Hearing to Decide the Balance of a Neighborhood

“in a time WHERE”…

Who is Daniel Green accountable to? Is this an issue that the City Council Members have an idea about?

Here I was under the impression that development, amenities and growth was good for the city and the people that lived in it.

Correct me if I am wrong but his findings should be a matter of public record; any way to get a copy of that? Maybe that would be a good lead for the local press…CITY OFFICIAL WANTS TO KEEP SKID ROW THE WAY IT IS!!!

I agree completely # 2. That is really infuriating. There’s got to be somebody up the ladder from an “assistant zoning administrator”.

“Permitting the sale of alcoholic beverages on the scale requested by the applicant will contribute to the incremental upgrading of the subject building and the image and character of Main Street while also contributing to the incremental dislocation of the Skid Row community”

After that quote, it’s clear this person is completely worthless. I just wish we knew where he lived so I could go and purposely dirty up his area, drop off some homeless, and generally filthy the place up in the interests of not putting “additional pressures on land values” to see how he likes it.

I went to the new Salon Eleven this weekend in South Park. The employees there told me that BottleRock in the Met Lofts building was denied their liquor license also for the same “incremental dislocation of the Skid Row community” reasons. Unbelievable.

As much as I love the downtown revitalization, the white elephant of this topic becomes the estimated 40,000 homeless men, women and children who sleep on the streets of Los Angeles (according to a Weingart Foundation report).

What becomes of them in this new redevelopment? There has been a push-pull b/w developers and social service organizations. Places like the Midnight Mission have benefited (as you say). But I cannot imagine loft dwellers living in complexes bordering the Union Rescue Mission, for example, being okay with homeless people living literally in their backyard. Downtown was the last refuge for homeless advocate organizations to set up services. Now that the area is a hot commodity, their presence in the downtown area is in jeopardy. There will come a time when property values and other economic and community pressures will ultimately expel these organizations. What then?

#6 VJ, No problem, they can then go live with all the homeless advocates who clearly value them so much and would certainly never deny the downtrodden a place to live, right? Somehow, I don’t think this would pan out though…

This is absolute bs. Why does LA have to rot as a homeless downtown and we cannot grow like New York, Chicago, etc…? Why does downtown specifically have to be LA’s dumping ground. And now, with gentrification, we loft/condo owners are seen as the “devil”. Lots of these “very low income and low income” advocates love to use the excuse “but what about the homeless?”. Why are good people like us who want to see an electrified, exciting downtown have to be treated as “evil-doers”? All of these council members live in the exclusive westside, thus don’t know what’s really happening downtown. It’s the same old “leave them there, and they won’t come here” arguement. This is also affecting development of the exciting Hotel Cecil, but these low income advocates are continuing to make sure Hotel Cecil does not upgrade to a benefit for the whole community. I think it’s a problem of advocates for the wrong reasons & politicians who think downtown LA should stay as a homeless mess.

VJ - do you even know downtown? 40,000 homeless???? There’s no more than 2,000. 40,000 would be a nightmare. Are you one of those low income/homeless advocates who don’t want an ecentric LA? Where do you live?

I’m glad to see that downtown’s homeless population is seemingly more important than creating a great and safe city for the rest of LA’s working population…

Shocked by Dan Green. Here is my Dan Green story…Is anyone here familiar with the development at Pico/San Vicente. In a previous incarnation, it was going to be a fortress-like structure housing a Costco. Very ugly and pedestrian unfriendly. Dan Green told the developer and our neighborhood that this developement should be better. Said the developer wouldn’t even try to build something that ugly on the Westside. He even went as far as to take photos of other projects to show us that we should insist on more landscaping and setbacks on the upper levels. Anyway, the developer wanted nothing to do with Dan Green. So the developer appealed to city council, who ignored everything Dan asked for!!! Our neighborhood group was stunned. (We later filed a lawsuit and demanded and EIR and the project died.)

Dan Green easily could have taken the city’s position, which is that Costco pays well and the city needs those jobs in a neighborhood that is job-poor. But Dan cared about the quality of the development instead. That is why I am shocked that he is opposing this development.

Who would be best to contact regarding this BS?

