The concept is integrated into buildings' exteriors, which will feature contrasting color panels. "The idea is the shifting colors is like the trains passing," Watts tells the city's planning commissioners.
Building A is brick, like an old train warehouse, he explains; buildings B and C snake through the property like train cars, before crossing a metaphorical river and ending near Building D in the (also metaphorical) woods — a courtyard with newly planted jacaranda trees to replace those that will be ripped out during construction.
PHOTO BY TED SOQUI
UCLA professor Calvin Normore bought a second trailer in the park for his sons.
PHOTO BY TED SOQUI
Mary Herring lived in a different Santa Monica trailer park until the city turned it into a bus depot.
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The most recent plan for East Village features 486 residential units, mostly studios and one-bedrooms, 147 of them rent-controlled. The plan also includes 8,650 square feet of creative/office space and 17,780 square feet of retail.
The East Village project as originally envisioned had less residential space. Luzzatto added nearly 100 units to accommodate the city's concerns that, with light rail and the recent approval of commercial projects like the Lionsgate production facility a few blocks away, the area will need more housing.
If the plan is approved, the Luzzatto Company would pay a $2 million transportation fee, $386,000 to the city's Childcare Tuition Subsidy and $25,000 to the Bergamot Station light rail project. Luzzatto also has promised to build a new street and extend the existing Pennsylvania Avenue by 62 feet — a value of $2.3 million — to ease traffic congestion.
The sound of road pavers is music to the city council's ears. In June, the council approved the draft of a plan to transform 104 acres of its old industrial quarter into a "walkable and human-scaled, mixed-use, transit-oriented neighborhood" near the new light rail stop.
The council's main concern with the Bergamot Area Plan was its implications for traffic in the area. The East Village Project's two new streets would go a long way toward addressing that problem.
The residents are the only barrier, and — with the exception of Councilman Kevin McKeown, who last July penned an editorial proclaiming, "Evicting the powerless is not the Santa Monica way" — they are largely without champions in City Hall.
Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom, who is currently a candidate for the State Assembly, acknowledges that eviction of the elderly residents runs contrary to Santa Monica's progressive ideals. Santa Monica, he says, "has placed a premium on affordable housing, on preserving tenancy — we have one of the strictest rent-control ordinances in the state of California." But, he adds, "The state law on trailer parks is very specific, and gives owners of parks a good deal of latitude."
Marc Luzzatto has worked hard to impress upon city officials all of the reasons that he would be justified in closing Village Trailer Park. "The infrastructure of the park is stressed to say the least, and there have been lawsuits from residents of the park over the current condition," he tells the planning commission.
Later, resident Brenda Barnes stood up and said, "I filed the lawsuits, I know what they're about — they're about what Mr. Luzzatto did to the park."
But the root of the problem predates Luzzatto's involvement. In fact, his ownership stake, the development and the threat of eviction are all, arguably, the direct result of a lawsuit the residents filed against the previous owners 12 years ago.
In the latter half of the '90s, after decades of idyll, the Village Trailer Park began to fall into disrepair. Among other issues, the roots of the same trees that give the park its distinctive character were tearing up the plumbing.
When City Hall deployed inspectors to the park in 1998, they scribbled down pages and pages of code violations: raw sewage backing up in puddles, corroded gas lines lacking permits, dirty tap water, faulty electricity, trailers too close together and lanes too narrow for fire trucks to pass through.
The city handed the park's owners a laundry list of issues to resolve. When the deadline passed and the fixes were not completed, 52 residents mounted a "failure to maintain" lawsuit. (Some residents, happy with their homes, sat out the fight.)
Nonetheless, in April 2000, the management ordered the median that ran up the center of Village Trailer Park — the pride of the park, bursting with pines, palms, magnolia and jacaranda trees — cut down.
Management said it was necessary to make room for more parking, but many residents felt the act was retaliatory. A news report from the time notes a letter from city building inspector Tim McCormick, stating, "It was not necessary to remove the trees in order to comply with the parking requirements."
The residents ultimately prevailed in their "failure to maintain" lawsuit, divvying up $1.4 million in damages. But many feel the park hasn't been the same since.
The lion's share of the money, residents say, went to the woman who spearheaded the effort. She moved out soon after.
"That left us with no median, and they came in and tore up everybody's yards fixing the plumbing," Herring says of the suit. "We've had problems ever since with Mr. Luzzatto buying the park and all."
Marc Luzzatto bought his half-share in the park six years ago, shortly after the residents' lawsuit nearly bankrupted one of the owners. Muriel Shapiro, who died at age 88 in 2009, was "living on Social Security," Luzzatto says. "She had had to mortgage her residence in order to pay for legal fees and the work that the residents had sued over."
