? It's not like these were projects that were proposed over 15 or 20 years."

Reed also cited concerns over increased traffic and enrollment in local school districts as the main cumulative social impacts of such wide-ranging projects. He said Los Angeles County leases the land to developers, whose profit incentive is driven by the ability to accommodate the highest possible amount of renters.

"PPCC supports the need for a comprehensive [environmental impact report] that considers regional impacts on the city of Los Angeles and takes into account cumulative impact of all such major development projects," Chairwoman Janet Turner read aloud from the council's motion on the issue.

Turner added PPCC Land Use Committee members' concerns that county-owned land in Pacific Palisades beach areas potentially leaves the community subject to similar deals between an increasingly cash-strapped county and ambitious developers.

"If they become so strapped for money, they could decide to put a restaurant on the beach, they could put a hotel on the beach," Turner said. "So it makes sense for us to weigh in."

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