By Peggy Lee Kennedy
Venice is being demolished and rebuilt right in front of our eyes, but good people can act to stop this. Public pressure works. So Venice needs you, the public, to show up and write emails – now.
On Friday June 13, please attend the monthly Coastal Commission meeting at Huntington Beach City Hall, 2000 Main Street, in Huntington Beach to OPPOSE EIGHT DEMOLITIONS and one restaurant project. The current Coastal Commission meeting agenda is always online at http://www.coastal.ca.gov/mtgcurr.html.
Go to the Coastal Commission current meeting link and scroll down to Friday. It’s a three day agenda: Wednesday through Friday.  Venice is all on Friday, which is the last day of the meeting and at the bottom of the agenda. Each Venice item has a link to the Coastal Commission staff report and each one has the Coastal Permit application number.
It is very easy to write an email, so PLEASE WRITE AN OPPOSITION EMAIL RIGHT NOW for each one of these, with the application number in the subject field of the email, and send it to Charles Posner at chuck.posner@coastal.ca.gov . I suppose you can write one for all of them and ask him to put it in each file, but it is less effective.
Here are the demolition applications you need to notate in your emails:
• June 13 Agenda 10c Application No. 5-14-0074
• June 13 Agenda 10d Application No. 5-14-0084
• June 13 Agenda 10e Application No. 5-14-0111
• June 13 Agenda 10f Application No. 5-14-124
• June 13 Agenda 10g Application No. 5-14-0212
• June 13 Agenda 10h Application No. 5-14-0237
• June 13 Agenda 10i Application No. 5-14-0239
• June 13 Agenda 10j Application No. 5-14-0240
And just in case you need something to say:
• CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, defines cumulative impacts as “two or more individual effects which, when considered together, are considerable.”  (State CEQA Guidelines Section 15355)
• Venice is approximately 1 % of the Los Angeles population, yet has 19% of the developments.
• These demolitions are cumulatively destroying the existing Venice community and the rebuilding is out of mass, out of scale, out of character, and obviously only for the wealthy to buy or live in.
• It is a violation of CEQA to approve one or more demolitions in Venice without demanding a study consisting of: Parking, Traffic, Historic Preservation, Community Character, and the Mello Act replacement of affordable housing.
• Coastal Act Sec 30624.7: The new developments have adverse effect both individually and cumulatively, because they are not consistent with the existing community character.
• Coastal Act Sec 30116 (E) & (F): Venice Coastal Zone community is a sensitive coastal resource area with special communities and neighborhoods which are significant as a visitor destination and also provide existing coastal housing and recreational opportunities for low and moderate income persons.
• Coastal Act Sec 30253 (E): This type of over-development maximizes adverse impacts, instead of minimizing them, and the city planning is doing nothing to protect the unique characteristics of the Venice Coastal Zone.
• Coastal Act Sec 30212 (2) & (3): New developments are exceeding floor area, height and bulk of the former structures by more than 10% along with changing the intensity by more than 10%.
• Coastal Act Section 30320: Developers are not properly posting or notifying the public or abutting neighbors of demolitions, which is a violation of due process.
• Coastal Act Section 30604 (f): because there is no local coastal program the commission is mandated (shall) to encourage housing opportunities for persons of low and moderate income.  Currently developers are evicting low income tenants, holding the property vacant to avoid Mello Act Requirements, and all of the developments are for wealthy people.
• There are no reports on Mello Act replacement for any of the affordable housing that has been lost or removed from Venice.
You probably have more personal comments to say in your emails, but the really important thing is that we all join together and do something to stop this.
Together we are mighty!