Santa Monica Planning Commissioner Gwynne Pugh on That City's Planning Agenda

Gwynne, as both an architect and Santa Monica city planning commissioner, what unique qualifiications do believe the City's next planning director should possess?

That is a very interesting question and one that I've given some level of thought to. With the very diverse and strongly opinionated populace, the very involved populace that we have in Santa Monica, it is important to have a person that can to respond to the population at large. Amongst other things, the ability to negotiate peoples' conflicting visions of Santa Monica and interests is tremendously important. Many see Santa Monica as a beach town and want to preserve the qualities of a beach town. The area is also very attractive to developers, particularly as land values have increased. There's increasing pressure for development, which has created some conflict. The population of the city of Santa Monica has not changed much over the last 30 or 40 years. Now, the population and the nature of the city are starting to change. So these are also issues that need to be dealt with.

From the perspective of developers or others trying to build in the city of Santa Monica, there's obviously been significant dissatisfaction with the planning process. In other words, it's a very laborious and almost talmudic process that we have. One of the things that Thomas Mayne, who recently won the Pritzker Prize in architecture, criticized the city for was for having a city full of world class architects yet no world class architecture, because of the rigid regulations and the difficult process. So, I think that Santa Monica's next planning director needs to be a person that has vision but also has the political and social skills necessary, and administrative skills, quite frankly, that can help the city move forward.

In an interview with Joel Kotkin for last month's TPR, Joel shared three essential and timeless characteristics of great cities; each is: sacred, safe and busy. By sacred, he meant that the city engenders a sense of loyalty and pride. Is Kotkin's criteria a way of understaning Santa Monica's aspirations?

To a degree. You have to remember that this is a city that has a very high renter population and it has a relatively high turnover of populace. So yes, I think it does. Are there difficulties with making that happen? Yes I believe there are because, in a way, there is a discontinuity that occurs within the city. So I think that's one of the issues that it has on its plate at the moment in terms of it being sacred.

Gwynne, one of Santa Monica's major development opportunities is Santa Monica Place. Share with us what the City is considering re redeveloping Santa Monica place? What would be ideal for the site?

Just so you know, with regard to these issues, I have had to recuse myself because we are, as a company, involved with the Santa Monica Village, and the EIR for the Macerich Project at Santa Monica Place is likely to be tied up with Santa Monica Village. To some degree, I have not been keeping entirely abreast of what has been going on. Certainly the directive of the city council has been that we need increased housing to balance our jobs and housing needs. I think that definitely we are looking at the need for additional housing. As a city, we also need a reasonable level of retail. I think this is quite a good opportunity to remake the area. Unfortunately, one of the things that happened with the original development is it really cuts the commercial center off from the governmental center. I think that with the reworking of what is happening in the civic center area, this is a very good opportunity to tie all of this together and really make the downtown core of Santa Monica more heterogeneous with a good mix of housing, retail, government offices and regular commercial.

Some in Santa Monica have advanced the idea of bridging the 10 Freeway and connecting the governmental center with the retail/commercial center. What are the pluses and minuses, as well as the political challenges, of such a plan?

Of course, any time that you take on more agencies -- in this case it would be the state and probably some federal government interest since it is a freeway we are dealing with -- things become difficult. That would probably be the greatest challenge. It will obviously add great expense, because you need to maintain the 10 Freeway while all of this is going on. But I think the advantages to the city would be tremendous. As many cities have discovered, freeways can be access ways as well as dividers of the community, and to the extent that we are bridged, I think it would really tie the community together much more than it is at the moment.

With the old RAND site available, share what the city is considering for that site.

There is a project called The Village proposed for the RAND site. In June the design competition is going to start for that and it will last about for about four months After that we will have a better idea of what will happen. I think it is up for a certain amount of review and change and certainly there will be a lot of housing in that area, as well as some mixed use. I think it is a great opportunity.

What is it really like to be a planning commissioner in the fish bowl of Santa Monica?

Interesting. I have actually found it to be a very rewarding experience, up to this point. I know that there has been a lot of contention, and previous incarnations of the planning commission were at odds with both the council and staff. The current planning commission has a good working relationship with the council and staff, and we are really looking forward to the process of going through the land use element. I personally have found it to not be unduly onerous, and it has been an opportunity for me to connect with the community that I've found very rewarding.

What needs to happen for the planning commission to better mediate competing visions for the city?

As I have previously indicated, I think that previous planning commissions have not been especially well regarded by the city council. Building up a level of trust between the city council and staff at the planning commission such that the work of the planning commission is valued is tremendously important. We represent the community, so it's very important that the commission be effective. The community needs to have confidence in the process and in our ability to work through the issues.

