Divided Council Approves Abbot Kinney Hotel 9-7 "The days of being able to park in front of your home are over"

The 4 next-largest developments on Abbot Kinney could fit inside the hotel with 5,500 sq ft to spare

"The days of being able to park in front of your home are over," said VNC Board member Thomas Elliot as he cast the first of nine votes in favor of Dan Abrams block-long hotel complex. "The days of being able to just drive down Abbot Kinney and Main Street are over."

Board member Marisa Solomon used her favorable vote for the hotel to take a swipe at Oakwood and other community members who voiced concerns they only recently learned of thehotel development,  "People aren't informed when they don't want to be informed."

And so it went. Despite hundreds of community emails running 10-1 against the hotel (VNC's figure, not mine), a deeply divided board voted 9-7 in favor of approving Dan Abram's hotel. 

The frustrating thing? Two board members who would have voted against the hotel had to recuse themselves because Dan Abrams donated money to a non-profit they were associated with.  

And make no mistake, this is all about money.  Records show the self-described "entrepreneur" spent upwards of $17 million for 8 lots of prime Abbot Kinney real estate. A few thousand more for wining and dining supporters before the meeting, distributing glossy full-color portfolios to all the board members at the meeting, and lobbying them for weeks beforehand was a drop in the bucket by comparison.   

This vote sets a frightening precedent for Venice. If Abrams' hotel makes it all the way through the LA City planning process as is, all bets are off. Developers will be able to buy up and consolidate an unlimited number of lots in both commercial and residential areas of Venice. Mass and scale will no longer be a consideration. The only limitations will be the the depth of developer's pockets.

So now what?
 
The VNC vote, for all it's drama, is advisory. It holds no legal weight, although we should expect Abrams and his team to flog the results to the city at every opportunity.  
 
But this project must still go through the REAL City planning process - that means hearings in front of the Zoning Administrator, the Planning Commission and, ultimately, the Coastal Commission. And of course, Mike Bonin, our City Councilman, will have to weigh in as well. 
 
We don't have dates yet for ANY of those hearings, but as soon as we do, we'll let you know when they are happening and what we need you to do.  
 
This link will take you to the presentation I gave the board last night. It describes in great detail why Abrams' hotel as proposed is bad for Abbot Kinney and bad for Venice. It's wonky, but it puts truth to the lies Abrams' development team have been spreading for months. 
 
But before you read that, I'm going to ask you to do one more thing. Write to these folks and let them know what you think of their vote.
 
thomas.elliott@venicenc.org
marisa.solomon@venicenc.org  
 
And then vote them out of office May 18th.

The Abbot Kinney Hotel Developers Are WINNING - Here Are Two Simple Things You Can Do To Change That

 

Hotel complex as seen from Abbot Kinney. Existing buildings are in orange. The proposed hotel complex is in purple. Click on the image to see full size.

FIRST THE BAD NEWS: Ignoring community concerns that the block-long Abbot Kinney hotel complex would set a dangerous development precedent for Venice in terms of mass, scale and neighborhood character, that it still violated the letter and spirit of Venice Specific Plan, and still had significant unresolved problems regarding traffic gridlock and inadequate parking, the Venice Neighborhood Council's Land Use Committee last week voted to approve the hotel complex as currently proposed.  
 

NOW THE GOOD NEWS: The Committee's recommendation can be overturned at the February 18th meeting of the Venice Neighborhood Council Board. But only if we as a community make our voices heard loud and clear. 

WRITE AN EMAIL  
Even if you've written letters in opposition to the hotel before, we need to you to write again because we will be contacting different city officials with a list of concerns which reflect the latest decision.
 
Please send your email to the following addresses: 
Board@VeniceNC.org 
apcwestla@lacity.org  
mike.bonin@lacity.org
tricia.keane@lacity.org  
veniceforchange@gmail.com
 
You must put this in the subject line: 1033 S Abbott Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291: CASE #APCW2012-3354

 

ATTEND THE MEETING    

WHEN: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18  - 7:00PM
WHERE: WESTMINSTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AUDITORIUM (corner of Westminster and Abbott Kinney)
  
Numbers matter. The developer has gone on record that anyone with concerns about the project are in the minority.  So we need as many people to attend as possible. Get there early and fill out a speaker card. Bring a friend! 

