A week after 150 locals swamped a Santa Monica City Council meeting on the massive multi-use Bergamot Transit Village, forcing a delay on any approval or denial for the project, the council on Tuesday finally approved the transformative mixed-use development planned for the Bergamot Arts District and near a forthcoming Expo Line station. Voting 4-3, the council only made minor changes to the plan, with one councilmember asking for more housing—additional units had already been added to the original plan—before withdrawing that motion out of concern the developer would pull out if asked to go back to the drawing board on the five-years-in-the-making project. But the real show was with all the protesters outside, chanting, hitting bongos, and appropriating anti-war slogans (real sign: "Hines Project is not healthy for children and other living things").
Opponents fear—what else?—a trafficpocalypse when Texas-based developer Hines brings five new buildings to Olympic and Twenty-Sixth, with 427 apartments, nearly 375,000 square feet of office space, and about 30,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space. Over the course of the next half-century (really), Hines will spend $32 million on community benefits like affordable housing, education programs for kids, bike sharing, and other traffic fixes. But with enormous NIMBY resistance, expect a lawsuit in 3, 2 ...
· Hines Gets the Go-Ahead on Bergamot [SMDP]
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