A five-story building (60′ 9″) with 39 apartments and ground-floor retail, proposed for the former Jack-in-the-Box site at 17346 Sunset, continues to wind its way through the L.A. Planning Department.
A hearing date at the City Planning Commission has been rescheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 27.
Project materials and a staff recommendation will be available for viewing on August 18. (Visit: https://planning.lacity.org/about/commissions-boards-hearings.)
The project, which would require waivers of height and floor area ratio (FAR), has been opposed by the Palisades Design Review Board, the Pacific Palisades Community Council, the Pacific Palisades Residents Association and the Edgewater Towers Condominium Association.
Those groups opposed the project at the July 6 City Planning virtual hearing. No one from the community spoke in favor of the proposed project during that meeting.
A City Planning Commission hearing was initially scheduled for August 13, but rescheduled at the request of the City, to allow time for the applicant to prepare accurate packet materials for staff review and distribution.
Lobbyist Michael Gonzales is working for the applicant, California Food Management, LLC, whose principals include Beverly Hills investors (Masoud) Michael Aminpour, (Farshad) Dan Ashoori and Jack Farshi. Since 2018, the Gonzales Law Group, a Los Angeles City lobbying firm, has been paid $229,475 by California Food Managers.
In asking for the waiver, Gonzales pointed out that four of the apartments will be leased to very low-income residents and that there would be ample parking along Pacific Coast Highway.
Edgewater Towers Condominium Association lawyer Thomas Donovan wrote on the PPRA website: “The Project should not be approved as proposed. If it is allowed to go forward, the MND (Mitigated Negative Declaration) must be amended. The Project’s height must also be reduced, and specific mitigation measures must be implemented regarding any roof-top deck.
“The number of units proposed for the Project should be reduced,” Donovan said. “Additional parking spaces should be provided. Additional geotechnical investigation and analysis must be conducted. The upper levels of the Project should be set back to provide more compatibility with the neighboring properties.”
The City Hearing Planner’s findings will be presented at the August 27 hearing.
In an email about the rescheduled hearing, Planning Assistant Nick Vasuthasawat wrote: “Any additional written comments on the project that you would like to provide can continue to be forwarded to the City Planning Commission via email (cpc@lacity.org) and (nick.vasuthasawat@lacity.org). Jordann Turner (jordann.turner@lacity.org) should be cc’d in your correspondence.”
I think I still don’t understand the point of zoning/height/whatever restrictions, when developers just get around them. If buildings in a certain area can’t be taller than something, then they just can’t, right? I guess wrong. Not just this project, but lots of them. It seems like rules are only for people who don’t have powerful friends or expensive lobbyists. Maybe I’m just getting cynical. I dunno.
Where is this “ample parking along Pacific Coast Highway?
I support the project
They are providing 49 parking spaces per city requirements
The project compaetable with the souronding area ,across from this project there is much higher aptarement building , and on top of the hills witch is at least 60 feet higher there is a high rise . They complain about height of this project ?!!!!I would like to see the eye soar go away , and replace with apartment building with affordable housing unit , which we need badly
There will only be four units of affordable housing.