Monday, October 30, 2006

Trader Joe’s project hits snag over traffic, low-priced alcohol

BERKELEY Neighbors say no to popular market

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, October 30, 2006

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Most communities would be breaking out the Two-Buck Chuck and organic flaxseed chips at news that Trader Joe’s is coming to town.

Not Berkeley.

In a city famous for its love of specialty gourmet food, irate neighbors are fighting a new Trader Joe’s slated for University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, now home to a Kragen outlet.

Residents are concerned about traffic, parking, the building blending in with the neighborhood, and the large volume of low-cost alcohol for sale just a few blocks from the UC campus, Berkeley High School and a number of homeless service agencies.

Not to mention the four stories of apartments that would be on top of Trader Joe’s, making it one of the biggest housing developments in Berkeley.

Meanwhile, droves of Berkeleyans would love a Trader Joe’s, if not necessarily so much housing at that spot.

The issue is headed for a showdown Nov. 9 at the zoning board, which is scheduled to vote on approving the $50 million project.

The Berkeley battle stands in contrast to last week’s announcement that a new Trader Joe’s is being warmly welcomed about 5 miles away in Oakland. Slated to replace a shuttered Albertsons on Lakeshore Avenue in the Grand Lake neighborhood, the Oakland Trader Joe’s was sought in a campaign by local residents and Councilwoman Pat Kernighan.

If it’s approved in Berkeley, Trader Joe’s — with its island decor and mix of basic food with organic and exotic imported foods — would open in 2010. If it’s not approved, the developers said, Trader Joe’s likely will back out and the project will be resubmitted with more housing and less retail.

“Either way there will be a project there — what we don’t know is exactly what that will be,” said Berkeley City Councilwoman Dona Spring, whose district includes the Trader Joe’s site.

Developers Chris Hudson and Evan McDonald, proteges of Berkeley development mogul Patrick Kennedy, bought the 1-acre site in 2002 and have been haggling with the city and community ever since. The project began with 186 units of housing filling five full stories, 4,000 square feet of retail, 71 parking spots and almost no setbacks from adjacent houses. The proposal now has 146 units, four times as much retail as before, twice as many parking spots, landscaping around the perimeter and a stepped-back roof that goes from three stories to five.

“These are significant concessions we’ve made,” said Hudson. “But the neighbors keep changing the bar. We’re just looking at each other and scratching our heads because we’ve done everything they asked.”

The neighbors most upset about the project live on Berkeley Way, a residential street parallel to University Avenue where the Trader Joe’s parking lot entrance will be. A constant stream of cars and delivery trucks will dramatically change the character of their quiet street, they say.

“Trader Joe’s is a nonunion store owned by a secretive German family that sells specialty food and low-cost alcohol,” said Steve Wollmer, who lives 250 feet from the site. “Do we really need this in our neighborhood?”

Part of Trader Joe’s popularity stems from its assortment of low-priced wine and spirits. It spawned the “Two-Buck Chuck” nickname when it sold Charles Shaw wine for $2 a bottle, though many of its other wine offerings fall into a higher price range. Wollmer fears that the availability of inexpensive wine will prove too tempting for the thousands of underage students and homeless people who live nearby.

A Trader Joe’s spokeswoman would not release the company’s alcohol sales figures, but a homeless advocate said the store’s abundance of cheap wine is not an issue.

“I am convinced that the cost and distance of alcohol has nothing to do with people drinking. If a homeless person, or anyone, wants to drink, they’ll know where to get it,” said Boona Cheema, executive director of Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency in Berkeley. “I think it’s great that Trader Joe’s is coming to downtown.”

Many in Berkeley agree with her, enticed by the prospect of affordable, high-quality groceries within walking distance of downtown, BART and the UC campus.

“For years, downtown residents and merchants have been wanting a supermarket downtown,” said Michael Caplan, who worked on downtown development for the city and starts today as Berkeley’s economic development director. “There are hundreds of new units downtown, and as it becomes more of a neighborhood, people want basic neighborhood amenities.”

The nearest Trader Joe’s are currently in Emeryville and El Cerrito. The Oakland outlet will open in early 2007.

