I have commented that there could be something from the Planning Department concerning their take on what could be built at Ponte Vista and that information may be passed to Bob Bisno in mid-February.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there is much Mr. Bisno apparently has not supplied to the Planning Department that helps them consider what should be built at the 61.53 acre site.
Bob told all of us he was changing his plans for Ponte Vista at the beginning of the Summer of 2007. He actually filed the application to make the changes in November, 2007.
It seems that since then, the planners have requested information from Mr. Bisno that, apparently, hasn't been provided.
What we should make of that is something I don't know.
I doubt highly that anyone believes that if the information is not provided, then the City Planners will be willing to create a framework from which they can come up with what they feel is the best configuration for the development.
Why doesn't Bob provide the requested information? Somebody should ask him and I don't think I would be a good questioner in this instance.
Bob has many forums where he could provide answers to questions.
Oh well.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn is scheduled to me with Ms Gail Goldberg, the Director of City Planning, sometime next week.
Two big issues many of us feel will be brought up is Ponte Vista and the issue of the redevelopment of the lots once occupied by McCowan's Market.
The Rudderless Steering Committee held its first meeting of the new year, on Wednesday January 30, 2008. Terri and I hosted the event and I tried my best to keep it organized, which it was.
We focused the first part of the meeting to the issues brought to us by the leaders of the opposition to the construction of condos or apartments at the site of the former McCowan's market.
Concerning Ponte Vista, we spent some time dealing with rumors folks have heard. Since nothing official has come from either the Planning Department, the office of the Councilwoman, or Bob Bisno and his associates, we will keep the rumors out of this post. The item about something, perhaps, coming from the Planning Department is not a rumor.
The members of the City Council of the City of Rancho Palos Verdes have agreed to send a letter to Ms. Gail Goldberg concerning their request to have a new Environmental Impact Report circulated, for the Ponte Vista at San Pedro Development.
The applicant for the development, Mr. Bob Bisno has submitted a new application for a different amount of different types of units.
The applicant has changed the makeup significantly as compared to the initial application such that, a new EIR should be circulated.
The student counts of some schools and student generation figures reported in the initial application are far off base.
I don't need to go into the traffic section and all of it faults.
The fact that ATSAC has been preliminarily installed and funds for it will become available even without Bob's donations, then he shouldn't use that as a mitigation for his project.
Now I know there will be certain individuals who do not agree that the signal synchronization project will be entirely funded without funds from Bob Bisno, the projects will find funding without Bob's help.
Bob should not be allowed to use this as a mitigation.
Now that the students and parents must use a portion of Western Avenue to ingress or eggress Mary Star High School, new traffic studies are warranted.
The City of Los Angeles does not do traffic counts on the section of Western Avenue between Palos Verdes Drive North and Summerland Avenue because Caltrans has jurisdiction over the roadway.
The City of L.A. has done traffic counts recently on sections of Westmont Drive. The L.A. City Dept. of Transportation does have jurisdiction over that street.
If a new EIR is not circulated with a new Traffic and Transportation Section being studied, then Marshall's will open and traffic will become even worse before new counts can be taken.
If new counts are taken after Marshall's opens, then, in all likelyhood, it could be even harder to prove that Bob can mitigate the traffic on Western Avenue to allow for 1,950-units.
Oh well, we can wait.
There are still 1-bedroom Senior Housing units being sold in a development on the corner of Arlington and Sepulveda for about $280,000. That's $20,000 less that Bob's projections for the least prices studio unit at Ponte Vista. And folks can move in so much sooner that they could IF Bob even builds Senior Housing Units.
I don't think supporters of Bob's current plans or opponents of it are frustrated or particularly concerned about when more information will be provided. The longer we wait, the more interest Bob has to pay on the money he has borrowed, perhaps.
It was a good meeting tonight.
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