Hometown Hero: David Bryan. Educator and Adventurer

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

David Bryan
New Roads School

David Bryan, the Head of School at New Roads School in Santa Monica, has spent most of his life in the classroom.  In thinking about his teaching he said, “Some of the most exciting moments I’ve had have been in the classroom.  To be part of a moment when everyone is being passionate and even ferocious about the same ideas, to help people come together in their shared knowledge, is exciting.  It’s like juggling and then seeing the pattern emerge.”

Teaching started simply as a way to get through grad school without paying.  He was studying Law at SUNY Buffalo.  Law School tuition was high and he decided to ‘go shopping’ to see if he could get some financial help.  He got help from The SUNY Communications Department when they accepted him as a PhD student and paid for all his courses, including the law classes.

Bryan had always been shy and when he found out that to get his tuition paid he would be required to stand up in front of a classroom of college students and teach he almost gave up.   However he didn’t want to lose what he saw as a great opportunity.  So he gathered his courage, went into the classroom and took roll.  He hoped that would be a way into a conversation with his students.

Seeing the name Timothy Leary on the roster Bryan asked the student.  “Are you related?”

The student looked questioningly at Bryan.  He had no idea there was a famous Timothy Leary.   Bryan was somewhat thrown and he jokingly asked the class, “Hey, do you guys know the Beatles?”

The class laughed.  Bryan was relieved.  He was more than relieved.  Bryan said, “I liked the feeling of making the students laugh.  I liked the interaction.  It got me out of feeling uncomfortable.”

By the time he earned his law degree he had come to the conclusion that he didn’t have the temperament for practicing law.  So he taught, he wrote, he worked construction jobs.  Then he and some friends went to Florida to live on a boat and work on boats.

“I lived on a 36’ Morgan sloop in south Florida and in the Caribbean.  Living on a boat makes you pay attention.  There is always the demand of the ocean and that demand is ignored to one’s peril.   You pay attention to the ocean and you pay attention to yourself.  In fact, living on the ocean can be self -absorbing and over time it made me realize I needed to reenter the world.

“I was in the boat and reckoning with the idea of boat life and what’s next and the idea of teaching high school took hold of me hard.”  Bryan started to research what he needed to do in order to teach High School. 

His mother was in California and he wanted to live near her.   “I loved my Mom.  She was amazing.  She could figure out anything, she could fix the dishwasher and the washing machine.  She was smart about money and investments.  She loved her garden, especially her roses and her gladiolas.  She hated housework.  She and my father made it abundantly clear to me and to my brother that they loved us.”

LA Unified gave him a substitute teacher emergency credential.  While he was subbing at LA Unified he was also looking for a full time job. 

He ran into Jack Zimmerman who had been a friend from college days. Zimmerman was by then an educator and a therapist.  He introduced Bryan to Paul Cummins, the Founder and Director of Crossroads School in Santa Monica.  Cummins hired Bryan to teach Crossroads Middle School history, English and the mysteries classes - then an innovative and now a widely used curriculum for teaching human development and ethics.

Part of the ongoing discussion among faculty at Crossroads was how to make a Crossroads education available to all students who wanted it.  It was an idea Paul Cummins acted on and he started New Roads School to do just that.   Cummins formed the New Visions Foundation to provide support for

his plan for the school and for an Educational Village.

Cummins asked David Bryan to be the Head of School at New Roads.  It was an assignment Bryan gladly accepted.  Bryan describes the work at New Roads as “super joyful.  The kids are fabulous.   They come to school because they want to be here and that’s an essential part of a learning environment.”

New Roads is a school that is genuinely diverse – racially, ethnically, culturally, socioeconomically.   Diversity is recorded in School demographics and statistics.  Bryan said the students and faculty have “embraced diversity.  It is lived in the daily life of the School. At New Roads students and faculty cross the invisible barriers that seem to exist in our society even though we all know they have no basis in fact.

