A short-handed planning commission advanced a proposal for a Gelson’s grocery store on Sepulveda Boulevard last week, acknowledging deep anxiety among nearby residents about project impacts while differing about its future implications for development along the highway.
By a 2-1 vote, the commission tentatively approved the grocery store project slated for the southwest corner of Sepulveda and 8th Street, with commissioners Penny Bordokas and Chris Conaway in favor, and Steve Ortmann opposed. If left undisturbed, the commission’s decision would be final; however, appeals to the decision may be filed until April 10, and the City Council can choose to hold a public hearing on the approval.
As of early Tuesday evening, no appeal had been filed, said Planning Manager Laurie Jester.
The approval was a blow for residents of the surrounding neighborhood, who inveighed against risks to safety and quality of life that they said the project posed. The outpouring came after an overflow crowd at a previous commission hearing on the project last month forced last week’s continued meeting. The intervening time prompted a change in strategy for both project opponents and Paragon Commercial Group, the El Segundo-based developer behind the project. While public comment was roughly split between the two sides at the previous meeting, it tilted heavily toward opposition at last week’s gathering; however at the more recent meeting, emails submitted to Planning Commission heavily favored the project. (At least one email sent to the commission on the subject included accidentally pasted instructions from Paragon urging people to comment.)
The perceptions of public support for the project were significant, because commissioners based their final decisions in part on how they felt the developer had involved the community with the project.
Jim Dillavou, a Manhattan Beach resident and principal with Paragon, said that, from “block parties” to “breakfasts at the Kettle,” he had personally attended hundreds of meetings with residents in the roughly two years since the project was announced. Paragon shared the results of its internal surveys on the project last month, with graphics displaying widespread support throughout the city.
But Ortmann, the dissenting commissioner, called outreach efforts inadequate, though for reasons besides the number of doors knocked on. Concerns, like the proposed length of a deceleration lane, were not driving his decision. He said the project’s “suburban, car-centric” design belied a professed commitment to sustainability, and that its lack of orientation toward the surrounding neighborhood would only aggravate issues the city was facing on the Sepulveda corridor.
“They could take the turn lane down to zero for all I care. It’s the broader concern of how it relates to and how it speaks to the community,” he said.
Project opponents framed their comments around impacts to traffic and parking, and several residents also shared personal stories involving car accidents in the area. They also said the lack of an Environmental Impact Report for the project meant that these and other impacts were potentially even worse than the city anticipated, and some warned that future accidents could expose the city to litigation.
“This staff should be providing cover to the city government and the taxpayers. They should be insisting on an EIR. But they’re not doing that,” said Glen Tucker, an attorney who regularly works on municipal litigation and lives in the neighborhood. (Tucker said he was speaking on his own behalf.)
The desire for an EIR emerged as a key point of contention. The California Environmental Quality Act attempts to shield residents from impacts associated with new development by requiring documentation of potential problems caused by those developments. When there is “substantial evidence” of “significant impacts” on the environment, this must take the form of an EIR; a “mitigated negative declaration” or MND is appropriate only when no substantial evidence indicates such impacts.
An initial study conducted for the Gelson’s project found that projected impacts did not meet the significance threshold and the city, at Paragon’s expense, conducted an MND. Ellen Berkowitz, a real estate attorney working for Paragon, said that the results of the initial study meant that the city could not conduct an EIR for the project; Ortmann, believing differently, engaged her and others in a series of questions on the issue, but did not get a satisfactory answer.
Quinn Barrow, city attorney for Manhattan Beach, did not return multiple calls and an email seeking clarification.
In addition to the legal appropriateness of an EIR, project opponents have vigorously disputed the data that consultants and city staff have relied on in evaluating the project. In a far more extensive presentation than occurred in the previous meeting, city staff attempted to explain where these conclusions came from. Quality of life concerns are real, they said, but within the legal realm of acceptability.
City Traffic Engineer Eric Zandvliet could only shake his head and smile at various points throughout a lengthy presentation, explaining how multiple areas of concern, like traffic and parking, are legally evaluated in ways that might differ from common expectation.
“We’re not going to say there won’t be an increase. There will be an increase in traffic, including on residential streets,” said City Traffic Engineer Eric Zandvliet. “The level of significance is based on environmental thresholds, which come from L.A. County congestion management guidelines. They are very high thresholds, which means you have to get a lot of impact before it’s considered ‘significant.’”
The shorthanded vote came with two commissioners absent from discussion. The night before last week’s meeting, the City Council accepted the resignation of former commissioner Nancy Hersman, who was elected to the council March 7; Commissioner George Apostol recused himself “out of an abundance of caution” because of his ownership interest in a medical building several blocks to the north.