LEARN THE FACTS  
 
IT SETS A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT FOR ALL OF VENICE: In his letter to supporters, project architect David Hertz wrote "the project is fully compliant with the Venice Specific Plan and Local Coastal Plan and we are not asking for any exceptions to these plans whatsoever." This is not the case.
 
By tying 8 lots together to create the block-long hotel complex, the developers are violating both the spirit and letter of the VSP in terms of mass, scale and retaining the character of the community. They claim they can do this because the hotel somehow qualifies as a residential "mixed use" development, not a commercial one. If this tenuous legal definition is allowed to stand it would create a new legal and development precedent never envisioned when the VSP was created. It would open the door to neighborhood-busting development all over Venice.
      
THERE'S STILL NOT ENOUGH PARKING: The developer is offering only 163 parking spaces for a hotel complex that, according to the developer's own documents submitted to City Planning, at capacity can accommodate up to 921 people.  That includes all 87 hotel rooms, 240 restaurant seats, a coffee bar, a spa and thousands of feet of retail/cafe space. By the developer's own estimates, the hotel and three restaurants alone will have 160 total employees, with 50 on-site at any one time.

If you listen carefully to the developers, they never claim they're providing enough parking for the project's use, only what they are legally required. There's a reason for that - their numbers just don't add up. The reality is we'll be indirectly subsidizing the hotel as inadequate parking forces hotel patrons and employees to hunt for free street parking in our neighborhoods. Worse, since we live in the Coastal Zone, the California Coastal Commission will not allow us to have residents-only permit parking to mitigate the hotel's overflow.   


TRAFFIC WILL STILL BE A NIGHTMARE: A traffic report released by LADOT states the hotel complex will add nearly 700 net new car trips a day. The developer is quick to point out that only translates into a 1% increase in "peak hour" traffic. What they don't tell you is that the rest of that traffic will hit our streets during "off peak" times - the middle of the night, on busy weekends and during school hours as young children cross the street going to and from Westminster Elementary School.

They also don't tell you the traffic report ignores the impact to Electric Ave. even though all of the hotel's traffic will be entering and exiting from that street. It also doesn't take into account that the project has no loading dock, instead directing all deliveries and trash pick-ups onto Broadway - only feet away from the Westminster Elementary School crosswalk. To get an idea of how trash pickups on Broadway affects traffic flow in the area, here's a photo I took one recent morning from the corner of Broadway and Electric.


THEY WILL SELL ALCOHOL STARTING AT 9AM, 7 DAYS A WEEK: A recent search of planning documents reveal the developer is proposing to sell alcohol on the premises from 9am to 2am, 7 days a week, and to have alcohol available via hotel mini-bars 24 hours a day.  In fact, alcohol sales are so important to this developer, he states in the document that entire project would be "infeasible" without it. 

ACTION ALERT! Massive Abbot Kinney Hotel Complex Coming Up For A Vote THIS Wednesday!

Architect's rendering of the Abbot Kinney Hotel Complex, corner of Broadway and Abbot Kinney Blvd.

Just in time for the holidays, Dan Abrams and his development partners have delivered a nice, shiny lump of coal to Venice in the form of revamped plans for a block-long hotel/mall complex on Abbot Kinney Blvd. Now that their new plans have finally been made public, we've learned the developers are still asking for precedent-setting variances for height, the project still has significant issues with mass and scale and will still cause traffic gridlock and huge parking headaches for the surrounding neighborhoods.

They are rushing the project through the Venice Land Use and Planning Committee (LUPC) this Wednesday, December 18 - only a week before Christmas, the timing of which will conveniently suppress community participation. Worse, the developers have known for over a week this would come up for a vote and have been rallying their supporters with "suggested facts" (no, I'm not making this up), to share with their neighbors while the rest of the community was kept in the dark.

LUPC has been inundated with emails in support of the project while they have yet to hear from opponents.

We need you to act NOW.

