Proposed Density Changes to East Long Beach, More Traffic, Less Choice. What?!!?

What is Your Vision for Long Beach?

Read below the post concerning plans developed by Amy Bodek, Long Beach Developmental Services Director, and her staff, prior to any public discussion, and affecting many many locations in the 4th and 5th Council districts in which retail would disappear and population density and traffic would greatly increase. Perhaps this is an attempt by the City staff to singlehandedly address a national housing crunch in the belief that no one around here is going to church anymore or shopping at stores, at the expense of local Long Beach neighborhoods. However, after a scheduled hearing on August 17 with the Planning Commission at which Ms. Bodek praised "invisible government" as a good government, the Mayor's office released a statement on August 18 supporting neighborhood review at public hearings (the way we used to do things) as follows--

 

Future citywide workshops:
· Saturday, September 30, 3-5 PM at Veterans Park Community Center
· Wednesday, October 4, 6-8 PM at Whaley Park Community Center
· Saturday, October 14, 11-1 PM at Best Western Golden Sails Hotel
· Wednesday, October 18, 6-8 PM at Expo Center in Bixby Knolls

Read on: 
"RESIDENTS IN LOS ALTOS/EAST LONG BEACH NEED TO SPEAK UP!!
FUTURE VISION for East Long Beach: NO churches, NO retail, NO parking, hundreds more residents under the flight path.When faced with growing opposition to the LUE Plan [Long Beach Land Use Element]- the Bodek bureaucrats re-did their LUE maps to spread the density into the planned and balanced East Long Beach's 5th and 4th Districts.

In the Planning Commission presentation,  Bodek's staff looked to the church properties and called them underused. In the 4th District those underused houses of worship on the LUE map slated for high density housing include:
· Unitarian Church property on Atherton next to the small Botoun Creek Park: rezoned for 5 story condos or apartments.
· Bethany Church property on Clark next to single family residence- rezoned for 3 story apartments or condos
· First Church of the Nazarene on Clark next to single family residence- rezoned for 3 story apartments or condos
The church leadership contacted by LB4D had no idea about the LUE future plans for their properties.
In the Planning Commission presentation, Bodek's staff version of the future of East Long Beach retail would be on the bottom of five to six story residential buildings. The staff described the retailers on the bottom doing most of their business on-line- but giving "discounts" to the neighbors in the buildings above them.
Under the Los Altos Center plan, Bodek would leave a legacy to the City Council's of the future by putting hundreds of new residents in five story apartment houses directly under the flight path that goes over Los Altos Center South with jets flying literally just above their buildings.
4th District legacy properties are also targeted by the new maps. The Long Beach Playhouse property is on the Anaheim Corridor slated for 5 story residences. The architecturally significant Los Altos Medical Center, designed by architect Gordon Powers is slated for a 5 story residential re-zoning.
This is what Bodek's team has planned for East Long Beach retail redo:
4th District
· Los Altos Center North (Trader Joe's area) and South (L.A. Fitness/Lazy Acres): multiple five story condos or apartments
· Los Altos Center South (Hoff's Hut): multiple four story apartments/condos
· The Circle Center retail, Circle Porsche and Audi properties: 5 story apartments/condos
5th District
· Los Altos Gateway center (Kmart/Lowes): multiple five story apartment/condos
· Spring/Palo Verde retail centers : multiple 3 and 4 story buildings
· Town Center: Multiple six story condos and apartments.
The 4th District also gets increased density in its apartment communities. The well kept up and maintained Beverly Plaza-home to a CSULB mini-city- with multiple students living in two bedroom apartments in two story buildings is envisioned in the Bodek plan as SIX story apartment buildings-with the current parking situation.
The six story plan would continue to the apartments just north on PCH and the Traffic Circle."

See the original Long Beach 4th District Blog post on events at the August 17 Planning Commission meeting.  And thanks to the Facebook post by concerned citizen Michele Klein

Know Your Local, Local Market: A Call to Confidence, for Buyers AND Sellers

Don't short change yourself.

Sometimes people act as if they are just looking for a reason to feel bad, and any attempts to correct, or just gently push away, negative assumptions are met with even stronger resistance.  Twice in four days, the negativity virus has struck people I'm talking to. (The open house rate can be much higher.) One person believed he has the worst looking house possible and that it will never sell, when in fact, a few immediate corrections, including some paint, costing $1000-$1500 would probably put the home on its path to a motivated buyer in at least his house price median. Unfortunately, this owner has fallen prey, over and over, to the repetitious negative media message about "the bad market", all the while knowing nothing about his neighborhood statistics. He couldn't believe he actually had an opportunity somebody out there is looking for: a solid little house with a large back yard in a nice neighborhood under $350,000. Instead, he was looking backwards at perceived complications and difficulties, not forward into the light of a sold property. Maybe he's just not ready, but just in case he's reading this, the light of a sold property can be a very happy light.