Berkeleyis hardly underserved by grocery stores, though no large markets can be found downtown, where Trader Joe’s would go. Within its 10 square miles lie four Andronico’s, Whole Foods, Safeway, Grocery Outlet, Berkeley Bowl and dozens of small specialty shops. A second Berkeley Bowl, which at 91,000 square feet will be Berkeley’s biggest grocery store, is slated to open in West Berkeley by 2010.

Some in Berkeley say they welcome Trader Joe’s, but it’s the 146 units of housing they don’t want. The units, most of which are one-bedroom apartments configured around a central courtyard, are too small to accommodate families, said Spring.

The developers say they feel they’ve made as many concessions as they can and still turn a profit.

“We think we have a great project here, and we’re willing to invest in the long-term future of Berkeley,” Hudson said. “But at some point, Berkeley’s got to decide whether it wants to be Berkeley 1950 or Berkeley 2050.”

Posted by M at 10:24:25 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Making Sabbath a day at the beach

Venice-area Jews seek an eruv to ease limits on activities.

By Sharon Bernstein and Martha Groves, Times Staff Writers
October 25, 2006

An Orthodox synagogue with the ambitious desire to enclose much of Santa Monica, Venice and Marina del Rey within a religious boundary known as an eruv has come up against a barrier some say is as immutable as the Torah itself: the California Coastal Commission.

The Pacific Jewish Center in Venice wants to string fishing line between lampposts and sign poles for several miles through the coastal communities, creating a symbolic unbroken boundary.

Orthodox Jews within the boundary can consider themselves to be “at home” on the Sabbath. That eases restrictions of the holy day and allows people to carry food, push strollers and bring their house keys with them when they go out.

Such lines have been up for years in religious neighborhoods throughout the world. A large eruv encompasses a swath of Hollywood, Hancock Park, West Hollywood, Westwood, Beverly Hills and surrounding communities.

But never has anyone in Southern California attempted to run an eruv along the beach — and this has created debate.

The Coastal Commission staff has recommended against the enclosure, saying it could compromise the nesting area of a rare bird and obstruct views of the ocean. Leaders of the Venice synagogue are negotiating this week with commission officials in an effort to reach a compromise.

The request to create the eruv along the ocean raises tricky issues of religious freedom, coastal regulations and environmental protections. The discussion is occurring in a city that has the second-largest Jewish population in the nation and a state known for its tough environmental laws.


Rabbi Ben Geiger said the eruv would make it easier for people to practice their faith. With the eruv in place, synagogue members would be able to stroll the Venice boardwalk during the Sabbath and even bring a picnic. His own children — the youngest of whom is 4 — would not have to walk the 1 1/2 miles from their home to the synagogue on Ocean Front Walk.

Proponents even say the project would also boost local tourism, making Venice “an ideal vacation spot for Sabbath-observing tourists,” according to the website touting the so-called L.A. Coastal Eruv .

“Part of being a Sabbath-observing Jew is that there are certain restrictions as to how we observe that day of rest,” Geiger said. Observant Jews, he said, can’t even push somebody in a wheelchair on Saturday, which has meant that at his synagogue a child who is confined to a wheelchair has been forced to stay inside for 25 hours at a stretch — the entire night and day of the Sabbath.

The beachfront eruv would run along the walking path from Santa Monica to Marina del Rey — on several miles of prime beachfront and right through a nesting area of a protected bird.

In its application to the Coastal Commission, the organization said it would place streamers on the wire at the points where it would run through the nesting area for the protected bird, called the least tern, so they would not unknowingly fly into the wire and hurt themselves. The Pacific Jewish Center also said it would monitor the line weekly to make sure that it did not fall down and block access to the beach.

At the boardwalk Tuesday afternoon, opinions varied.

Carol Katona, a Venice resident walking her dog Ginger, said she was mostly concerned about the birds.

“If the string is kind of invisible, I don’t want to be finding injured birds around because they’re flying into it,” Katona said. If the Pacific Jewish Center “puts up things that mark it for the birds, then that’s trashing up the place. If you try to fix it so the birds can see it, then we can see it, and that wouldn’t be OK with me.”

One merchant near the synagogue said he had no problem with the plan.