WRITE AN EMAIL VOICING YOUR OPPOSITION TO THE PROJECT AS PLANNED:

Even if you've written letters in opposition to the hotel before, we need to you to write again. Please send your email to the following addresses:  Board@VeniceNC.org, lupc@VeniceNC.org, mike.bonin@lacity.org, tricia.keane@lacity.org, veniceforchange@gmail.com

The project's address is 1033 S Abbott Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291: It must be included at the top of any correspondence.

ATTEND THE HEARING

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18  - 7:30PM
WHERE: Oakwood Rec Center - 767 7th Avenue (corner of 7th and Oakwood)

Numbers matter. We believe LUPC members will vote in favor of the project as proposed unless we convince them otherwise.  So we need as many people to attend as possible.  The project is second on the agenda and is supposed to be heard at 8pm. We believe they will try to keep the meeting on time. Get there early and fill out a speaker card.

Here are the real - not suggested - facts about the Abbot Kinney Hotel Complex. Include them in the emails you write and the talking points you use during the meeting.

IT'S TOO HIGH: In his letter to supporters,  project architect David Hertz wrote "the project fully compliant with the Venice Specific Plan and Local Coastal Plan and we are not asking for any exceptions to these plans whatsoever."  Hertz wasn't telling the truth. The developer may have knocked off the 4th floor in October, but he's come back with a design that's still asking for a precedent-setting height exemption to the Venice Specific Plan.

IT'S TOO BIG:  The hotel complex as currently proposed includes an 87-room hotel (down only 5 rooms from the October proposal, with two of those now apartments for some reason), a 3,500 sq ft restaurant/bar, a separate coffee bar on Electric, a 1,500 sq ft spa on Electric and Westminster, a 2,500 sq ft retail space on Westminster and Abbot Kinney, and a 2,444 sq ft poolside bar area.

It still takes up the entire block between Broadway and Westminster, with a partial carve-out for two parcels the developers don't own. There's nothing else on Abbot Kinney that even comes close to it in terms of mass and scale.

To get an idea of what that really looks like, take a gander at these two drawings below. These are the most recent plans submitted by the architect. I've highlighted the existing structures - Joe's, Venice Place, and the Baptist Church - in orange. The hotel complex, highlighted in purple, dwarfs those structures by comparison. Click on either image to see them full size.

Hotel complex on the Abbot Kinney side. Existing buildings are in orange. The proposed hotel complex is in purple. 
Click on the image to see full size.

Hotel complex viewed from Broadway. Existing buildings are in orange. The proposed hotel complex is in purple.  
Click on the image to see full size.

THERE'S NOT ENOUGH PARKING: In fact, in this revamped version, the developer is offering only 160 parking spaces, 12 less than the 172 he was offering back in October.  That's supposed to suffice for all 87 hotel rooms, plus three restaurants, a coffee bar, a spa and 2,500 sq ft of retail/cafe space. By the developers own estimates, the hotel and three restaurants alone will have 160 employees (a low figure, since they aren't figuring in the 2,500 sq ft retail/cafe space proposed for the corner of Westminster and Abbot Kinney).  

In his letter to supporters,  project architect David Hertz wrote "the project allows employees to park for free." The numbers I just listed above show how ridiculous this statement is. Unless, of course, he means allows employees to park for free on our streets.

TRAFFIC WILL STILL BE A NIGHTMARE: A new traffic report released by the City of LA states the hotel complex will add close to 700 net new car trips a day. Bizarrely, DOT seems to think this won't be of "significant" impact to our neighborhood. But tell that to anyone trying to navigate the gridlock on Abbot Kinney, Broadway, Westminster and Electric as cars, taxis, trash trucks and delivery vehicles cue up to service the hotel and deposit its guests.

Folks, it didn't have to be this way. This could have been a win-win for the community and for Dan Abrams. But almost from the beginning,  Abrams and his development partners have not been an honest partner in this process. They're certainly not being honest now as they try to railroad this project through while people are distracted by the holidays.

Don't let them. Please take the time to write email, come to the meeting, and inform your neighbors.