The first thing we oughta do… Change the name “Skid Row” to “Little Calcutta”…

Why do we keep glorifying the homeless as a Bohemian lifestyle ? Why do we keep recognizing homeless encampments as legitimate communities and the residents as “area stakeholders” ?

As long as there are so many generous service providers on Skid Row, there is a sense of entitlement to sleep and urinate on city streets. And there is no incentive to get off the streets.

Yes, please give us names, numbers and addresses of people to contact regarding this. I can’t make the meeting tonight. This is unbelievable. I thought the city was trying to spread services out across the county?!?!?

I don’t even live downtown and I’m pissed.

You gotta be kidding me! The Met Lofts isn’t even that close to Skid Row. If this is the influence of Dan Green, then someone has got to get rid of him, pronto.

I wonder if he’s one of those “People’s Republic of Santa Monica” types that Antonio Villarigosa has appointed, and who at the time (if not also today) was unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge the extremism of that person?

What’s really galling is I bet that an idiot like Dan Green skips off to his nice little house in Brentwood or Cheviot Hills, or the “People’s Republic of Santa Monica,” if not farther away, at the end of the day.

He creates a mess – in regards to his stupid decisionmaking – and then leaves it to others to clean up after him.

THis is outrageous. Downtown has a LONG LONG LONG way to go before its services catch up to the rest of the city. Loft dwellers and urban professionals are paying outragous property taxes and pumping money into the city. $700,000 property values and the city REFUSES to let entreprenuers come in and offer the services that downtowners need! This is BS. You wealthy loft dwellers (and the lawyers among you) seriously need to sue the crap out of Los Angeles. Wake them up. Where are the LA live, grand ave project, south group, or other developer lobbyists?!? It will be damn hard to sell that inventory unless downtown LA continues to add nightlife, cafes, restaurants, and other high end services.

This is damn serious, and you downtowners need to take care of this crap. Band together and FORCE the city to make downtown LA the best urban area outside of SF. Go door to door if you have to! There are only a small group of you anyways.

Damn. I cant believe the redtape LA puts up. Sometimes I love this city and other times……

I was looking forward to Bottle Rock opening. The homless already have a place to drink, the street.

Daniel Green (213) 978-1304 dan.green@lacity.org

Let this schmuck have it.

If that is true about BottleRock, then the city is just hopelessly screwed.

The logic of this ruling is effed up anywhere it might be applied, but that building is LA LIVE adjacent. Are they going to deny Nokia its CUPs? Profound stupidity is being employed here and I hope the ignorant city planner gets thrown out on his ass.

The gentrification horse left barn when they permitted these buildings to be converted (or built, in some cases) to market rate housing. once the housing is in place and the people move in, you can’t go back and legislate that the ground floor must remain shitty and cannot be used to serve the now extant community.

Just got back from hearing. Went on until close to 9 PM. And if you’re not old enough to have ever attended a Stalinist Show Trail - you know have a second chance if you ever get a chance to see Dan Green in action.

The appeal did more or less pass - the final details will be settled on October 9th - and hopefully the conditions won’t be so restrictive that they will not be able to get financing.

But a couple of the Planning Commissioners are clearly nut jobs and Dan Green’s only possible excuse is that he must have dropped a hell of a lot of acid in the ‘60’s.

I don’t understand brady….can the bldg get a liquor license?

Yes, there will be a liquor license. This appeal of the rejection of the license did pass, but the terms will be decided on October 9th.

Well, that’s good news for now Bert. Somebody please get Dan Green’s address so the next time I see a homeless person with a “will work for food” sign, I’ll pay him $80 to camp out on that guy’s lawn.

Although I believe Dan Green was a big idiot in this whole case, I think he was sidetracked with the arguement “well, what about the homeless”. I’m sure those advocates were pulling him in one way, thus he had to not allow the liquor license initially. I wish I could get there phone numbers & e-mail addresses.