“String it. String the fishing line,” said Jesse Dreibelbis, co-owner of Tribal Bazar. “I’m for religious tolerance.”

The plan has already been approved by the cities of Santa Monica and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the California Department of Fish and Game.

But the Coastal Commission, which has the final say on development next to California’s coastline, has raised concerns.

After commission staff recommended against the request, the synagogue offered changes that it believes will make the eruv less visible, said Geiger, who hopes to reach a compromise soon.

Rather than hanging streamers in the least tern nesting area, for example, the organization is now proposing using colored fishing line that only birds can see. To make the poles less obvious, he said, they can be painted blue to match the ocean or the sky.

The commission had been scheduled to take up the issue Oct. 12, but the decision was postponed so that negotiations could carry on.

Ultimately, commissioner Sara Wan said, any decision would have to balance the religious needs of proponents with the public’s need for access to and unobstructed views of the beach.

Eruv boundaries have been quietly popping up in several parts of Los Angeles as the Orthodox population has increased. In addition to the one on the Westside, there is an eruv in the San Fernando Valley, and Geiger helped create one in Irvine a few years ago.

Rabbi Chaim N. Cunin, chief executive of Chabad of California, said the tradition dates to biblical times.

“Even when we were wandering in the desert, there were laws in different camps whereby it was permissible to carry,” Cunin said.

Cunin said he has a small eruv around his home. But he said he and his Lubovitch sect do not tend to use the large civic ones except in emergencies because they are concerned that the wire might be broken in one spot or another.

“I personally do not use the eruv,” Cunin said. “But it is a wonderful service to the community…. The people in the L.A. eruv who supervise it are a group of highly qualified Orthodox rabbis.”

Back in Venice, some synagogue members say the eruv would make a major difference in their lives.

Lea Geller, a synagogue member, said she has had to forgo attending services for five years because she has three small children. The eruv would make it possible for her to participate in synagogue activities and to enjoy walking at the beach and picnicking with her family.

“So much of religion is socializing and community,” she said. “This isn’t a luxury. It will allow us to function as a community.”

sharon.bernstein@latimes.com

martha.groves@latimes.com

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(INFOBOX BELOW)

Q&A

What is an eruv?

It’s an area typically marked by a wire or fishing line that runs along streetlights and sign poles. Eruvin set aside areas that can be considered part of an Orthodox Jew’s home. Within these boundaries, people have eased restrictions during the Sabbath. Creation of an eruv would allow such activities as the use of using strollers, canes, walkers and wheelchairs as well as the carrying of house keys, rain hats and jackets.

Do some already exist in Los Angeles?

Yes. There is a large one in West L.A. that encompasses Hollywood, Hancock Park, Beverly Hills, Westwood and the Hollywood Hills, among other communities. Another large one exists in the San Fernando Valley. There are numerous smaller eruvs.

What does the Pacific Jewish Center want to do?

It wants to create a coastal eruv that covers Venice, Santa Monica and Marina del Rey. Backers say the project would help Orthodox Jews in the area observe their faith and could even make the area more of a tourist draw.

Who opposes it?

The California Coastal Commission staff has recommended rejecting the project. The officials said they are worried that the fishing line would obstruct ocean views and endanger a rare bird. Both sides are negotiating this week.

Do all Orthodox Jews use large community eruvs?

Some say they don’t use large ones except in emergencies because they are concerned that the wire might be broken in one spot or another.

Posted by M at 06:17:12 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Fungal Disease Killing L.A. Palm Trees

By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The city’s palm trees — as much a symbol of L.A. as the automobile, movie stars and the beach — are vanishing. The trees are dying of old age and a fungal disease, disappearing one by one from parks and streets, and city planners are replacing them with oaks, sycamores and other species that are actually native to Los Angeles and offer more shade, too.

Not all palms are infected, and there no danger of their vanishing altogether any time soon. But some parts of the city could look noticeably different in the years ahead. And that troubles some.

“I think the palm tree kind of fits with the whole Southern California vibe,” says Jonathan Scott, who manages the fashionable downtown restaurant The Palm.

