On June 1, the Planning and Land Use Management Committee of the Los Angeles City Council unanimously rejected the appeal of a previously approved project, a four-story, 45 feet and 5-inch-tall apartment building, with 102 units — 12 of which are affordable housing — and 127 parking spaces located at 1309 to 1331 S. Pacific Avenue. The Los Angeles City Planning Commission unanimously approved the project in May 2020, but Citizens Protecting San Pedro appealed the decision, and it was this appeal that was rejected.
Citizens Protecting San Pedro’s next step will be to file a complaint for a rehearing and prepare for a city council hearing, said Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council board member Robin Rudisill, who is also the chair of the council’s Planning and Land Use committee and a member of Citizens Protecting San Pedro.
Citizens Protecting San Pedro’s appeal of the project primarily objected to the project getting entitlements and exemptions — relaxations of zoning requirements — because it argues the project does not earn them with its few units of affordable housing.
Jamie Hall, an attorney representing Citizens Protecting San Pedro, said the city is violating its own redevelopment plan.
“Approval of the project would conflict with and inhibit the city’s ability to meet its affordable housing obligations under the state’s community redevelopment law,” Hall said. “Less than 15% of the total units for this project are affordable.”
Connie Chauv, of the Los Angeles City Planning Department, said the planning commission’s approval included an on-menu incentive for reduced open space; and two off-menu incentives for increased floor-area-ratio, and a reduced rear yard; and one waiver of development standard for increased height. However, she said the off-menu incentives and waiver of height standard were not appealable, so the Planning and Land Use Management Committee was only able to consider the reduced open space and the site plan review.
“The appellant contends that the project is not consistent with the general plan, including community plan, community plan implementation overlay, and redevelopment plan,” Chauv said. “However, as provided in the staff report, the project is consistent with the above, including the land use and zoning regulations with state density bonus law.”
Her reasoning for this was that state density law allows for three incentives, with additional deviations processed as waivers. There is a menu of incentives that a project may apply for, but anything not on the menu is considered off-menu, or a waiver. These require commission approval and are not appealable.
Chauv also said that the project is eligible for a Class 32 exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, meaning that it does not need an environmental impact report or other such reports, as it does not have a large enough environmental impact. To qualify for this exemption, a project must be consistent with the community plan or other zoning laws, and not have a significant effect on traffic, noise, air quality or water quality, according to the Los Angeles City Planning website.
“The environmental impacts were properly analyzed as required by CEQA,” Chauv said. “Based on substantial evidence submitted as technical studies into the record, there is no evidence of significant or cumulative impacts.”
This argument ignores the fact that the very same developer has proposed a similar development just nine blocks away from this one.
Hall argued that the project does not qualify for a Class 32 exemption, as it does not comply with the general plan, or zoning laws.
“Further, the proposed project would result in significant construction air quality, air toxic impacts and a significant traffic impact,” Hall said.
Rudisill said that there were several people who called in to voice their disapproval of the project but did not get called on. This included two San Pedro neighborhood council presidents. All three San Pedro neighborhood councils previously supported the appeal.
“We are very concerned that the city violated due process rights yesterday by cutting off public comment the way they did, essentially suppressing the public’s ability to exercise their right to make a public statement to the decision makers,” Rudisill said.
Rep. Nanette Barragán voiced her approval of the appeal and said the project did not have enough affordable units.
“San Pedro already possesses hundreds of luxury market rate units to which this development would add without offering the residents of San Pedro a meaningful solution to the growing difficulty of living affordably in this city,” Barragán said in a letter.
Barragán argued that the development would drive displacement of San Pedro residents, who are already at a high risk of displacement.
“Building more luxury housing in working-class neighborhoods brings a rush of speculative investment that drives up rental costs and, in turn, prices many of my constituents out of their neighborhoods only adding to growing affordability concerns for all renters,” Barragán said.
Aksel Palacios, the planning and economic development deputy for Councilman Joe Buscaino, spoke in favor of the project.
“This project addresses the shortage of housing citywide, as well as addressing deeper housing units for residents at all income levels,” Palacios said.
Palacios said the project will help revitalize Pacific Avenue and praised it for its bicycle parking. This while destroying two historic storefront buildings — La Rue’s Pharmacy and the iconic Dancing Waters club.
John Smith, a 17-year resident of San Pedro, said the project has an inadequate amount of parking, in an area of San Pedro that has little parking already.
“Although the project says that it has more parking spaces than dwelling units, that’s actually misleading,” Smith said. “Many of the parking spaces are what they call tandem. If you’re not sure what tandem is, that’s where one car is parked directly behind another, such that the first car cannot pull out unless the second car does. So that only works if both cars belong to the same apartment.”
Smith pointed out that parking spaces will be rented separately from the apartments, so this will not necessarily be the case. He also said that a lot of people can’t use public transportation because they don’t live next to a bus line.
San Pedro resident Army Linderborg criticized the project for not following the community plan, particularly in its height.
“The area is zoned for all buildings to be capped at 30 feet,” Linderborg said. “This building, at 35-and-a-half feet, will tower over the neighborhood and be a full story and half higher than any other building in the area.”
San Pedro resident Daniel Nord said that San Pedro residents have given ample evidence to the city as to why this project should not be approved.
“We’ve given you dozens of documents, we’ve given you expert studies, we’ve given you seven EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] maps showing extreme environmental injustice in San Pedro, we’ve given you our testimony, our letters our three neighborhood councils wrote supporting the appeal — all of it,” Nord said. “Now the community’s power is in your hands and we expect you to serve us, and not just developers and other politicians.”
The appeal was denied and heads to the full council for a vote.