This was absurd!!!! Yes!!!! Even I believe something was wrong with Mr. Green tonite. I even said he didn’t know what he was talking about. Skid Row Service providers are benefiting from the investments that are being made by these developers. I know, I am seeing it. I also know that this recommendation by green is erroneous. They want to control alcohol sales to the people in recovery on skid row. Yet. Restaraunts and bars that sell on site have a better chance of controlling sells of alcohol ,rather than leaving the place dry and our illegal distributors in the neighborhood increasing their presence in skid row. If anyone wants to buy singles ;go to the corner of San Julian and 5th street , the North side of 5th Street right next to the Harold Hotel in front of the Los Angeles Mission ,and you can buy all of the alcohol you want.

Since when does the City of Los Angeles want to preserve skid row? This has got to stop… IS there a policy of containment, an official one? NO!!! But it sure does look like there is a movement at the CRA and now the zoning people.

This is not an issue of gentrification but an issue of decentralization of social service housing providers. It is a nimby issue. What we felt tonight at the hearing were the nimby forces at work, working from inside skid row and outside of downtown. I will repost my comparing skid row to a truss bridge at my website.People want to keep skid row intact.

The boundaries of skid row are Main Street to Central , not Los Angeles to Central, and it looks like the CRA and this MR. Green want to keep that boundary intact. Who else is fighting for this boundary to stay intact? Alice Callahan. Kate Bartolo made it very clear that there is no official policy of containment. The containment policy that Alice Callahan is pushing.

LA CAN wants to make it an issue of gentrification and so does United Central City East Prevention Project who was there tonite. It is not an issue of gentrification. We are still caught up in the mess from when the City Business District Redevelopment Project Area was created back in 1975. The issue being that this area; Main Street to Central, should be preserved for the poor ; skid row. It is boggling my mind. Not really , deep down inside I know; this is about not dispersing skid row. And people are still afraid of it.

Mr. Green’s three points tonight against the proposed development were as follows:

1. Skid Row has always been where it is today and it should always stay there;

2. New development increases crime;

3. New development “although increases crime” would make the area around the development more desirable and therefore increase the property and rental values of the surrounding neighborhood which in the area surrounding Skid Row is a bad thing. Therefore the city should take measures to prevent new development from occurring in that areas so the rent can remain cheap.

I wonder what the Mayor’s office, City Council, big money investors (LA Live, Grand Ave. et al), small business owners, new condo owners and renters would say if they found out that Mr. Green’s was collecting a city pay check and held these views about downtown development.

Ok, what’s the next step? I’ve written an email to Dan Green and plan to call him, but I anticipate deaf ears. What about his superiors? The new City Planner from San Diego? Is the Neighborhood Council taking a look at this? The BIDs?

I am stunned, frankly. I guess I’ve been reading wrong sources recently who say city planners want to decentralize servics across the county (which would do more to help homeless than dumping them into one area downtown). Their actions clearly do not line up.

Tell us, oh wise blog, what do we do now? Who do we write (besides Dan Green)? Who do we call? How do we get involved to preserve the momentum downtown towards a liveable, healthy, vibrant community of working folk?

Dan Green is at (213) 978-1304 or email dan.green@lacity.org.

We need Green’s boss’ number and email… Who does this guy answer to?

We all need to contact Ms. Perry and Mr Juizar, not to mention Mr. Mayor. Green’s view are diametrically opposed to the positions these three have been espousing…

I don’t profess to have a solid understanding of the nuances of city planning. But I’m absolutely shocked to read all of these malicious personal attacks on Dan Green. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on his rulings as a Zoning Administrator, but to resort to name calling and imaginary schemes to trash his house is unwarranted. If you disagree with him, make your point civilly. When trying to convince Dan Green to see my side of things, I’m generally more successful when I don’t call him a “nitwit,” an “idiot,” a “shmuck,” or “worthless,” among other things. I don’t call his hearings a “Stalinist Show Trial” or accuse him of dropping “a hell of a lot of acid in the ’60s.” But then again, maybe that’s because he’s my dad.

Dan Green is completely in outer space. It goes against any reasoning whatsoever. Besides the physically and mentally ill, all homeless people need to make a bigger effort to obtain jobs.

I too would like to hang out on the street all day without having to go to work. Helping out the homeless by depressing home values goes against everything that this capitalistic country stands for which is hard work and opportunity.