Minutes of April 30 MVCC NTM Committee Special Meeting (Final)

 

The meeting was called to order at 6:30 PM by its Chair, Bill Pope.

 

The meeting was attended by:

 

Ken Alpern – MVCC Board Member and Planning and Land Use Committee Co-Chair (Written Comments)

J. D Gaydowski – MVCC Board Member and Zone 3 Director

Curt Steindler, MVCC Board Member and Zone 5 Director

Sharon Commins, Chair, MVCC Planning and Land Use, Concept Plan Committee

Bill Abbott -- NTM Committee Member

Dorothy Garvin – NTM Committee Member

Linda Guagliano – NTM Committee Member

Colin Hatton – NTM Committee Member

Jessica Lee – NTM Committee Member

Albert Olson –NTM Committee Member

Don Park – NTM Committee Member

Leonard Pitt – NTM Committee Member

Bill Pope – NTM Committee Member and Chair

Christian Taylor – NTM Committee Member

 

 

A presentation was given covering the following topics: 

 

¨       Los Angeles General Plan and the Mar Vista Community Plan’s statements pertaining to:

¨       An overview of the NTM Plan Development Process being developed by NTM Committee.

¨       Opportunities and options for Community Involvement.

¨       MVCC’s Cut-thru Traffic Impacted Areas.

 

(The presentation was sent to all who have signup for this Committee under the MVCC Email Notification System.)

 

Old Business:

 

The follow questions were carried over from the April 24 NTM Committee meeting.

(The decision made at the April 30 meeting are in Blue.)

 

1.       Should acceptance or rejection of protections against cut-thru traffic authorized by the General Plan and Community Plan remain with the owners of properties on cut-thru-traffic-impacted streets, as the current “Process” wording implies?

 

Yes.  

Traffic controls are:

 

 

  1. The current Process accesses acceptance or rejection of offered protections by the willingness or non-willingness of cut-thru-traffic-impacted property owners to participate in NTM Plan development Work Groups. However, the majority of an impacted-street’s property owners are not require to participate in a Work Group.

 

Therefore, if 1 above remains, then should a separate step be added to the “Process” between steps 2 and 3 to determine whether the majority of properties on the street(s) impacted by a cut-thru-traffic flow want an NTM Plan to be developed before proceeding with development of the candidate NTM Plan to be offered to the Impacted Area for selection?

 

No.

Keep the current mechanism of using the fact that cut-thru street property owner have requested development of a Neighborhood Protection Plan as evidence that the offered protections and requisite traffic controls are desired. It was suggested that the requirements for a NTM Plan request petition could be increased to represent a majority position on the streets segment(s) in question. This will discussed at the May 1 Special meeting. Other request mechanisms that would not assure this majority would have to be dropped.

 

2.       Should surveys for selecting which candidate NTM Plan to implement be send to:

 

  1. Property owners only.  

No. Could potentially subject MVCC to a Renter’s Rights Act suit.

 

  1. Property owners, with MVCC’s request that property owners provide copies to each of their housing units.

No. We cannot pass this responsibility off to property owners.

Legally, and based on MVCC outreach efforts, we cannot rely upon property owners to do the right thing by the residents of each housing unit, and the relatively small amount of units for a given area can probably allow for a mailing to each unit. – Written comments from Ken Alpern

 

  1. Each individual housing unit (single-family home or apartment unit), or

Yes.

Written comments from Ken Alpern 

Since it's always an unknown as to how many adult residents live within a house, condo, or apartment unit, we should follow legal precedent of the LADOT by identifying the number/location of every affected unit and do a mailing prior to an open house of "one notice, one living unit".

Comments from Meeting

This is LADOT’s standard procedure. We can obtain the address for individual housing units.

This gives every individual a change to participate in the selection process.

However, it can allow apartment dwellers to have a controlling position on most streets containing apartments. This puts the burden on the Requesting Work Group and LADOT to designing a set of Candidate NTM Plans to be offered for selection that will be equally effective in controlling cut-thru traffic . 

 

  1. Each individual adult resident in a planned-traffic-control Impacted Area?

No. The MVCC does not have access to this information and could not assure that only one survey was returned per person.

 

 

3.       Should NTM Plan selection surveys be tallied by:

 

  1. Property (an apartment building would count as one property)?

Maybe, as this would be consistent with the fact that  property owners are required to sign petitions requesting NTM Plan development.

If traffic controls have to be paid for by property owners, then this is the only option permissible and the owners opinion must be give weight equal to all the renters, if they differ, they negate each other and the owner is not forced by their tenants into paying.

 

  1. Residence (single-family home, condo or apartment unit)?

Probably, since this is how it  was decided that Selection Surveys should be mailed.

 

  1. Adult resident (i.e. owners and renters)?

No. The MVCC does not have access to voter registration records and cannot determine who the adult residents are or how many live in each housing unit, and therefore could not prevent opinion “stuffing”.

 

Written Comments by Ken Alpern

Final selection surveys by adult residents is virtually impossible to do based on how many individuals live within a given unit, and perhaps allow inappropriate influence of one unit on adjacent homes/units.  I personally am torn between the first two choices, and recommend this question be given to the City Attorney.  We will have to run this by the City Attorney sooner or later, and once this Process is approved by the MVCC, a final approval must have the City Attorney's blessing in order to be valid.