“Another measure of our success as a school is that our kids are prepared for college and our students go to colleges all over the country.   Even more important, they are prepared to take the next steps on the path of life,” said Bryan.

After 18 years of being the Head of School at New Roads, Bryan is retiring.  He and his wife, the psychologist and educator Shelly Graham, are moving to the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Right now his plan is to create some space and see what fills it up.  “I’ve had an adventurous life,” he said, “Now I’m doing what I always tell the kids to do, be open to having an new adventure.”

What Say You? Dignity, Autonomy and the Advance Directive

 

What Say You?  Dignity, Autonomy and the Advance Directive

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

Dr. Jonathan Weaver, a member of the medical staff at Saint John’s Health Center, believes “communicating ones wishes for treatment at the end of life is one of the most important discussions you can have.  This can be a conversation with your physician or with your spouse or any person you designate to be your advocate. 

He continues, “It is a discussion that is not frequently done and in fact only 30 percent of physicians polled have communicated their wishes with their own doctor

regarding end of life care.”

Dr. Weaver will discuss a practical approach on how to conduct end of life decisions with your doctor and how doctors approach end of life care for themselves at the St. John’s panel discussion on “End of Life Care.”  Santa Monica Main Library April 16 2-4 pm and April 17 6:30-8:30 pm.  (For reservations call 310829 8453)

Other panelists and facilitators include:  Ross Kino MD, Medical Director, Emergency Services; Brian Madden MD, Medical Director Palliative Care; Nancy Parks, RN, Palliative Care Nurse Coordinator; Cynthia Lane, RN, Director Case Management and Social Services; and Paul Schneider, MD FACP, President, Southern California Bioethics Committee Consortium.

Why care about this?  If you want the physician and the medical staff to respect your wishes when you are in the hospital, if you are unexpectedly in an accident or become severely ill at a young age, if you are elderly and have an illness or a disease, if you want your health care values and beliefs to be respected, it is worth it to care.

An example of when it’s important to have your wishes known ahead of time is with CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation).  When you hear someone talk about CPR is your image one of a TV actor playing a buff lifeguard pushing on a swimmer’s chest and administering mouth- to -mouth resuscitation restoring the swimmer to breath and life? 

That is one kind of CPR.  In the hospital a patient with no heartbeat might need in hospital CPR where their ribs are cracked and the rib cage opened so the heart can be accessed directly.  Emergency or operating room CPR saves lives and is an essential protocol in the hospital.  But is it always the right thing to do?

Is the patient fundamentally healthy but has stopped breathing due to a trauma and can be restored to health or was the person in a serious auto accident, having no discernable heartbeat, and with irreversible brain damage causing the loss of cognitive capacity?  In these completely different scenarios the patient, or the patient’s advocate, must direct the physician.

Physicians make medical decisions and offer medical advice.  Patients have the right to autonomy and the right to accept or reject medical care based on their own health, their values and beliefs.

So how do you keep your autonomy even if you can no longer speak for yourself?  One way is through an Advance Health Care Directive informing physicians of your health care decisions.  Another is to authorize a person to be your advocate when you can’t speak for yourself.

If only 30 percent of doctors think this is important, why should the rest of us?  We have learned form the Johns Hopkins Precursors Study (a longitudinal study following Johns Hopkins trained physicians) that doctors often “forego the same end of life treatments they offer to patients.”  (Doctors Die Differently by Arline Kaplan June 29, 2012 Psychiatric Times)

Ken Murray MD, a Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC and one of the physicians in the Hopkins Precursors Study, is the author of the Zocalo Public Square essay “How Doctors Die: It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But ItShould Be”

He writes,  “It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

“Of course, doctors don’t want to die; they want to live. But they know enough about modern medicine to know its limits. And they know enough about death to know what all people fear most: dying in pain, and dying alone. They’ve talked about this with their families. They want to be sure, when the time comes, that no heroic measures will happen–that they will never experience, during their last moments on earth, someone breaking their ribs in an attempt to resuscitate them with CPR (that’s what happens if CPR is done right).

