Mixed Use Ordinance, Mixed Reviews Council Looks Over Controversial Development Ordinance
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briefs • Initial Search for New Beverly briefs • Council Talks Funding for sports • BHHS Girls’ Tennis Team Ad- Vista Principal Comes Up Empty Page 3 Rodeo Drive Committee Page 4 vances To Section Semifinals Page 5 Issue 1129 • May 20 - May 26, 2021 Mixed Use Ordinance, Mixed Reviews Council Looks Over Controversial Development Ordinance cover story • page 4 letters email “Planning Commission Gives Go Ahead to One Beverly Hills” [Issue #1126] I wanted to write in about my support for the One Beverly Hills project. I had once served as the Chairperson of our HOUSING ELEMENT STUDY SESSION city’s Planning Commission and had served a total of six years on that commis- City Council Study Session sion (and also for 3 ½ years on the Pub- lic Works Commission before that). As June 1, 2021 at 2:30 PM a more than 45-year resident of Beverly WHAT’S ON Hills, I have seen my share of project con- cepts come and go, and I have witnessed The City of Beverly Hills invites all interested community members to attend a YOUR MIND? our city grow from the sleepy village of the 1970s into its beauty and grandeur we virtual City Council Study Session meeting during which the draft Housing Element You can write us at: now enjoy. document will be reviewed. The Housing Element of the General Plan will outline 140 South Beverly Drive For those of us long-timers here in the #201 Beverly Hills community, the One Bever- the future housing goals of the City and identify policies and programs that will be ly Hills project is not our first rodeo. So Beverly Hills, CA 90212 implemented to meet the housing needs of the community. many projects, good, bad, or indifferent have been proposed, and either construct- You can fax us at: ed or gone away quietly or once in a while 310.887.0789 Please join us! For meeting log-in details and more information, visit have gone away with some negative sen- email us at: timent. BEVERLYHILLS.ORG/HOUSINGELEMENTUPDATE [email protected] Projects such as the Montage, the MGM office building, and more recently, the SNAPSHOT WeBeverlye Hills kly Issue 1129 • May 20 - May 26, 2021 Beverly Hills Weekly Inc. Founded: October 7, 1999 Published Thursdays Delivered in Beverly HilIs, Beverlywood, Los Angeles ISSN#1528-851X www.bhweekly.com Publisher & CEO 1 year Josh E. Gross subscriptions are Reporter available. Ani Gasparyan Sent via US Mail Sports Editor $75 payable Steven Herbert in advance Contributing Editor Rudy Cole (1925-2013) Adjudicated as a newspaper of general Legal Advertising circulation for the County Mike Saghian of Los Angeles. Case Eiman Matian # BS065841 of the Los Angeles Superior Court, on 140 South Beverly Drive November 30, 2000. #201 Beverly Hills, CA 90212 310.887.0788 phone 310.887.0789 fax DRIVE FOR GENEROSITY CNPA Member [email protected] All staff can be reached at: RODEO DRIVE first name @bhweekly.com Unsolicited materials will not be returned. (L to R) Nazy Daneshmand, Touran Daneshmand and Sean Daneshmand ©2021 Beverly Hills Weekly Inc. Nazy Daneshmand, President of the Miracle Babies Los Angeles Chapter, held a “Breakfast on Rodeo” fundraising event to maintain transportation services for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles on May 5. The event raised $80,000. Miracle Babies is a nonprofit organization that strives to unite families with their critically ill newborns OUR DATA SPEAKS in the neonatal intensive care unit by providing transportation and supportive services. VOLUMES Kathy Gohari (not pictured), President of the Rodeo Drive Committee, was the emcee for the event. Page 2 • Beverly Hills Weekly Waldorf Astoria, were hard fought bat- property is the “Last of the Mohicans” as project for our city, and like the hotel Also omitted was how residents felt the tles among those of us in the community it is the city’s largest undeveloped com- projects we went to war over in years city council is destroying the city, not prop- and yet, these now exist as icons within mercial lot remaining today. I, for one, do past, we should build it because at the erly representing their constituents, and our city. How many of us have now had not want to continue to have to look at the end of the day, each of us and the city numerous other facts supporting residents’ the pleasure of enjoying a special occa- current conditions of the property any lon- will be far better off and will have an- points of view. sion or even just a dinner out with loved ger if I don’t have to – it’s just not “Bev- other marquis destination in our city to Councilmember John Mirisch was the ones among the beautiful restaurants and erly Hills” (and neither are the conditions