The palm tree may be better symbol of L.A. than many realize. Like the many young people who come to Los Angeles in search of Hollywood stardom, palm trees are not even from here; they were brought here 100 years ago or more from Latin America and other exotic locales.

The tropical trees that sway gently in the breeze and can grow as high as a 12-story building are everywhere — from postcards that fill Hollywood souvenir shops to the streets of wealthy oceanfront enclaves and the barrios east of downtown.

The palm tree has become so intertwined with the image of the city that its name is plastered all over liquor stores and cheap hotels. Neil Diamond once sang of Los Angeles as a place where “palm trees grow and rents are low.”

It’s been years, of course, since L.A. rents were low. And now the palm trees are starting to go.

The problem, says Steve Dunlap, a supervising tree surgeon with the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, is that large numbers of the Canary Island Date Palm — trees with rough trunks and a topknot of fronds that look like green dreadlocks — are succumbing to a fungal disease.

Tree surgeons don’t know how to stop the fungus, which gets into the soil. Dunlap said it doesn’t make sense to replace dying palms with new ones that will probably fall victim to the same ailment. So the city has been planting other varieties of trees.

Nearly 1.6 million trees of all varieties fill L.A.’s parks and line its streets. But city officials had no immediate figures on how many of them are palm trees and how many are dying.

Residents and business owners unable to stand the thought of Los Angeles losing its palms can still buy their own and plant them on their property.

Moreover, hundreds of Mexican palms, which look a lot like the Canary Island Date Palm and were planted throughout the modest neighborhoods of south Los Angeles to herald the 1932 Olympics, are still thriving.

The palms are vanishing just as Los Angeles is kicking off an ambitious project to plant a million new trees. On Oct. 1, officials gave away 3,000 trees, and they have compiled a list of nearly 60 varieties they are planting and encouraging residents to plant. Palm trees did not make the cut

“They don’t provide the same benefits as the other, more leafy trees,” says Paula Daniels, a Board of Public Works commissioner who is heading up the planting effort.

Their tall, bare trunks make them inferior when it comes to providing shade, Daniels said, and some experts believe their scant leaves make them less effective at trapping air pollution

And while sun-dappled palms lining a freeway may look good in the movies or on a postcard, Dunlap said people standing beside them can feel as if they are next to a telephone pole.

“Oak trees are more native to L.A. than palm trees?” Scott Wannberg said from behind the counter of trendy Dutton’s Books in Brentwood, not far from the palm-lined streets of Hollywood. “I don’t know about that, but I know one thing: I like palm trees!”

Posted by M at 06:22:23 | Permalink | No Comments »

The San Francisco Paradox

When good cities have bad architecture.

By Witold Rybczynski
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006, at 2:12 PM ET

San Francisco. Click image to expand.

Ours is the age of international “starchitects” and “signature buildings,” epitomized by the if-you-build-it-they-will-come success of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, Spain, which revitalized the city’s economy. By contrast, San Francisco epitomizes a different, older model: a thriving city with a prosperous commercial past (in this case a port) that gradually became what urban economists call a “glamour city.” Glamour cities are centers of international business (New York), political power (Washington, D.C.), and the New Economy (Boston). They usually have a 19th-century infrastructure of museums, concert halls, and well-preserved residential architecture, and they are where the wealthy, the well-educated, and the ambitious want to live. High-end demand, in turn, produces real estate values that—even in the current slump—are an order of magnitude greater than elsewhere. These cities are vibrant, livable, prosperous, and well-managed. San Francisco, on top of all this, has a temperate climate and a great natural setting. What it doesn’t have is great architecture.

 

It’s hard to know exactly why some cities develop an architectural sensibility. Clearly, having a local star serves to raise the level of public consciousness of good architecture. In the 1960s, Mies van der Rohe in Chicago and Louis Kahn in Philadelphia attracted and trained a generation of talented young architects from around the world, many of whom stayed to open their own offices. A strong architectural tradition helps, too. Chicago got a running start with Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham at the end of the 19 th century, Boston had H.H. Richardson, and during the Guilded Age New York City had McKim, Mead & White. The Bay Area had Bernard Maybeck, an original talent, whose blend of Arts and Crafts and Classicism might have been the beginning of a regional movement, except it was eclipsed by Modernism, and withered on the vine. (Maybeck’s career was basically over by 1930, although he did not die until 1957.)

