Palos Verdes Peninsula News
Thursday, September 28, 2006
By Chris Boyd  

Rolling Hills Estates officials hope to transform the downtown area between Hawthorne and Crenshaw boulevards into a European-style village. Some business owners fear they will lose their space during the process, but the city is working on a plan to help displaced businesses.

Officials, merchants agree on the importance of keeping open lines of communication.

RHE - City Council members on Tuesday discussed the creation of a program to assist businesses that could be displaced as the city of Rolling Hills Estates pursues its Peninsula Village plan. The project calls for transforming Deep Valley Drive and a portion of Silver Spur Road into a European-style hamlet complete with high-density condominiums, apartments, offices and small businesses.

Among other things, the assistance program would waive certain fees for businesses. "The idea is to benefit the business owners, not necessarily the property owners," said Councilwoman Judy Mitchell.

"Certainly this is one piece of several pieces of the puzzle with respect to the retention of business, which has always been on the mind of the City Council” said Councilman Frank Zerunyan. "All of these pieces of the puzzle, through the public process, will come together at the end of the day."

Mayor Steve Zuckerman said officials must ensure that residents don’t foot the bill for the assistance program. "We don’t know how many businesses will actually be eligible for this and request assistance. So how can we assess the developer a fee based on a speculative outcome?" he said. “Either the business pays for it, the developer pays for it or my neighbor pays for it. We have to make sure that my neighbor doesn’t pay a fee for something that other people accrue benefit from”

Councilwoman Susan Seamans urged fellow officials to consider developments individually. "You need to look at each project on its own merits," she said. "Neither one of the two projects that are now under way are going to displace anybody."

Silver Spur Court, an 18-unit condominium complex, will sit at the vacant corner of Silver Spur and Crenshaw Boulevard, while Peninsula Villas, a 41-unit condo complex, will he on what is now a parking lot between two buildings at 901 Deep Valley Drive.

"Having the right information out there for the business owners is very important," Mitchell said, adding that it would help if the city identified businesses that could be displaced in the future. "We're not there yet because there isn’t any project online that's going to displace anyone at this point.”

“We're talking years away," Zerunyan said. “I hear from people, 'I'm going to be on the street tomorrow.' It's not feasible. It's not legally possible to be on the street tomorrow, unless you' don't pay your rent.”

 

Communication is key

To monitor the plan and help keep businesses updated on its progress, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Chamber of Commerce last week established a Peninsula Village Task Force, according to chamber President and, CEO Kay Finer. "We are certainly the voice of the business community," she said.

"I have some concerns because I'm not sure all the businesses are members of the chamber," Mitchell said. "We do want a free flow of information from City Hall to businesses''

Mitchell suggested that a council member sit on the task force, but Zuckerman said officials might want to leave the decision up to the chamber. Both he and Zerunyan expressed concern that the chamber keep its autonomy.

"We have to be careful that the city doesn’t become overbearing, overreaching," Zuckerman said.

"It's very important to have a rapport of information coming from the city," Finer said. "Having those open lines of communication at all levels is what I think the responsibility of the chamber is."

James Hume, organizer of the RHE Business Owners Association, said that of the 365 businesses he's identified downtown, only about,14 percent are chamber members. "We're looking to open up the communication so that people will understand [the Peninsula Village plan] is going to take years, Hume told the council.  "The biggest problem that a lot of the business owners have right now is they don’t know what’s going on. There's a huge opportunity for the city to open up this communication."

Zerunyan said “the city already publicizes its open meetings about the topic and posts information on its Web site. What more, he asked Hume, can city officials do? "I completely agree with you that we should communicate, but we are communicating" he said. "All of this, first of all, never has been done behind any curtain.''

Hume said the city could further open up dialogue by distributing to business owners a regular bulletin that gives project updates, creating a more user-friendly Web site, and launching a door-to-door campaign to tell businesses what's happening. "You really have to go get in the face of the people out there" he said. "If we had a plan, I think half of the complaints would go away.”

"You have done us a terrific service, sir, and I want to thank you for that," Seamans told Hume. "You have taken your time to go and survey our business community."

Seamans said the city simply doesn’t have the people power or time to survey every business.

Mike Giglia, owner of Mike's Brickwalk Cafe on Deep Valley and a member of the RHE

Business Owners Association, cautioned that the organization has never met and that many merchants don’t agree with some of Hume's opinions. "I welcome and champion a lot of the things that Jim has done, but for all of you to accept this as consensus is wrong,” he added.