This is the real job of a real estate agent: educating the client, which in turn would fire them up with more enthusiasm and motivation about taking action. It's a shame to see a person get into a real funk, a downward spiral of mopiness, when I'm hearing there are buyers looking and looking for certain opportunities. Repetition of the message is where it's at.  The media knows this, and feeds on the human tendancy to embrace fear.  So Realtors have to know it also: We have to be prepared over and over, to show, act and tell wherever and whenever, the postive truths about a client's local market, and show them what solutions could work best for them, over and over. You can't convince someone of something they really don't want to be convinced of, however, repeating things over and over is the key to all learning. Yes, it's a challenge. 

I tried to explain to my prospective seller that the first time buyers are out there in great numbers, in fact, in Los Angeles County, about 60% of first time home buyers can afford a median-priced home (at the height of the market it was about 10%).  At the end of 2010, the LA County median priced single family home was $323,000 (per CAR), and for April 2011, it was $333,000 (per tax data).  And then I tried to explain that investors with all or 50% cash have been very strong in the market also, composing 30-50% of all sales in some markets, actually making it tough for the first time buyers who get outbid.  So Mr. Seller, for the right property in the right area, there's competition out there. Our unsold inventory in Long Beach is recently at 2-3 months (that used to be called a seller's market), the housing affordability index is now where it was in 1999 and 2000. The trickle up effect is that the higher end homes are selling more--those over $750,000 in Los Angeles County have decreased in supply of inventory compared to one year ago.

Just give peace a chance.

How Will Gustavo Dudamel Improve Your Neighborhood?

Last night’s live broadcast of a free performance of two major orchestral works performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall conducted by the 28-year-old Gustavo Dudamel brought in a new wave—an electrifying wave of music and awareness that will pour over and affect even the most ordinary, the most musically uninitiated. This new conductor of the L.A. Phil, a former child prodigy who has already been professionally conducting orchestras for over 10 years, is a product of the music education program of his native Venezuela, known as El Sistema, the life work of Jose Antonio Abreu, a musician and Dudamel’s mentor. Venezuela’s state of musical affairs, 30 years ago, in the words of Abreu, was similar to how arts is and has been treated in this country:

"Music and art education were at that time confined to families who could afford to buy instruments. I felt that music education and art should be part of the patrimony of the whole country. From the beginning, I had the idea of inserting strong teachers in classrooms in sectors with dire social needs.

"In those cases, it's not just the lack of a roof or of bread, it's also a spiritual lack - a loneliness and lack of recognition. The philosophy of the system shows that the vicious circle of poverty can be broken when a child poor in material possessions acquires spiritual wealth through music. Our ideal is of a country in which art is within the reach of every citizen so that we can no longer talk about art being the property of the elite, but the heritage of the people."

Venezuela has had all the problems of children of poverty who are deprived with few opportunities for enlightenment. Does that sound familiar? Due to the initial and continuing work of Abreu, government backing and funding of $29 million supplies the funding for a program that involves children everyday in learning classical music from 2 pm to 6 pm, the prime hours our children are left alone without supervision and to get into possible trouble.

Other countries, including the UK, are introducing similar programs. California, its legislators and its schools, need to stop pushing away music education and the arts, they need to stop viewing them as a secondary and insignificant form of unnecessary learning. The mutuality in the Venezuelan system, the emphasis on achievement involving "team" support with parental involvement, providing a lot of opportunity to be the best you can, not necessarily a prodigy, seems to be producing confidant and high achievers in the Venezuelan system whether inside of or away from the field of music. In the words of Jose Antonio Abreu, we too have many children with a lack, a lack of recognition, a lack of identity, and whose loneliness is preyed upon by those who lead gangs and recruit for them, where the end result is crime and more money spent on a large prison population. The study and performance of music and the arts is not for the isolated few, it should be an opportunity for everyone. Right now, gang involvement is an equal opportunity factor in every public school for most, if not all, children in this country, with a tremendous social and financial cost to its citizens. This country, and California, now needs to give other forms of learning and advancement equal opportunity to its masses. It needs its own El Sistema.

While there is no space here to include a full discussion of the postive effect of music on learning, and on the brain, be rest assured it does. The study of music encourages and requires physical and mental coordination, enables poor readers to read better, requires certain math skills, and then gives that music student a worthy goal for which to strive. Wouldn't you like to have that child growing up near you, knowing he or she is living with a productive purpose and the means to do so?