This sounds like the same sort of bullshit Playa Vista pulled on the PDR/Westchester neighborhood council.
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CIM Group's Bitter Lesson to Mid-City
Neighborhoods must sue L.A. City Hall to avert Lowe's-like disasters
Developers Richard Ressler, Shaul Kuba and Avi Shemesh of CIM Group last week sent their project manager, Kathleen Kim, to a Mid-City Neighborhood Council meeting to talk about the firm's controversial Lowe's development. Her most frequent responses to angry residents were "I'm not the one to ask" and "I'm not well versed" in the issues at hand.
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The project, subsidized by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and purportedly intended to reduce "blight," has instead ruined a working-class Mid-City neighborhood adjacent to Venice Boulevard. The livability and lofty views of the racially mixed, ridgetop 16th Place enclave were wiped out by a Lowe's Home Improvement big-box store that now looms over Venice Boulevard.
Ressler, Kuba and Shemesh also plan to install, at the so-called MidTown Crossing development, lighted, billboard-sized signs that will advertise directly into the 16th Place neighbors' bedrooms.
Promised by the city Planning Commission in 2001 that the development would not cause environmental, aesthetic or other changes, the neighborhood is in a panic. Residents did not oppose development but agreed with city Planning Department staff, who strongly recommended that a 40-foot height limit ordinance be honored. Both the city planning staff and neighbors were ignored.
CIM Group's Lowe's building, whose vast, 68-foot-tall outer walls were erected in just hours in early June using "tilt-up" construction, has changed everything.
The view of the city and the Hollywood Hills is gone. The neighborhood is beset with vibration and traffic noise bouncing off the big structure. The homes have plummeted in value. And giant advertising signs are coming soon.
Kim was sent by CIM Group's three founders to "reach out" to these residents. She says CIM Group is well aware of their anger, having "read about it in the papers."
Local resident Nick Hounslow repeated a question that Kim skimmed over: Who at CIM Group could explain how their neighborhood was ruined by an inappropriately oversized retail development? "I'd love to have that question answered," Hounslow said.
Kim responded, to extensive guffaws from the gathered residents, "You know, I am not the person to make that — uh — to answer that."
When resident Estella Holeman suggested to Kim that the CIM Group project was indefensible because much of the big-box structure remains without a tenant, Kim appeared to ignore Holeman, saying: "So we have about five, six months to complete our finished look. So, when you're building a house, you put up a framework ..."
A frustrated Holeman interrupted: "I've built a house before! Across the street from Lowe's that's going up. With a view of the city — that no longer exists."
Holeman demanded: "So you say the studies were done in 2004, before you acquired the property? That you're completely unaware of those studies? So you really don't know how your building, your structure, impacts the community? Is that what you're saying?"
By meeting's end, Kim still had not given the roughly 40 residents a contact name at CIM Group.
In contrast to many residents, Mid-City Neighborhood Council president Allan DiCastro seemed ready to wash his hands of his neighbors' plight. He does not own a home on 16th Place. At the meeting he suggested that, in order to head off further inappropriate development by CIM Group — such as the advertising signage for which big, preliminary frameworks have already been installed — everyone should write letters to City Councilman Herb Wesson.
But Wesson is a major fan of the project — and of the big, lit-up advertising. He is among several city officials — including at the L.A. City Planning Department, Department of Building and Safety and the Community Redevelopment Agency — who have passed the buck repeatedly in the 16th Place mess. Both high-ranking and low-ranking officials say they don't know who is to blame for a retail project that has created dramatic environmental changes without an Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
Wesson's office has been avoiding Mid-City neighbors' calls for months, ever since the first Lowe's wall suddenly appeared. "When the walls on the south side began to be erected, many of us were calling," resident Robert Portillo says, "and we were all deferred."
Several attorneys, including David Bell, president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, say Mid-City residents made an understandable but major error: They believed City Hall's official claims that the project at the old Sears site would not alter the area's aesthetics or livability.
Residents did not understand that the only real hope of holding Los Angeles City Hall to that promise was to hire a lawyer and force through an EIR.
The City Council instead pushed through a Mitigated Negative Declaration — a document saying any negative effect on the Mid-City neighborhood would be so small that it could be easily fixed.
Worried residents appealed and demanded a full environmental study.
City officials rejected their appeal. The residents had no idea that they had just 30 days after that to legally challenge City Hall. And nobody at City Hall or at the Community Redevelopment Agency let them in on that fact.
"There was something wrong — we all kind of knew that, but we didn't know what to do," Portillo remembers. "I've really completely changed my whole mind about the idea that the city wants to partner with the community."
