November 9 Committee Meeting

Last night's meeting of the Community Advisory Committee was held in a meeting room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in San Pedro.

I was impressed at the number of people in the audience who attended wearing yellow "Ponte Vista Supporter" tags. They outnumbered folks who came wearing "R-1" buttons or no buttons by a very large number.

The focus of the meeting was traffic. The committee listened to traffic engineers explaining the Traffic and Transportation Section of the recently released Ponte Vista Draft Environmental Impact Study.

Important information was given out where to visit online to view or download the large documents. The D.E.I.R. can be found at www.pontevista.com/deir.

Another important piece of information repeated several times this evening dealt with the comment period of the D.E.I.R. Everyone who wishes to comment on anything dealing with the D.E.I.R. or any other matter concerning Ponte Vista, must do so between now and January 30, 2007. The address to send comments is listed on another page of this blog.

Committee members asked questions to the traffic engineer, Mr. Bisno, and members of L.A. City government and the Planning Department.

On our return trip from Playa Vista, I sat next to Mr. Bisno on the bus. I feel we had a candid and honest conversation. I asked him why he chose 2,300 as the number of homes he proposes to build in Ponte Vista. His answers were very simple to understand, and I believe he honestly told me the truth. I waited until tonight to ask Mr. Bisno in public why 2,300 because I felt he should be the one person to personally answer the question that his whole project is based on and has the greatest impact on all of us.

Mr. Bisno basically repeated in public what he told me on the bus. Mr. Bisno asked his traffic planners and advisers how many homes he could build and still be able to fully mitigate all traffic issues dealing with any and every intersection and road that could be impacted by his development. His advisers told him that they were confident all traffic issues could be mitigated if 2,300 homes were built at Ponte Vista, with one quarter of those homes being age-restricted.
To me, it was a simple answer to a simple question: Why 2,300? Because that is the maximum number of homes that can be built and still have effective traffic mitigation, according to Mr. Bisno and his advisers.

I make no qualitative judgements about Mr. Bisno's answer to my question.

One of the committee members who lives in the Peninsula Verde neighborhood, asked why his intersection was omitted from the Traffic and Transportation Section. Peninsula Verde Drive at Western Avenue is the first intersection north of the Ponte Vista site. That intersection was included in the Western Avenue Task Force Study and Report, but it seems to have been ignored everywhere in the D.E.I.R.

Another committee member voiced concerned about the residents who live in condos down the private, Fitness Drive. There appears to be no comment or mitigation concerning Fitness Drive at Western Avenue, in the D.E.I.R.

My comments dealt with my perceived lack of comment concerning parking lots at commercial and retail sites near the project area. I haven't been able to find anything in the D.E.I.R. concerning any plans to increase parking lot sizes to keep up with the increased projected number of residents along Western Avenue, at Ponte Vista.

My last comment concerned pedestrian safety for middle school students crossing Western Avenue to go to and from Dodson Middle School. When I attended Dodson Junior High School, the Navy Housing was occupied, and children from lower East View would walk through the Navy site to get to Western Avenue and Avenida Aprenda. The Navy children and the East View kids would cross Western and from time to time, a child would be hit by a car or bus while crossing the four-lane street. During the years I attended Dodson, the grade levels were from 7th grade to 9th grade. Children were in their early teens, back then. Now Dodson Middle School has a population of 6th through 8th graders who are usually one year younger than 7th through 9th graders.

I found no study materials, reports, or documentation in the Draft E.I.R. to deal with the approximately 50 middle school students forcasted to attend Dodson Middle School. I found no histories of pedestrian accidents at Avenida Aprenda and Western Avenue. I have not found any mitigating proposals to deal with, what I believe, is a potentially dangerous situation of children returning to cross Western Avenue and probably the busiest time of the peak drive-time.

The public comments were mixed. Even though the supporters vastly outnumbered others in attendance, their was one speaker who spoke on behalf of all supporters in attendance. My feeling was that since there was such a large turnout of supporters, the committee could have been offered more speakers from the supporting side of the issue. I was hoping for more personal stories why folks support Mr. Bisno's plans.

There were two gentlemen who spoke claiming they were neither in support or objectionable to the 2,300 home plan. The gentlemen who spoke dealt with traffic in and around San Pedro. They both suggested that traffic issues should be settled before any building begins.

The remainder of the public speakers were critical to very critical of the Traffic and Transportation Section of the D.E.I.R. One man claimed that the methodology used to collect the data and establish comments based on the data was "fataly flawed."

After the public comment, the committee set about to plan the next set of meetings. Further information about future meetings will be published on this blog.

One important date to keep on your calendar is January 18, 2007. That date has been set aside as our committee's first "public forum." this forum is the place where your opinions will be heard and written down. It is the first chance the public gets to come before the committee and tell us how you feel, an why do you have the opinions you have.