By Kelly Hartog
On Nov 1, following a 45-minute discussion, the Brentwood Community Council (BCC) agreed to support a one-acre park that is part of a proposed development at 11750 Wilshire Blvd., the site of the old Pavilions supermarket on the corner of Stoner Avenue.
The project called Landmark II, is a 34-story, 376-unit residential tower, proposed by local real estate firm Douglas Emmett, Inc. After going through four separate redesigns, Public Relations representative for the project, Kristen Montet Lonner of Burns Bouchard, said the latest iteration was one she hoped that the BCC would approve.
Montet Lonner spoke about the ongoing outreach over the past several months with various local councils including the West Los Angeles Neighborhood Council, the Brentwood Homeowners Association and the Brentwood Residents Association all of whom expressed support for this final design.
“We’ve been in long conversations with the WLAC neighborhood council about the project,” she said. “Specifically, the question was what is the community benefit to this project?”
Montet Lonner said that in a previous version there was a 15,000-square-foot park on the corner of the property but the Los Angeles City Council felt it looked too much like an office park.
“From there we went back to the drawing board and came up [with the current one-acre park] We closed the entrance on Stoner and [the park] has spaces for yoga, for children, for chess. The apartment dwellers would have a privately-maintained but publicly accessible active park… a place for true recreation,” Montet Lonner said.
She added that the developer is requesting a zone change to remove the current ruling that requires a grocery store to be on the site. “There are already many grocery stores in the area and they are also big traffic generators,” she said. “Changing the use to residential reduces traffic on the site.”
Several BCC members were concerned about the number of affordable housing units on the property. The project must commit to five percent of the 376 units being set aside for affordable housing and Lonner said that right now the proposed project is offering 16 affordable housing units on the property, but that they are still in negotiations with the City over what the final count will be.
A public hearing on the entire project will be held by the City Planning Community on Nov. 17 at its Van Nuys office.
For now, though, the BCC approved the one-acre park with the following motion:
Be it resolved that, BCC supports the one-acre Landmark park gift. The BCC Board, encourages Councilmember Bonin to support its approval and take into consideration that opportunities like this come very infrequently. A community gift of this magnitude should be accepted regardless of what agreed upon housing units are decided between the Councilmember and the developer. The city is desperate for park open space to be utilized by all ages. This gesture will satisfy the need in an area that from an aerial view has no comparable park as far as the eye can see. The board wholeheartedly supports this park and asks that the Councilmember supports its approval.