“Almost all medical professionals have seen what we call “futile care” being performed on people. That’s when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery.

“If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity. As for me, my physician has my choices. They were easy to make, as they are for most physicians. There will be no heroics, and I will go gentle into that good night.”

Dr. Murray is clear about his values and has communicated them to his physician and has shared them with us.  For everyone, getting to clarity takes some work.  Hearing from medical professionals might just be a good way to get started in figuring out your own beliefs and values.

What Say You?

What Say You? No One Dies Alone

Sister Maureen Craig holding a patient's hand at St. Johns Hospital
Part of the NODA Program

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist

“The scientist in me knows that we don’t thrive alone.  When we’re born we need human contact.  Throughout our life we know from science and from our own emotions that we need human contact to thrive.  In dying we can no more be alone that we can at birth.

“I’m not religious but I am spiritual.  It makes me feel good to be able to be with the dying person, to touch them, to hold their hand, to make human contact.  I want to be there for people.  It means a lot to me,” said Melissa McRae

McRae is a native of Santa Barbara who studied at both UCSB and UCLA.  She currently works at St. Johns as a Surgery Administrative Coordinator.   She volunteers for the No One Dies Alone (NODA) program at St. Johns.

NODA was the idea of a Critical Care Nurse named Sandra Clarke.  She wrote, “there seems to be an unwritten universal protocol (among nurses) for the patient who is dying without the presence of friends or family.  One’s other patients’ care will be taken over by nearby nurses.  Rituals of passing are acted out: I’ve seen nurses quietly singing, holding the hand of the dying, and, in all other manners of behavior, showing care and respect while an individual passes on to death.  Nurses know the awe of being present at the birth or the death of another human.  I believe awe and privilege is an innate human response at these times – the very essence of humanity.” 

That unwritten protocol became a formal program now known as “No One Dies Alone” and it was founded at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene Oregon in November of 2001.   Hospitals and health centers across the country have followed their lead.  St. Johns began their NODA program in 2004.

Sister Maureen Craig, a person happily known to all who work at St. Johns said, “St. Johns has a long tradition, rooted in the mission of the hospital, for compassionate care.  I am thankful for the volunteers carrying our traditions forward.  Through the years our numbers have diminished and work that was once done by the Sisters has now become part of the lives of our volunteers.  We love the fact that the loving care we so believe in is being continued by the hundreds of volunteers at St. Johns and by the remarkable volunteers of the No One Dies Alone program.”

Grenda Pearlman, Director of Volunteer Services at St. Johns reports, “the NODA program currently has about 25 volunteers.  Each one attends orientation sessions and receives training.  The current volunteers range in age from their early 20’s to their late 70’s.  The requirement for being a NODA volunteer is “an interest in being advocates for the patient.  These patients are on comfort care and our goal at St. Johns is to see they have no physical pain and to offer compassionate care.

“NODA volunteers are special people and it is not something that everybody can or should do.  But if it is something a person can do then it is not only a gift to the patient it is also a gift to the volunteer,” said Pearlman. (For information about volunteering for the NODA program of for any of the St. Johns programs contact Grenda Pearlman at 310 829 8434 or grenda.pearlman@st.johns.org)

Marge Gold is a NODA volunteer who provides care to patients and who also helps the Director with program organization and coordination.  Gold talked about what she learned from being a NODA volunteer.  “NODA has taught me to just be there in whatever way the patient needs, to suspend judgment and to come with no expectations about the patient or the family.  I hope I always say and do whatever is needed and am of help.  It’s a profound experience and I’m grateful to be a part.”

Like other volunteers for NODA, Nancy Cronig has a long series of accomplished volunteer work on her resume.  Currently she is an actor in the Moot Court program at UCLA, is part of the St. Johns Surgery Waiting Room Volunteer program and a NODA volunteer.

