Like so many of L.A. County's smaller cities, El Monte struggles with how to spend scarce resources wisely and keep up with the rapid demographic changes affecting many cities in the region. In conjunction with a California Endowment pilot program, El Monte's 20-year general plan update presents an idea opportunity for the city to chart its future, as Community Development Manager Dante Hall explains in this TPR interview.
Dante Hall
El Monte is engaged in a comprehensive general plan review, 20 years after the last one. What is motivating the city to undertake this general plan update?
Our community is rapidly changing. We've experienced incredible growth rate since the early 1990s. We are more diverse, and the population is increasingly younger. We have approximately 75 percent Latino and almost 20 percent Asian. All of these factors made it necessary for us to look into the future and envision how we can deal with growth in a way that is sustainable over the long haul.
El Monte is the site of a bus transit hub that is the largest such facility west of the Mississippi. What sort of opportunity does that hub present the city?
Several thousand people visit the El Monte bus station on a daily basis. There is an incredible potential to develop amenities to support the lifestyle of the people that are coming into our community, such as more sit-down restaurants, big box stores, open space, and also to look at connectivity to other areas of the city that provide goods and services.
What are El Monte's residents and businesses asking for from the city? What priorities drive both the city's planning and allocation of scarce resources?
The biggest issues in the city arise from four questions: how best to provide quality shopping choices, quality housing, quality recreational choices, and greater access to health and employment opportunities. El Monte's workforce is mostly made up of teachers, public safety personnel, and a blue-collar workers. So, there is a need to provide quality, affordable housing for that segment.
But also, many jurisdictions witnessed the recent housing boom, and El Monte has experienced probably the biggest change in median housing changes and housing growth in the San Gabriel Valley. Secondly there is a need for more open space since our community is getting denser. We're significantly below the national average for open space based on our population.
We're developing an open space master plan that includes working with school districts to have some shared use on school sites, to develop pocket parks. And also TPR readers may have heard about the "Emerald Necklace" project: using the two rivers, greening them up and creating areas for recreation instead of just a cold, hard barrier.
The California Community Foundation is considering investing gap resources in El Monte. Their place-based goal begins with adopting a plan that would provide a vehicle for philanthropists to strategically invest, over the course of a decade, in community health, education, and human services. How might CCF's efforts benefit El Monte?
Working with the California Community Foundation to develop a community investment plan will help assess gaps in the delivery of service in education, health and human services to El Monte resident. The California Community Foundation was very interested in the community evaluation process that our community is engaged in: workforce housing, circulation, open space, and the fact that we're trying to create this living document that will carry us into the future.
Selecting us as a community in which to do the assessment will yield a lot of benefits. It will enable us to prioritize and allocate future resources, and help articulate opportunities for philanthropic, public, and private investment. It is going to be an incredible value for this community.
El Monte is served by three school districts and, obviously, the city government has no official authority over any of them. Is there value in a collaboration? Do the city and school districts work well together?
Absolutely. The city has a very good relationship with all three school districts. I think that they're willing to come to the table and figure out solutions to the different issues identified in the community investment plan.
We've included the school district in many discussions about many of the elements of the general plan. Among other issues, they're interested in how the city will deal with density and housing in a sustainable way, the cities plan to improve circulation as it relates to pedestrian safety. Currently there are a few proposed projects where the school district is exploring a partnership with the city to provide a complete development that includes housing and retail. The school districts are very much in tune with El Monte, and the City Council works well with the school board.
Amigos De Los Rios, New Schools Better Neighborhoods, and the Transportation and Land Use Coalition have all been involved, with support from CCF, in reaching out to the community in El Monte. Is outreach a priority of the city as it updates its general plan?
The El Monte community is very engaged in the planning process. When the city partnered with Amigos De Los Rios it was evident that the city made the right decision to accomplish our public outreach goals. Amigos helped the city gain a perspective from people that traditionally have not provided us with input. We're working with Amigos, NSBN, TLUC, and others to develop not only an open space master plan, but how best to support our health and education services in order to carry us into the future.
El Monte also must cope with fiscal constraints and with how to use its land assets to create and keep jobs. The L.A. Economic Development Corporation has noted that the county has created fewer jobs than are needed. How can El Monte preserve its industrial land and best grow and retain jobs?
We realize that job retention and job creation are a vital components to the success of El Monte. The city and the Chamber of Commerce hosted a meeting with economic development stakeholders to talk about a strategy to preserve our Northwest Redevelopment Project Area, which includes many large industrial uses and warehouses. There are several large industrial/warehouse properties that a responsible for providing hundreds of jobs to our community. We must be proactive in determining how our community will address this issue
We will be working with the Chamber on an economic development summit to explore the feasibility of various economic development scenarios. The goal from that point will be to integrate the economic development strategy with our new land-use policy document. Many communities have experienced market pressure to convert industrial land to housing because the housing market was more lucrative. El Monte has had several proposals to look at re-zoning or changing the designation from industrial to housing, but it is going to be important to our future success to keep our industrial land intact.
In light of the efforts already made by the city, and in light of the opportunities ahead, how would the city define success a decade from now?
Success for El Monte will mean it's a vibrant and safe community that respects its historical and cultural diversity and promotes quality education, quality-housing choices, improved park and recreational amenities, economic and employment opportunities, and a healthy environment.
We will be successful if we plan around our strong points: our location, our diversity, and our sphere of influence.
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