The Next Redevelopment Advisory Committee Should Include Everyone

John Derevlany

For four years, I sat on something called the Advisory Committee on Redevelopment (ACOR) here in Culver City.  I was often asked, “What is ACOR?  And what do you people do anyway?”

It’s a valid question.  We had no real power or authority.  Our meetings were public but not well publicized.  We were legally required to exist and give advice, but no one was legally required to listen to anything we said.

We were nine citizens appointed by the City Council/Redevelopment Agency whose responsibility was to review upcoming redevelopment projects and comment on them for the benefit of… well… whoever cared to listen.

In my view, however, we played an incredibly important role as a kind of “early warning system” for the community and our elected officials (as well as developers).  We were a group of relatively-random citizens whose job was to look at a development and let the city (and developer) know whether it was something that we folks in Culver City would like or not.  How could that be anything but positive for the City?

With the demise of the Redevelopment Agency, it appears ACOR will go away as well.  But that doesn’t mean we should abandon this citizen “early warning system.”  In fact, I believe the City should continue some form of ACOR and take it even farther: invite the whole City into the advisory process and expand the “early warning system.”  I would start this process by providing more information to everyone -- add a relatively simple, interactive “Development Map” site to our City’s website.

Right now, if you go onto culvercity.org, you will find an enormous amount of helpful information about our City and its services.  But it’s nearly impossible to find some simple information about what is being built in our city.  Sure, if you click around enough, you can track down some Planning Board material or meeting agendas.  But what we really need is a simple, prominent link on the home page labeled “Development.”  This link would lead to an interactive map of the city, showing all projects over a certain size (say, 2000 square feet or more).  You then click on the site of a particular development, and that leads you to a simple web page with details of the project, along with some basic maps, elevation drawings, architectural models, etc.

Why should we do something like this?  Don’t existing laws require developers to inform neighbors about their projects?  Yes, but only in the immediate area around each project.  However, a development at the West end of Washington often impacts people on Sepulveda and downtown (and vice versa).  Yet unless you live within a few hundred feet of that proposed project, you will most likely not be aware of it until it is almost ready to break ground.

This is what I learned in four years on ACOR.  There are dozens of large and small projects planned for sites all over Culver City.  Yet no one knows anything about them. 

Are folks aware of the large developments planned for the Metro Station area?  What about the Faneuil Hall-style project at Centinela and Washington?  Or the renovations planned for the old Albertsons Chevrolet site at Washington and Sepulveda? 

Some of these projects are really positive for the City (like the ones at Albertsons and on Centinela), while some… well… they may need some work.  The point is: these projects will only get better as more people are informed about them.

But I propose we go further than just providing information to the community.  We should also let people comment on each of these projects early in the process.  Each project should have its own webpage on the city’s site, with details of the development, and an area for citizens to post comments.  These comments would be moderated.  No anonymous postings would be allowed, and some kind of verification process would be employed to make sure all commentators are “real people” and not just cranks and/or competitors. 

The point of this commentary is not to be pro-development or anti-development.  The point is to get as much “advice” as early as possible, for the benefit of the community, City Hall, and developers.  This is what we used to do in ACOR, but it would be open to EVERYONE in the City.

A site like this obviously has some costs involved.  The development pages would be relatively simple, as would the interactive map, but we would still need some City staff time to moderate the site.  Given the current financial situation at City Hall, this “Development” site MUST be self-supporting in order to survive future budget cuts.  That’s why I propose that the program is funded by a small developer fee ($100-$200 per project). 

Developers already have to pay plenty of fees to the City before they build anything, and many of them will complain about this.  But complaints about the fee, I feel, will only come from the “bad” developers, with bad projects. 

Good developers will be happy to participate in our “early warning system.”  Community opposition to a project only increases development costs and lowers profit.  A good developer will want to know about that kind of opposition before he/she invests too heavily in a site.  A Good Developer will also see the Interactive Development Map as a marketing tool – one more website for him/her to tout a new project.

In the future, when someone asks me what “ACOR” is all about, I hope to be able to tell them: “It was what we used to have before the City started that interactive Development Map with public comments on its website.”  Our “early warning system” can continue to thrive, and build a better Culver City.

John Derevlany is a former Member of the Culver City Advisory Committee on Redevelopment.