enjoy and create memories at. only councilmember who wanted to repeal amenities these projects provide us? How that exist on the former railway right of Daniel Yukelson the mixed use ordinance. The remaining many of us appreciate the public benefit way along Santa Monica Boulevard and Beverly Hills council members took the position that it from tourism and tax revenues these proj- that are also at an important city gateway does not need to be repealed because no ects deliver so our first responders can get – how many more decades do we have to “Mixed Use Ordinance, harm has been done yet. Their plan is to re- “there” in just about two minutes? look at the decrepit, outdated structures Mixed Reviews” [Issue #1129] view the mixed use ordinance again at the Let us not forget the one-time Four Sea- and surface parking there?). By surprise, with little notice, the city one year mark when it will be too late to sons Hotel project so many opposition Because of its location at the outer edge council made its six month review of the cure the problem they created, and the dam- groups chased just beyond our city’s bor- of our city, its adjacency to Century City, mixed use ordinance a month early at the age will be irreversible. ders to become the Four Seasons Hotel “at and its lot size, what better place to con- May 13 council meeting. This city council intends to continue re- Beverly Hills” where no apparent precau- struct height and density and create the The good news is that no formal ap- mote council meetings for six more months tions concerning traffic and congestion resulting commerce engine and tourism plications by developers to build mixed to September, which will give them plen- were given consideration by neighboring magnate that will ultimately result from use projects have been received by the ty more opportunities to do whatever they Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills received such a grand-scale, high-end project. The city – only questions about regulations want to do, regardless of what their constit- all of the traffic problems of the project One Beverly Hills project has all the po- and procedures. Also, some developers uents want. And in the future, we will have along Doheny Drive and, at the same tential in the world to become a tremen- are claiming that they need even more to endure the inconvenience of calling in time, none of the taxes and fees. dous asset to our Beverly Hills commu- generous standards than the state density our input to council meetings, and remain- Now, a bit of full disclosure. I had the nity. bonus program for projects to pencil out. ing on hold for lengthy periods, if we want great fortune to work with Beny Alagem I find some of the objections I have Despite short notice, 54 emails were our communications to be heard. and his team at Oasis West Realty for 3 ½ read or heard, for example, the one ob- received by the city to be read at the It would take about 3,600 signatures, years, but we have not spoken in several jecting to plans for fractional ownership remote Zoom council meeting. How- 15% of registered voters, to recall city years and I have never discussed this proj- within aspects of the project, unfounded ever, our city officials engaged in new councilmembers. It’s a pleasant dream. ect with him nor with any other members and weak. Fractional ownership projects outrageous conduct to add to their leg- Whether we choose to fulfill it or not, we of his team. merely function, look, feel, and smell acy: censoring residents’ input. They definitely need to find a couple of good can- Having been a Planning Commission- for that matter just like any hotel project accomplished this by summarizing the didates to support in the next city council er, I had heard all the arguments already – how could one possibly tell the differ- content of all of the e-mails instead of election, so we can form a new, conscien- as to why One Beverly Hills should not ence from the outside! As I first sat on the reading them, together with mentioning tious city council majority. be approved. They sound like a broken Planning Commission, I quickly realized the names of all of the senders. Darian Bojeaux record to me. Too tall, too much traffic, that much of the opposition came from When resident input is provided at a Beverly Hills loss of privacy (including the guy who people who just liked to hear themselves meeting, it is often informative and per- was concerned guests of the Waldorf As- talk and that had little else to do with their suasive to other residents, so summari- toria could see him skinny dipping in his time although I did my best to give defer- zation gave very short shrift to residents’ backyard pool some half mile away), not ence to those that came out to voice their input.