15 comments
Who is researching all the political contributions made by CIM, its owners, employees and its subcontractors.... since Hollywood and Highland and all other CIM projects???? That should be published and tracked regularly-- submitted to Letters to the Editor in the LA Weekly or posted on their website!
It should not have to be that the City does not listen to its citizens unless and until we hire a lawyer and sue. This is crazy but this is exactly what happens. And, sadly, not all neighborhoods have the ability to organize and raise the money to hire a lawyer so they get totally screwed in the process which is so lopsided and favors developers that it is a complete and total joke for developers and City Hall to then complain about NIMBY's.
It is City Hall and the greedy developers who created what they refer to as NIMBY's. By corrupting the process, it is they who inspired citizens to challenge projects and attempt to create balance in government and particularly in the review of large projects such as the CIM group Mid-City project.
Many of us have found that the only way to have our comments heard or get needed mitigations is to sue. We don't want to do so but we must because even for projects that require EIRs, the process is superficial at best... meeting time deadlines to show that the proper steps were taken but allowing the developers to hire all their own consultants to do the traffic studies and other analysis and, guess what? The EIRs always support the plan with the most density and the greatest impacts on the community while claiming that there will be little to no impacts. (Alternatives studied in the EIRs are never choices that are seriously considered.) Concerns raised by citizens (who must invest significant time and effort and are paid nothing to do so while the developers can hire land use consultants, attorneys, lobbyists, traffic engineers and even sometimes hire a bus to bring their supporters in and/or have unions send their members to testify in favor of projects even though none of them have read the EIR, know what options may have existed or have bothered to talk with people in the neighborhood about what a project might do to their community and quality of life) are paid little attention and when they submit comments in response to a DEIR most often do not even receive a response to their concerns in the final EIR. It is a travesty. And the City wonders why people sue even though the time commitment is substantial and it costs buckets of money to do so?
The process is a sham. Significant change is needed. The last Director of Planning said she would look into changing to process by which EIRs are done and when she was first hired some had hope that something would be done similar to the process by which San Francisco does project review. However, that Planning Director is gone and it is likely that the Mayor would not have supported such a change. We can find out if that is the case if the current Director of Planning, Michael LoGrande would take this initiative under his wing and develop a new review process. I know many community folks who would be happy to participate in a real EIR process... and put away their fundraising hats and forgo having to appeal project approvals up the ladder to litigation. It doesn't have to be this way.
At the very least those who call the shots in City Hall and beyond should stop referring to us as NIMBY's. We ought to be called the conscience of the City.
Thank you for your write-up, which shows you know the city process. However, you seem to be out of the loop if you expect anything from the current Director who was installed in this position by the developers and their lobbyists. If anything, he is doing their bidding in dismantling the Zoning Code to make it easier for developers to get their entitlements under the idiotic argument that it was written in 1946, as though that was a crime or as though there were no upadates thereto to keep pace with the changing times. Just the other day, the Deputy Director, Alan Bell, shamelessley made an argument at PLUM justifying an additional 12 Sign Districts as good for the city. There seems to be no other substitute other than filing lawsuits or ensuring that good people get elected to Mayor & City Council. As the most recent elections showed, the constituents love their corrupt Councilmembers who were voted back into office including the biggest City Hall lobbyist's nephew Mitch Englander.
As long as we have disinterested and uninformed voters in LA, which will only get worse as time goes by, sue, sue, sue.
@anonymous Yeah, but they own the courts too. You cannot have a corrupt city hall without a corrupt judiciary
I got an iPad 2-32GB for $ 23.87 and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 657 which only cost me $ 62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, http://x.co/ZBpb
Too bad LA voters "blew" it again, when the even-numbered council district's got reelected again. Well, voters will have another chance to vote out the odd-number district council members or not elect their endorsed candidate....perhaps the only consolation for the 16th Place St residents.
P.S. And, there is hope for ethical elected officials. Hats-off to Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, who voted for the best interest of the people, but got in trouble my his party for not voting along with them.
Represent the taxpayer first, over your political party.David BarronSFValley
If Angelenos are beginning to think things are corrupt now and they can do something about it, the goniffs are three steps ahead of them. AEG's Stadium project will start off with abolishing one branch of government, The Court System.