The West Coast suffered by comparison to the East Coast, though there have been at least two significant architectural movements in Los Angeles in recent years: the first in the 1960s, represented by Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, and Craig Ellwood, and the second today, dominated by Frank Gehry, who moved to the city when he was 17 and has become L.A.’s—and the country’s—leading architect. San Francisco, on the other hand, has not managed to produce any major homegrown talent since Maybeck. In the 1960s, Charles Moore built a series of houses in the Bay Area in a casual, rustic style. His masterpiece was Sea Ranch, a barnlike complex of houses on the Pacific shore, designed in 1967 with his partnership, Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull, and Whitaker. But the peripatetic Moore did not stay long. In any case his buildings were suburban or rural and had little effect on the city itself, which plodded on. You know that the bar hasn’t been set very high when the most exciting downtown interior space is still John C. Portman’s theatrical Hyatt Regency hotel atrium, built in 1973.

A row of painted ladies. Click image to expand. A row of painted ladies

Architecturally speaking, San Francisco has been like a beautiful, rich woman who has never developed an interest in cooking and serves TV dinners to her family, then occasionally—somewhat frantically—hires caterers whenever she has company for dinner. OK, it’s an imperfect analogy, but you get the idea. The question, now, is what the city should do. Perhaps in recognition of its architectural lack, in recent years San Francisco has been importing talent: Mario Botta (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); Pei, Cobb, Freed (main library); Fumihiko Maki (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts); and the Polshek Partnership (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater). These buildings are not unqualified successes. The art museum, eagerly awaited as Botta’s first U.S. commission, is self-conscious and out of scale; the library is a tepid exercise in Postmodernism (and has been severely criticized for its functional shortcomings). With the exception of Herzog & de Meuron’s recently completed de Young Museum—which will be the subject of a future Slate slide show—San Francisco has not inspired its hired guns to do their best work.

It may be San Francisco’s spectacular setting that is the problem (Rio de Janeiro, another beautiful bay city, has likewise failed to produce striking architecture). Of course, San Francisco does have one strong tradition: its thousands of remarkable houses. Quirky, uninhibited, individualistic, full of character, often thumbing their noses at architectural convention, the so-called painted ladies line the hilly streets in residential neighborhoods throughout the city. This domestic tradition has produced interesting contemporary urban housing, but the very qualities that make residential buildings attractive are ill-suited to large urban projects, which need a different sense of style. To return to my increasingly imperfect analogy, if only the beautiful, rich woman could find a way to turn these snacks into a main—home-cooked—course.

Posted by M at 06:20:35 | Permalink | No Comments »

Friday, October 6, 2006

In Santa Ana, Diversity Has Another Angle

With the city three-fourths Latino, many who aren’t from Michoacán — or even Mexican — struggle as outsiders.

By Jennifer Delson, Times Staff Writer
October 5, 2006

In a city where Latinos make up 76% of the population, what does diversity mean?

The answer: Depends on whom you ask.

Officials at Santa Ana City Hall are promoting economic diversity in the city’s downtown, where most businesses cater to Mexican immigrants.

At the Mexican consulate, the emphasis is on increasing cultural diversity among the city’s Mexican immigrants. With about 27% of those immigrants from the state of Michoacán, consular officials have been encouraging those from other Mexican states to highlight their culture at public celebrations in Santa Ana.

And finally, Latino immigrants who aren’t from Mexico talk about the city’s lack of diversity among its Spanish-speaking population. So many residents are from Mexico that those from other Latin American countries often need to explain, with some frustration, that they are not from Mexico.


In Santa Ana, diversity does not carry the same meaning it does in most of America. The city is already well-represented by “minorities” who make up the majority of the population. Latinos hold four of the seven seats on the City Council.

More than half of city employees are Latinos, and any city employee who has contact with the public is required to speak at least two languages. Spanish is spoken in many Santa Ana businesses as well.

City officials and developers have turned diversity into the new buzzword while working on plans to improve 100 blocks, mostly around downtown. Currently, downtown businesses, including about 15 bridal shops and 20 travel agencies, are oriented to Mexican immigrant families.