For reference, here are links to the developers plans:

http://cityhood.org/Attachments/_3Y60KHPGK.pdf
http://cityhood.org/Attachments/_3Y60KWXL7.pdf
http://cityhood.org/Attachments/_3Y60KZ4SR.pdf

UPDATE: News About The Abbot Kinney Hotel, None Of It Good

Latest hotel renderings as they appear on the developer's website

Folks, I hate to bother you so close to the holidays, but I've been hearing some disturbing news about the massive block-long hotel complex being proposed for Abbot Kinney Blvd. and none of it is good.

To review, after being turned away by the community in October and forced to remove the fourth floor, developer Dan Abrams' project was literally sent back to the drawing board. He would have to create new plans and submit them to the community to review before he could proceed further.

We've waited two months for those new plans. But instead of coming to the community and presenting them in a transparent and open manner where they can be reviewed and discussed by everyone at the same time in a public forum, it seems Abrams and his development team is withholding information and engaging in a PR campaign of private meetings and carefully parsed talking points.

Yesterday morning I learned the developer had submitted a draft of the revised project to Venice Land Use and Planning Committee member John Reed a week ago, yet those plans have yet to appear on LUPC's website or on the developer's own website http://www.abbotkinneyhotel.com/.

Then later in the day I started receiving emails from Abrams' supporters, who had evidently been provided a list of talking points to share during a private presentation given to them earlier in the week (more on those talking points in a minute). According to the email, supporters were told at that meeting the project would be fast-tracked through LUPC next Wednesday, December 18th - only a week before Christmas. Yet no agenda

Proposed site of the Abrams hotel

has been set so far for next week's LUPC meeting.

What do the developers know that the community doesn't?

My concern is that the only thing that Abrams and his development team learned from encountering the community's opposition in October was how to avoid as much of the community as possible in the future. I can find no other explanation for this kind of behavior.

If Dan Abrams and his investors have truly created a project "conceived, grown, and curated by people living in, connected to, and caring for the unique community of Venice" as their website claims then there's no need for the secrecy and obfuscation. It's that simple.

But instead, we're left with new plans only some supporters have seen, a crucial planning meeting that may or may not happen next week and a set of highly misleading talking points.

Here is what we do know:

• As far as we can tell based on the limited information we have (and the artist renderings on the developer's own website), the only thing that's substantially changed with the hotel is that they've lopped off the 4th floor. But we knew that two months ago.  

• The hotel complex still takes up the entire block between Broadway and Westminster, with a partial carve-out for two parcels the developers don't own. There's nothing else on Abbot Kinney that even comes close to it in terms of mass and scale. 

• The hotel complex will still have close to the 92 rooms originally proposed. Abrams has tried to obfuscate this point by claiming "Phase 1" would only be 70 rooms and "Phase 2" would be 18 rooms, but in fact this was always the plan, regardless of the height of the development. When I met with Abrams earlier this year, he told me he could not make the hotel pencil out at anything less than 80 rooms. And when I talked with him before the October LUPC meeting he told me he would try to restore as many of the hotel rooms from the lost 4th floor as possible.

• The hotel complex would still cause major parking and traffic headaches for the surrounding neighborhoods. The developers are claiming traffic for the hotel would be much less at "peak hours" than an alternative office/retail project, yet a 2007 DOT report estimated a 57-room hotel proposed for Abbot Kinney would generate 757 net new car trips a day.  Abrams' hotel as proposed would be nearly twice the size and would, presumably, generate nearly twice the traffic.  Expect permanent gridlock on Abbot Kinney, Broadway, Westminster and Electric as cars, taxis, trash trucks and delivery vehicles cue up to service the hotel and deposit its guests.

• The developers also claim their parking "allows employees to park for free." Well, they could also "allow Martians to land and claim our women" but that doesn't mean it's going to actually happen. It's an empty promise, with the burden of enforcement on us (if it can be enforced), not the developer. Good luck with that as you circle the block endlessly looking for any street parking not already taken up by hotel patrons and employees looking for the free parking that already exists in front of your home. 

So now what?  

The Venice Land Use and Planning Committee is not legally required to post an agenda for the December 18th meeting until Sunday, December 15th. So all I can tell you for now is to please keep next Wednesday night open in case we need you to show up.  

As soon as we know more I promise to send you information on the hotel's new plans, who you need to write emails to if needed, and if we need you to come out next week.

So please stay tuned for further news!