Recounting her NODA experiences Cronig said, “I came to realize that even in a coma a person hears you.  I play music and sing to them.  I hold their hand.  I wipe their brow and put ointment on their lips and do other things to make them comfortable.  I advocate for them when they can’t advocate for themselves.

“When I got called for my first patient I didn’t know what to expect.  I sat with her and held her hand and played music for her.  I was so thankful to be able to pass on some of help I have gotten in my life to someone who was in need.  It is a healing experience.”

From the beginning of St. Johns to now much has changed in health care.  The work of being a physician and the physician’s commitment to each patient is a value we agree to as a nation.  One we all want to protect.  However the delivery of health care, cost of health care, and availability of health care remains in the public, the political and the economic spotlight. 

In addition medical technology has made great advancements bringing great benefits but adding to the ethical questions that have always been part of medicine.  

A discussion of the forces shaping our national health care is, and needs to be, ongoing.  Throughout what can sometimes be a contentious debate individual people, across the nation, are using their time to volunteer in ways that support the commitment to each individual patient.    NODA is one part of the answer to the ethical questions of our time.

What Say You?

What Say You? Planned Parenthood Food Fare

What Say You?  Planned Parenthood Food Fare          

Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  March 7, 2013.

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

March 15, 2013

Julia Child was an ardent Planned Parenthood supporter and the inspiration for the now much anticipated annual Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) Food Fare Fundraising Gala.  34 years ago Child supervised 20 amateur sous chefs in the kitchen of Ma Maison in Beverly Hills as they prepared a five-course dinner for 130 people.  That dinner was the first of the Planned Parenthood “Food Fares.”

The 2013 PPLA Food Fare at the Civic was attended by more than 1500 people.  It was the 17th year PPLA hosted the Food Fare at the Civic.  An orange carpet marked the entry into the beautifully decorated and lit Civic, a great venue for this event.  Fare goers feasted on food prepared by Chef of the Year Joe Miller.   PPLA chose Miller for the Chef of the Year Award based on his culinary arts, his history of work with PPLA and his commitment to the goals and values of Planned Parenthood.  The list of participating restaurateurs reads like a “Who’s Who” of LA’s favorite chefs.

Alice Miler, Clementine
Planned Parenthood Los Angeles Food Fare
March 7, 2013

Fare goers also bought chic goods from vendors selling everything from jewelry to pajamas. http://pplafoodfare.com/?page_id=8 

The credit for planning and organizing this event goes to the PPLA Guild President Marcy Bergren Pine and the approximately 200 Guild Members. They volunteer their time and their expertise to support PPLA’s fundraising and public outreach. The Food Fare is PPLA’s major fundraising event and this year, from attendees, donors, sponsors and contributors to the Fare, they raised over $800,000.00.

Supporting reproductive rights wasn’t always this fun or this easy.  Giving out information about birth control was once a crime in the U.S.   The reproductive rights pioneer Margaret Sanger was jailed for opening the first U.S. birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York in 1916.

“Planned Parenthood dates its beginnings to 1916 when Sanger, her sister, and a friend open America's first birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. In Sanger's America, women cannot vote, sign contracts, have bank accounts, or divorce abusive husbands. They cannot control the number of children they have or obtain information about birth control, because in the 1870s a series of draconian measures, called the Comstock laws, made contraception illegal and declared information about family planning and contraception "obscene."” http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/history-and-successes.htm

Sanger overcame legal and public obstacles and her clinic became the American Birth Control League.   Over time the League became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Margaret Sanger was Planned Parenthood’s first President.

