The Santa Monica Civic Center Specific Plan and the “Piazza Santa Monica” memo
The first time I became involved with a land use issue in Santa Monica, it was the development of the Civic Center plan, back in 1992. I had read an article in the Outlook, then Santa Monica’s daily newspaper, about how a task force the City had established five years earlier had released its report about how the 43-acre site should be developed, and that the City's planning department was seeking public comments. For reasons I don't recall, I studied the task force’s report, and decided to write a memo with my thoughts. I sent the memo to the planning department, and it was included in the packet of materials that went to the Planning Commission that was about to consider the task force’s recommendations. The memo, which became known as the “Piazza Santa Monica” memo because of one recommendation I made, became widely circulated, at least among those residents and officials interested in the future of the Civic Center, and it resulted in my becoming involved in the Ocean Park Community Organization, then the neighborhood association for Ocean Park, and ultimately in the process that resulted in the Civic Center Specific Plan.
The principal recommendation I made in the memo was that the task force recommendations could not be properly evaluated in the absence of the element of urban design, and the Planning Commission recommended to the City Council that the City hire a designer to develop the plan. The City, in response, hired the ROMA Group, of San Francisco, which had just completed the design of the Third Street Promenade. The planning department and ROMA undertook a series of workshops, out of which emerged the plan the City Council approved in 1993 on a 7-0 vote.
In 1994, opponents of the plan put the plan on the ballot, and in the June 1994 primary election the voters of the City approved it on a 60-40 vote.
To link to a PDF of the Piazza Santa Monica memo, click here.