The city’s redevelopment agency has bought dozens of homes along Santa Ana Boulevard and hired an architectural firm to design a plan that would attract more upscale private enterprise to the area.

At numerous meetings, city residents and the architects brainstormed about how to bring in retailers such as Old Navy, which might attract customers who don’t typically shop downtown. This largely untapped market includes workers in nearby county offices and courts.

Jay Trevino, executive director of the city’s Planning and Building Agency, said the city’s push for diversity downtown wasn’t about ethnicity but economics.

“We want diversity in terms of goods and services,” Trevino said. “We want to make sure it’s a downtown for all people. It’s about consumers asking themselves, ‘Is there a reason for me to go there? Is there a place for me to eat? To buy things I want to buy?’ “

City officials have been careful to emphasize that the plan doesn’t seek to eliminate existing business, just broaden the mix.

Yet some say diversification means gentrification.

“The city uses that word, ‘diversity,’ all the time,” said Elsa Gomez, a downtown tax preparer. “When they say it, it means they want to change what’s here, and that means relocating people.”

In recent years, hundreds of lofts have been built and drawn more affluent residents downtown.

Some merchants wonder whether there will be enough new non-Latino customers to support new stores and restaurants.

Frank Palmer, another tax preparer, said creating districts like San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter had worked in many places, “but there’s a lot of doubts whether it can work here.”

The Mexican consulate sees increasing diversity but of a different flavor.

Consul Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro has encouraged the formation of groups from parts of Mexico other than Michoacán to promote cultural awareness, friendship and remittances, or sending money back home. After hurricane damage in the state of Sinaloa last month, a Southland event last weekend raised money for victims.

Also last week, at a fair in Centennial Park, it wasn’t Michoacános running the show but residents from the tiny southwestern coastal state of Nayarit.

There are about 20,000 natives of the state in Santa Ana, and the event attracted the Nayarit’s governor to Santa Ana on Saturday.

“This festival was so different. It was like Nayarit was here,” said Dely Delegado, founder of the Nayarit Assn. in the USA. “We saw our people and our governor. They even had dancers doing the estampa, and you can’t find that in another [Mexican] state.”

Consul Ortiz said the Nayarit festival “shows that groups from states other than Michoacán are feeling increasingly comfortable here. We have welcomed them with open arms.”

Still, many from other Latin American countries feel like outsiders.

Alex Suarez, who recently emigrated from Cuba, is struggling to explain Cuban cuisine to customers of his new catering service.

“People tend to think if it’s Latino, it must be Mexican, particularly around here, where everyone is Mexican,” Suarez said. “It’s their surprise to find there are no jalapeños.”

Three years ago, Norah Briceño opened a Venezuelan restaurant, Mil Jugos, in downtown Santa Ana. At the eatery, whose name translates to “a thousand juices,” she serves a variety of drinks, plus arepas , thick corn flour patties. It’s a dish not known to most Mexicans.

“The idea with the restaurant was to share a little of my culture. To add to the mix here,” Briceño said. “Luckily, people tell their friends about my food, but it’s a constant task of telling people that it’s not Mexican.”

Churro vendor Jose Ortiz believes the broader phenomenon of diversity in downtown Santa Ana will come naturally, as children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants become Americanized.

And to make sure his business doesn’t get left behind, Ortiz has started to offer something else besides churros, the sugared bread treat popular in Mexico.

“That’s why I’m diversifying with pretzels,” he said.

jennifer.delson@latimes.com

*

(INFOBOX BELOW)

Settled in

More than one-fourth of Santa Ana’s Latinos are from the Mexican state of Michoacan. City officials are promoting ways to increase diversity.

Santa Ana’s Latinos

Percentage of city that is Latino: 76.1% (257,097)

Of Latinos, percentage from Mexico: 86.6% (222,719)

Of Mexicans, percentage from Michoacan: 27% (60,000)

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NOTE: All figures are from the 2000 Census except for the number of Michoacanos, which is an estimate by community leaders.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau. Graphics reporting by Jennifer Delson

Posted by M at 06:25:34 | Permalink | No Comments »