Let's turn back to the process of updating the City's land use and circulation elements of the general plan. Have you thought about what direction that ought to take?

Well, we have a set agenda as to how we are moving through this, which we are in the process of at the moment. We're about six to eight months into what is projected to be a two and a half year process. I suspect it's going to take a little bit longer than that, but I think that they are trying to avoid the process that happened last time, which took closer to eight years, as I understand it. I think the land use and circulation elements are intrinsic to the nature of the city, and I think this goes back to the question you had about the sacredness of the city and its sense of identity. I think that the expectation is that by having people involved in a public process to decide what it is that we want our city to be, it ideally will become less contentious in terms of the nature of development that goes on as it fills in that vision.

It should be understood that the land use and circulation are only a couple of the city's governing elements. Others include parks and open space as well as the Sustainable City Plan. One of the tasks of the land use and circulation elements will be to integrate these visions. Among the implications of sustainability is density as it allows for more pedestrian access to services, reducing the need for cars, increasing the efficacy of public transport and increasing energy efficiency. However increased density often implies increased height and reduced setbacks and the perception of increased traffic, issues often of concern to the public. This process is going to need to resolve these issues.

It's been suggested that Santa Monica is very difficult to do business with. Could you share the insider's view of the way one does develops in Santa Monica and how productive and progressive it is?

I don't think it's especially progressive, quite frankly, despite its view of itself. I think that there has been a calcification of the political process that hopefully the updating of the plan will help to counter. What I mean by that is that the renter base has obviously been very significant to the city's image of itself. I think that the city will continue to want to be the kind of place in where a full spectrum of people can live, from the elderly to the less affluent to the more affluent. Some people are concerned that by attrition a lot of the rent control base will be changing. That's one of the issues that has made the development process very difficult in the city of Santa Monica. There needs to be a more cohesive vision of how the city is to develop and how to preserve the diversity of the city. If that can be done, then the development process could be simplified.

Santa Monica's transportation and planning functions are merged in a single planning and community development department. Is that a model that other cities in the County ought to be looking at seriously?

We have pretty well maxed out our ability to move cars within the city. You can meddle around the edges by adding a diamond lane or doing a few other things, but ultimately the pipeline is full. Public transportation becomes more feasible as density increases around transportation hubs. So, yes, I think it's absolutely necessary that you deal with the circulation element as well as the land use element.

You're a partner in Pugh + Scarpa Architecture. Elaborate on your firm's work and share what jurisdictions in the Basin are best to work with on development.

I think we've been very much involved with the idea of sustainability and sustainable communities. I think it's very much a site-specific process and we believe that creating architecture that is of its environment, that is complementary to its environment, and yet, on the other hand, is unique in its experience, is tremendously important. One of the projects that we've done recently that has received a fair amount of press and is one typical of our philosophy is Colorado Court, a 44-unit single room occupancy housing project on the corner of 5th and Colorado. That's a project that was initially just going to be an affordable housing project, but that the city of Santa Monica really wanted to implement some of its sustainable policies and use it as a demonstration project, which fit in very well with our philosophy and it ended up being pretty close to an energy neutral structure. It cost marginally more than a standard structure would have cost and has also a high level of aesthetics. We've been fortunate to have been awarded numerous prizes and honors for that project, including a national AIA award. Awards, though, are not what is important. What is important is creating "place" in architecture and of complementing the city and elevating the level of relation and texture in the city and creating housing and public projects and commercial projects that really improve the quality of life within the city.

A city that I believe has been effective in mediating competing interests and is supportive of quality architecture is West Hollywood. They are quite proactive and have a progressive vision of their city. The turnaround of their City was largely generated by an effective governmental process involving significant public outreach and resulted in, amongst other things the upgrading of Santa Monica Boulevard as a public asset. We've had great success in generating interesting architecture effectively through their process.

You speak about the creation of place being the goal. Do you find clients, developers and cities to be sympathetic to the notion of creating place?

I think it's poorly understood, the creating of place. I think that we need to change significantly the way we think about the urban fabric. I think it needs to be denser so that it can be pedestrian oriented. I understand that somewhere on the order of 1600 households are needed within a two block radius to support two sides of commercial on a 1200 foot length block. For that to occur, you do need a certain level of density and there is a certain resistance to that, because people consider the density as detracting from the quality of life. However we believe that a certain level of density, if done in an effective manner, can create a more pedestrian oriented society.

Lastly, is Santa Monica near choosing its planning director: When should the public expect a decision?

I think it's going to take a while. The first thing that the city is proposing to do is hire a search firm to find potential candidates. They will then present these candidates to the city, and then I believe the city will make a short list of the candidates that they want to present to City Council. So, I think it will take us quite a period of time and it is occurring at a very sensitive time in our land use/circulation element update.