Planned Parenthood “believes in the fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility regardless of the individual’s income, martial status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence.  We believe that respect and value for diversity in all aspects of our organization are essential to our well-being.  We believe reproductive self-determination must be voluntary and preserve the individual’s right to privacy.  We further believe that such self-determination will contribution to an enhancement of the quality of life and strong family relationships.” http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/vision-4837.htm

Serena Josel, the Director of Public Affairs for PPLA said, “In LA it can become easy for us to become complacent but when you look at what’s happening across the country you can’t be complacent.  From 2010 to 2012 there were over 2000 pieces of anti- women’s health legislation in the form of anti abortion and anti birth control bills across the country.

“We served over 136,000 patients last year in our 19 clinics and 80% of our patients live at or below the poverty level.  Our goal is to never turn anyone away,” said Josel.  “Fewer than 7% of patients are teens and the majority of teen patients come with their parents.  We provide reproductive health services, family planning, contraception, abortion, screening for breast, cervical and testicular cancer, HIV screening and counseling, STD testing and treatment.  We work to help people have healthy families.

“California often leads the nation on reproductive rights health care and that’s a signal to us to keep on.  We follow common sense, evidence based policies and when we don’t get bogged down by outside politics we can concentrate on our essential work.”

PPLA expenses totaled approximately $48 million in 2012.  Over $5 million came from donations.  The main source of funding is from reimbursements for individual health services from private health insurance companies or from public health coverage such as California Family Pact or from health care programs supported by Federal funding.

Federal funding to Planned Parenthood started in 1970 when President Nixon signed “The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act.”
The Act provides funding for family planning services and was supported by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans. 

Signing the Act, Nixon said, “No American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.”

What Say You?

Hometown Hero: The CALIFORNIA LIST and Bettina Duval

Hometown Hero:  The CALIFORNIA LIST and Bettina Duval

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

February 22. 2013

Duval started The CALIFORNIA LIST (http://californialist.org/) in April 2002.  Her mission?  To create opportunities for women to run for public office and the election of pro-choice, democratic women to the California State Senate, Assembly and Executive Branch.  “I started The LIST because it was a way for me to meld together my experience and my passion.  I’m proud and honored to be as involved as I have been,” said Duval.

Bettina Duval
President and Founder
The CALIFORNIA LIST

“In California we think we’re ahead of the game because we have representing us three very powerful women in national public office.  Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer and Congresswoman Pelosi.  The role of The CALIFORNIA LIST is to help create the pipeline for our next generation of women leaders.  Attorney General Kamala Harris is a rising star in California political life.  Debra Bowen, Julia Brownley, Karen Bass, and Judy Chu are wonderful examples of women holding public office.  Early in their political careers The CALIFORNIA LIST encouraged and supported these office holders.

“Thankfully public perspective has changed during my growing up years and now most Americans have favorable views of women who run for office and there is a continually increasing expression of a comfort level with women holding public office.”

Duval credits the 1972 Title IX Act,  “a watershed moment for women as changing higher education in the United States and, under the laws of unintended consequences, also contributing to broader, societal changes in the perception of women in public life,”

Duval was raised by a strong, independent and loving single mom and loving grandparents.  They were a family of four and lived in Davis CA.  Duval went to Berkeley for college.  She studied rhetoric and considered becoming a lawyer.  At Berkeley she ran for student government and lost but that got her the position of Commissioner for Student Elections. 

She was introduced to the League of Women Voters when she needed to bring in credible outside monitors for the student elections.  Her introduction to legislative politics had started earlier, at Davis Senior High School, where she was on student government and the first student representative to sit on the Davis Board of Education.  When she graduated from Davis Senior High School she received the Gordon H. True Cup, a coveted award for service to the school.

Duval recounts an early ‘aha’ moment when she was an intern for then State Assemblyman Vic Fazio and Senator John Dunlap and was sent to Sacramento on a work errand.  “In 1978 I was in the Galley at the State Capitol and looked down at the floor.  It seemed to be all men.  No, there were 38 men and 2 women.  It made an impression on me and was a catalyst for my future work.”

