A United Kingdom-based Ferris wheel operator will present their plans for a temporary, 200-foot observation wheel on Venice Beach at the next board meeting of the Venice Neighborhood Council.
Great City Attractions plans to seek a three-year permit to install a $12 million Great Observation Wheel on Windward Plaza near the Venice Beach skatepark. The Ferris wheel operator earlier this month outlined its plans at a community meeting in Venice and received a lukewarm response from residents who mostly voiced concerns over parking.
The Venice Neighborhood Council on Tuesday night assigned the Great Observation Wheel project to an ad hoc visitor impact committee that will be overseen by board member Amanda Seward.
The Venice Stakeholders Association sent a letter dated March 14 to the Los Angeles City Department of Recreation and Parks urging the city to conduct a full environmental impact report on the proposal.
“The parking, traffic and scenic impacts of the Ferris Wheel installation are highly problematic for our neighborhood,” said Mark Ryavec, president of the Venice Stakeholders Association, in a statement. “Oddly, the firm proposing the Wheel has offered no mitigation.”
The group's attorney, John Henning, in the letter compared the proposed wheel to the equivalent of "placing a very large 320-seat restaurant onto the Venice boardwalk." A restaurant that size would be required to provide 80 parking spaces under the Venice Local Coastal Specific Plan, which is the city's land-use ordinance that governs development in Venice.
In urging for a full environmental impact report, the letter also said the 15-story Ferris wheel would be three times taller than existing structures on the boardwalk and would directly block views of the ocean. The letter featured a simulation of the Ferris wheel on Venice Beach using Google Earth to show its scale and size.
The next Venice Neighborhood Council meeting will take place April 17 in the auditorium of Westminster Avenue Elementary School, 1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd. in Venice.
The company's simultaneous claims that it will be a major attraction to bring a more upscale clientele to the boardwalk, and that it will have no impacts on traffic or parking bring to mind a famous statement by P.T. Barnum -- you know the one.
One thing is certain, though, in spite of the magical claims: it will put a further strain on local services, beach neighbors, police, traffic parking, and other infrastructure. TImes are tough, and the City is desperate for anything that looks like economic opportunity. This may or may not be one, but we shouldn't cut corners in the entitlement process and uncritically rush to embrace a big and shiny novelty.
Santa monica has a wheel. Venice needs something different not just to copy santa monica.