 

 

4.      Whether the political benefits of extending NTM Plan selection beyond an Impacted Area to an entire neighborhood outweighs the practical reality that doing so will result in the least restrictive, and therefore the least effective, cut-thru traffic control plan being selected.

 

Selection of an ineffective NTM Plan would not be acceptable since protection from cut-thru traffic has already be authorized by the General and Community Plans.

 

The decision regarding whether to expand Candidate Plan selection beyond the Impacted Area has to be made on an NTM Plan by Plan basis. For some cut-thru traffic problems, the Impacted Area is only one or two blocks and the NTM Plan to fix the problem can impact no one other than residents of those two block. In other cases the impacted area may be large enough that the entire neighborhood should be polled.

 

 

New Business

 

Finalize our recommendation on how NTM Plan Selection Surveys should be summarized and tallied:

a.       By legal property?  

or

b.       By residence?

 

Final review of the NTM Development Process to be proposed to MVCC Board on May.

This review will occur at the May 1 Special Meeting as previously announced.

 

The reworked NTM Development Process draft to be reviewed is below.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

NTM Plan Development Process

 

1.       NTM Plan development is initiated by a request to the NTM Committee. Requests may be are made via:

1.1.       A motion passed by the MVCC Board, Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, or NTM Committee.

1.2.       A letter from a recognized neighborhood property owners or renters association at least one year old, or

1.3.       A petition signed by property owners representing at least 51% of the properties on the requesting street(s). [Property owners are required here to be consistent with LADOT’s requirement that “Apartment managers or owners must sign the petition to represent apartment buildings.” – Speed Hump General Information Package.] 

 

2.       Requests will be investigated and traffic counts taken with the MVCC Speed Trailer to determine is a cut-thru problem exists. Requests will be prioritized based on traffic volumes per lane and the number of residences impacted by traffic, plus traffic-related pedestrian and school safety issues.  

 

3.       For each top-priority problems, the NTM Committee will work with NTM-Plan-requestors and LADOT to identify:

3.1.       Any additional residential streets that would require protection if controls are placed on the cut-thru street(s).

3.2.       At least two envisioned, LADOT-acceptable Plans unlikely to route cut-thru traffic to other residential streets.

3.3.       Each envisioned Plan’s Impacted Area. An Impacted Area consists of properties fronting the cut-thru street(s), those which must use the cut-thru street to access a major or secondary highway, and those for which the shortest route to the nearest major or secondary highway would be impacted by the NTM Plan.

 

4.       A Working Group will be organized for each Impacted Area. Working Groups shall represent at least 5% of the properties and all streets in an Impacted Area. Solicitation of volunteers for a Working Group shall be done by NTM-Plan-Requestors.

 

5.       Working Group(s) will meet with LADOT to develop conceptual designs for at least two NTM Plans.

 

6.       The Conceptual NTM Plans will be presented at a regularly scheduled T&I Committee and MVCC Board meeting. MVCC Board and/or T&I Committee may select a minimum of two Conceptual NTM Plans as candidates for presentation to Impacted Areas for selection.

 

7.       The Working Group, with assistance and oversight by the NTM Committee, will:

7.1.       Prepare Candidate Plan Descriptions and a Plan Selection Survey.

                (Surveys will contain space for responder’s name, address and phone validation and proper counting.)

7.2.       Provide the NTM Committee with the names and addresses of Impacted Area residences.

7.3.       Arrange for an Open House at which Candidate NTM Plans can be presented to Impacted Area residents.

 

8.       The NTM Committee will mail Candidate Plan Descriptions, Plan Selection Survey forms and Open House invitations to each Impacted Area residences at City expense. [Best effort possible re: Voter Rights and Renters Rights Acts.]

 

9.       The Working Group and LADOT will present the Candidate NTM Plans at the Impacted Area Open House.

 

10.   NTN Plan Selection Surveys must be returned to the MVCC NTM Committee within one month following the Open House presentation. Surveys must contain Responder’s name, address and phone for validation and counting.)

 

11.   The NTM Committee will tally the returned surveys by {properties|residences}. The NTM Plan preferred by the majority of {properties|residences} will be passed to the MVCC Board for recommendation to the CD11 City Council representative. [LADOT tallies surveys by residences, but requires authorizations from owners of properties.]

[The MVCC cannot count by or ensure the “One person, One vote” rule of the Voters Rights Act because the MVCC does not have access to voter registration records. The NTM Committee believes selection should be by property owners because traffic controls are permanent, “go with the land”, and could require funding by property owners. Allowing all residents to submit preferences then summarizing by property seems a fair and practical compromise.]

 

12.   If the MVCC Board determines that the above process has been followed in good faith, the MVCC Board will recommend the Selected NTM Plan to the District 11 City Council Member for presentation to the LA City Council.

 

13.   If the Selected NTM Plan is adopted by the City Council, LADOT will initiate and manage installation of the Selected NTM Plan as soon as funds are available.

 

14.   A description of the City Council adopted NTM Plan will be published in an MVCC Newsletter.

 

15.   Implementation of the Selected NTM Plan shall be deemed successful when traffic volume on cut-thru street(s) relative to non-cut-thru streets is consistent with the General Plan’s intended usage of those streets.