Duval has a list of accomplishments on her path to starting her own organization in support of electing women to public office.  After graduating from Berkeley she moved to DC to work at the law firm of Covington and Burlington.  It was there she realized she didn’t want to pursue a career in law.  One of the partners was part of the Mondale/Ferraro campaign and she went to work for them as an advance person.

That brought her to San Francisco where she met Glenn Duval.  They married in 1985.  He is part of a family owned Cable Television Company in LA and that helped them to decide to move to the Hollywood Hills after their marriage.   Duval became active in the Junior League of Los Angeles in 1986 eventually becoming League President.  Her position required her to be out in the community essentially full time and was a great introduction to Southern California for her.

In 1990 they decided to move to Santa Monica, which they saw as “a great community and a wonderful place to raise our children.   My husband is a Republican and that makes for lively dinner table conversations!   Those conversations, along with my work, spiked the interest of our children.  Our oldest son formed his own political party at UCSB, “Better Our School System” (BOSS), our eldest daughter has been part of Student Government at Johns Hopkins, another daughter is at Berkeley and is on the crew team, and our youngest is applying to Boys State.  All are very politically aware and understand that political decisions impact them as individuals as well as impacting the world they live in.”

In Santa Monica, Duval became active in local campaigns, another major catalyst for her.  She then decided to go to work as the Southern California Director for Emily’s list.  It was 2002 and there were 34 women elected to state public office, 24 in the State Assembly and 10 in the State Senate.

Now, as the President of The CALFORNIA LIST, Duval continues to look for ways to support women running for public office.  “What’s happening with women, I think, is that they are not running for office in the numbers they could be and so we are actively seeking to understand how to help women decide to run for office.  We also continue working with the women who have run for office, whether they won or lost.  We are looking at new ways of fundraising.  And, of course, the Internet has allowed us to change and grow in wonderful ways.”

Bettina Duval ended our interview saying, “It is wonderful when you are supporting a great candidate.  There is something very wonderful about watching the achievements and contributions of the women I’ve helped to win elective office and I’m excited about continuing this work.”

What Say You. The Development Agreement Conversation

What Say You.  The Development Agreement Conversation

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

February 9, 2012

Development Agreement (DA) is the buzzword of the day when talking about new building projects in Santa Monica.  Although the City entered into its first DA in the 1980’s only a handful have been processed since.  Now the City has a whopping 31 DAs in the pipeline. And that’s what the conversation is all about.

A development agreement is a tool in the planning toolbox.  It allows a city and a developer to enter into a negotiated contract for an exchange of rights and benefits not covered by other, standard planning tools such as conditional use permits and variances.  It is a tool that allows greater flexibility.  Note however that, by law, all Development Agreements must be consistent with the LUCE.

The LUCE, adopted in 2010, is a blueprint for the build out of the City for the next 20 years.  The Zoning Ordinance must conform to the LUCE as it lays out development rights.  The new Zoning Ordinance is in progress and a draft will go to the Planning Commission this coming spring and to the Council for final approval at the end of 2013. 

The Planning Department currently lists 48 pending applications, a mix of DA requests and Administrative Approvals.  Four are hotels: the Miramar, the Courtyard Marriott, the Hampton Inn and 710 Wilshire.  Two are for auto dealerships.  One is for a Science Classroom Building.  One is Bio Tech Research and Development.  The rest are for residential development.  Some are residential only and some ask for ‘mixed use’, which is a combination of residential and office and/or commercial.

The two largest projects are ones that, due to their size and their complexity, would be DA applications even after the new Zoning Ordinance is adopted. 

One, The Miramar proposes to “redevelop a mixed use hotel with new food and beverage facilities, spa, banquet facilities, retail space along Wilshire Boulevard and condominiums on the upper floors of new buildings and the retention and rehabilitation of the existing Palisades Building and the preservation of the Landmark Moreton Bay Fig Tree.” 

