Cheviot Hills Traffic Matters

            The continuing traffic pressure imposed on our community and adjoining neighborhoods by Westside development, in Century City and elsewhere, has kept the CHHA involved in a number of issues on an ongoing basis. Here is a list of matters, not comprehensive, that CHHA has spent time dealing with in the last few months. New threats of increasing and unsafe traffic pressure arise regularly and CHHA seeks to address these matters as they arise to best protect our community and its neighbors.

1.         The Neighborhood Traffic Management Plan (NTMP) to calm traffic through Cheviot Hills has gradually been implemented over the last couple years. A final burst of construction of designated medians on Motor Avenue and traffic mitigations in the California Country Club and Beverlywood area are due to commence, we are told by our Councilman’s office, any week now. Funding for completion of the project was incomplete until recently, when the City found and earmarked funds for completion to supplement a funding shortfall due to the project’s increased cost over time. Cheviot will see short medians on Motor Avenue at Dunleer Drive and long center medians in Motor Avenue parallel to Cheviot Hills Park between Monte Mar and Pico. City-managed landscaping and a City required irrigation system is being implemented in all existing medians on Manning Avenue and Motor Avenue. (See the accompanying article on the matter of maintaining the median landscaping.) The City Department of Transportation has recently been restripeing Motor Avenue to provide safer room for bicyclists around the famous “bumpouts” on Motor and to provide a wider safety buffer for cars passing those bumpouts.

2.         The CHHA along with several other homeowners groups has challenged the City’s approval of construction of a very large condominium project in Century City at Constellation Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars. This project will if completed put 483 condominium units plus some supporting businesses at 10131 Constellation Boulevard, where a bank and an underutilized restaurant used to be located, yet the City accepted the developer’s position that this project, with two 47 story towers and a 12 story loft building (1,300,000 square feet) and over 1208 parking spaces, will generate less traffic than the small bank, underutilized restaurant and open space that previously occupied the site. Amazing but true. Our lawsuit is pending against the City for its acceptance of what we consider a flawed Environmental Impact Statement (EIR) and issuance of permits for construction based on that EIR. With a realistic expectation that the City would approve this project for construction without regard to strong and substantive community objection and objective facts CHHA had with other homeowners associations worked to negotiate a financial settlement with the developer in the form of a financial contribution to the community to be used to support community institutions and deal with Westside traffic and other issues. Due to a dispute with Councilman Jack Weiss over how the funds would be managed and administered, the developer contributed the settlement funds negotiated to a City fund that Councilman Weiss would then supervise with community input from community residents chosen by Councilman Weiss.

3.         Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky over the last 12 months has proposed that, to mitigate traffic congestion on the Westside, the City should study making Olympic one way west and Pico one way east. The CHHA attended several hearings on this matter sponsored and managed by Councilman Weiss and CHHA responded with homeowners concerns in writing to the Councilman and DOT. Though still under study by the City our sense is that the project has many severe practical implementation issues that outweigh whatever marginal benefits to traffic speed might result from a one-way configuration. Not that practically always trumps a political initiative...

4.         Fox Studio is building a new parking garage at  the southwest corner of its studio lot on Pico Boulevard. Fox had requested, in fact claimed a right to have, a stop light on Pico at this site to allow its employees easy access to and exit from this new parking structure. CHHA opposed this proposed additional stop light on Pico and, for now, DOT and the City have not approved such a light. Vigilance on this issue is necessary, however, as Fox may again attempt to have a new stop light placed at the site.

5.         Traffic pressure on Motor in the morning has been mitigated somewhat by a new “no turn between 7 and 10am” sign on westbound National Boulevard at Motor Avenue which has reduced some cut-through traffic that was avoiding the metered traffic limits on Motor during those morning hours. DOT intends to monitor the results of this change in our neighborhood and in adjoining neighborhoods.

6.         Word has it that capacity of the Overland Avenue bridge over the 10 will receive additional lane capacity in the next couple years, a project that has been on the books since the last century.

7.         CHHA has been reviewing and commenting on new development in areas adjacent to our neighborhood, such as on Motor Avenue in Palms, south of Cheviot Hills, where several large mixed used residential and commercial buildings have been proposed and are in the process of being reviewed by the Planning Department. Similarly, the Westfield Shopping mall is contemplating a major expansion and a new mixed used office and condominium tower on its property in Century City. Beverly Hills is reviewing two mixed used condo and commercial projects at the already traffic-troubled corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards at the site of the old Robinsons May department store and as an addition to the Beverly Hilton Hotel. And a big project will no doubt be proposed for the vacant site at 10100 Little Santa Monica Boulevard in Century City at the edge of Beverly Hills. These projects, along with plenty of smaller mixed-use and residential projects filling in existing neighborhoods with larger, denser housing, will contribute to increasing traffic on the Westside, all flowing in to a street grid that has not had any large capacity increases (other than, arguably, the new old Santa Monica Boulevard) for decades.

8.         See a traffic problem? Let us know. Though traffic changes are fluid and the process is slow, we are always identifying concerns to the City and our elected representatives.

Greg Pulis

CHHA Traffic Chair