[Image by flickr user craig1black]
The West Hollywood City Council elections are just a month away. And the hot topic is not saving the chickens, or combating Pinkberry customers, or even the invasion of the baby einstein set.
No, the elections rest on the issue of development, or rather, combating proposed 10-story towers along Santa Monica Blvd. The City Council has now decided they can't quite swallow the full length of Santa Monica Blvd that runs through Weho in one try: "'We decided to approach it in smaller bites,' [Councilmember Jeff] Prang said. 'It was too big to deal with all at once.'" Redevelopment in Weho is now split into three zones: The westside is Doheny to La Cienega, eastside is Fairfax to La Brea and the central zone is La Cienega to Fairfax (now on hold). Additionally, the Strip and the PDC have their own plans for growth outside of these planning zones. While the journey from gleam-in-a-developer's-eye to mixed-use-condo-development can be long and arduous, two projects have already broke ground: a hotel/condo project on Holloway and at Hacienda and a retail/residential project on SMB and Hancock. What would Shelley Winter's think?
· A 10-Story Controversy [Frontiers Magazine]