At issue are the design changes to a locally and internationally known hotel, the increased size and scale of the proposed project for a new total of 565,000 sq. ft., the addition of new condominiums, and the addition of affordable housing on 2^nd Street property owned by the hotel. 

Central to the discussion are the community benefits being offered by the hotel and/or requested by the City as part of the negotiation of the DA contract.  The Miramar has had two ‘float up’ hearings in front of the Planning Commission and one ‘float up’ hearing in front of the City Council.  

The largest requested DA is located on the old Papermate site in the Bergamot District.  It is proposed to be a mixed use Creative Arts/Residential and Neighborhood Commercial for a total of 766,000 sq.ft.  That includes 498 new residential units in 361,000 sq. ft.; creative arts spaces in 375,000 sq.ft.; and neighborhood commercial in 30,000 sq.ft.

The 766,000 sq.ft. currently being requested is a significant reduction from the original application.  The proposal has met with community opposition to both the proposed scale and to the design.

Both projects have been in the pipeline for several years with community meetings and planning meetings. Further meetings for both projects are on a to be determined basis and there will be much discussion on each of these projects in the community and at public hearings.

But what about the projects that are not grabbing public attention? The greatest number of projects on the Planning Department list is residential.  Planning Director David Martin said, “This increase is the result of several factors including: LUCE policies that encourage the construction of mixed-use residential projects along transit boulevards and near light rail stations, a CEQA exemption for mixed-use housing projects with 100 units or less located within one half mile of a major transit stop, an increase in the number of rental housing units being proposed and constructed in the Los Angeles region, historically low interest rates, the strong demand for housing in Santa Monica, the stability of Santa Monica as a place to invest, and the overall desirability of the city as a place to live.

Reading from the list of pending applications we see, for example, 32 units in a total of 31,717 sq.ft.; 55 units in a total of 33,137 sq.ft.; 100 units in a total of 54,280 sq.ft.; 100 units in a total of 54,942 sq.ft.; 100 units in a total of 55,064 sq.ft.; 100 units in a total of 37,200 sq.ft.; 498 units in a total of 361,000 sq,ft.  These are seven examples of the proposed 40+ projects that include residential development.

Do the math and you will see that what is being proposed is mostly studios along with some small one bedroom units.  Perfectly wonderful as part of a larger mix, but of concern if all, or most, are in this low end of the size range.

Housing of this size and type is traditionally temporary in nature.  It is designed for students or for starter housing.  It could be used as a weekend or vacation getaway for someone with a house elsewhere.  It could have many uses but it typically has one, sometimes two, occupants and a relatively high turnover.

We could change the demographics of our population if all of the proposed residential development were approved as proposed.  We could have a less permanent population and therefore perhaps one that is less involved in the City.  Yet much of our dynamism as a City comes from the sense of ownership of the City that is felt by so many.  

Analyzing the size of residential units to understand their impact on the future of the City is an essential part of the complex decision making process that should go into every DA negotiation. 

The LUCE identified Santa Monica as needing more housing and it identified affordable housing as a community benefit. Building smaller units is one way to create affordable housing but there are other ways.  Affordable housing for families, for people who work in the City but can’t afford to live here are also identified in the LUCE as a community benefit.

Each project needs to be looked at with an understanding of how it will enhance or detract from the character of the City. Will it bring the kind of benefits identified as we went through the LUCE process? What are the traffic impacts of the project? What are its impacts on schools and parks and City services?   What benefits will the project bring to the City? 

The hard part for everyone, through all this dry reading, is to be able to “see” the changes each project would make to the future life of the City.  But it is that understanding that the Council will ask for as they review the list of projects in the pipeline again at its February 12 meeting.

We want good applicants.  Their projects are a part of what makes Santa Monica a dynamic city.  As we approve new development let’s remember why the City is so desirable and let’s make decisions protective of the character of the City even as it grows and changes.

What Say You?