Corrupt as they are, the courts gave a chance that the citizens might get one of the few remaining honest judges, but the judicial remedy is biting the dust. AEG wants everyone, who is harmed by or who disagrees with AEG, to be barred from the court system. Instead citizens have their complaints heard before arbitrator "Mazle Dina," who will always rule in AEG favor. [Google Judge Mazle Dina)
This special law erases any need for AEG to have an EIR, it would allow AEG to violate every city ordinance and regulation and every California statute, and no one could do anything about it at all. The promise not to use city money is absolutely worthless (as if anyone was dumb enough to believe that anyway). Garcetti, Wesson, Perry et alia can give AEG $2 Billion of tax dollars and there won't be anything anyone can do about it. With the Supreme Court's Citizens United Case's allowing unlimited secret political contributions, we can be sure that a lot the tax dollars which flow to AEG will end up in the campaign coffers of the city councilmembers and mayor for years to come.
When the corrupt Assemblymembers like Perez provide AEG, in advance, complete and total immunity from any and all citizen complaint, you know that AEG and the mamzers in City Hall are planning an awful lot more dreck for LA. Eli Broad and CIM Group must be lickin' their chops saying. "How'z I gets me some of that judicial immunity?" Answer: The same you all get everything else -- L.A. is a Pay to Play City.
CIM Group owes a great debt of gratitude for Los Angles voters and taxpayers who put into positions of power, elected leaders who have showered CIM with public funds and special preferential treatment.
The Federal HUD Section 108 loan guarantee is “allotted for the economic development, housing rehab, public facilities rehab, construction or installation for the benefit of low-to moderate-income persons, or to aid in the prevention of slums.” [The home of the Oscars can hardly be called a slum]
1. $30 million for the Kodak Theater in the CIM Group-owned Hollywood and Highland project to attract a new tenant, Cirque du Soleil. Remember this is the Community Redevelopment Hollywood and Highland Project in which $127 million of public funds were sunk into. A project completed in 2004 at a cost of $650 million which was picked up from Trizec Properties by CIM Group for $201 million with public pension fund investors.
2. $19.2 million to bring in yet another anchor tenant, Lowes into its Midtown Crossing project (the subject of this LA Weekly article). And this $19.2 million dollar will be repaid through sales tax proceeds – I would call that a gift and not a loan.
And this $19.2 million dollar loan is on top of 2007 $8.8 million loan which will also be repaid from tax proceeds – just another gift.
According to Times, the total amount of public assistance for the Midtown Crossing project was $34 million.
And if the over-height view-blocking wall is ever corrected by CIM Group, it will be paid for by the Taxpayers and not CIM Group.
1. $30 million for the Kodak Theater in the CIM Group-owned Hollywood and Highland project to attract a new tenant, Cirque du Soleil. Remember this is the Community Redevelopment Hollywood and Highland Project in which $127 million of public funds were sunk into. A project completed in 2004 at a cost of $650 million which was picked up from Trizec Properties by CIM Group for $201 million with public pension fund investors.
2. $19.2 million to bring in yet another anchor tenant, Lowes into its Midtown Crossing project (the subject of this LA Weekly article). And this $19.2 million dollar will be repaid through sales tax proceeds – I would call that a gift and not a loan.
And this $19.2 million dollar loan is on top of 2007 $8.8 million loan which will also be repaid from tax proceeds – just another gift.
According to Times, the total amount of public assistance for the Midtown Crossing project was $34 million.
http://articles.latimes.com/20...
And if the over-height view-blocking wall is ever corrected by CIM Group, it will be paid for by the Taxpayers and not CIM Group.
I agree..they should sue the city. Unfortunatly its our tax dollars the city will use to defend the case. Its a terrible situation. I don't live in that neighborhood, but Iive in Mid-City. I would suggest all area residents protest shopping at any business at this center. Let the business dry up and they might speak up to their landlord (CIM Group) and the City. I would suggest voting out Herb Wesson and any other elected official who messed this up. I've been on the fence about him, and this might have me campaigning for ANY candidate against him. I would suggest opposing ANY CIM Group development in Los Angeles, so they are not allowed to do this again in another neighborhood. CIM Group and the City know they messed up and they should do as much as they can to work with this neighborhood to correct the situation. Our tax dollars were used in this project, and they should make it right!
You bring up a good point. It is costly and stressful to fight City Hall with an Attorney. But in order to preserve your rights you need to fill proper objections on time. The City goes out of its way to make it as hard as possible for Citizens to know what's going on, let alone have an opportunity to weigh in.
If our elected officials truly represented the people, then they wouldn't need to hire a lawyer - Their elected represented would be looking out for them instead of high roller donors.
How do you propose CIM correct the situation other than reducing the height. Do you think they will ever do that. Short of that sue the city & recall that corrupt Wesson.
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