VNC Rejects Marina del Rey Development Traffic Study

County officials made the case for a traffic study for pending development in Marina del Rey to the Venice Neighborhood Council on Tuesday night, but the VNC voted to reject the study and also to formally oppose the reduction of parking in the area.

Michael Tripp, a planner for Los Angeles County, said that only 2 percent of increased local traffic in the past 20 years was from development in Marina del Rey.

"Marina del Rey is a very small part of this puzzle," Tripp said.

But board members said that any further increase of traffic along the Lincoln Boulevard corridor would be too much.

"We have hit a point of saturation," board member Daffodil Tyminski said.

The 2010 traffic study has been opposed by the group We ARE Marina del Rey, which commissioned a third-party report on the study.

Barry Kurtz, from the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, which oversees Marina del Rey, said that in a meeting between the county and Los Angeles city engineers, the city did not raise any of the concerns in the We ARE Marina del Rey report.

"It is unfair and premature to judge the traffic study that has been approved by the county and the city,'" Kurtz said. He said that Beaches and Harbors is in the process of responding to all comments.

In a separate motion, the board passed a resolution opposing the reduction of public parking in Marina del Rey due to the pending redevelopment projects. According to the county's representatives at Tuesday's meeting, parking will not be reduced, rather some spaces will be relocated, with 100 new spots at Mothers Beach and 100 at Burton W. Chace Park.

The Coastal Commission is expected to review the development proposal in October. The proposal calls for:

1. A 400-unit apartment complex replacing a 136-unit complex and a 126-unit apartment complex on an existing public parking lot.
2. A 114-unit senior housing complex.
3. A dry-dock boat storage facility for 375 boats.
4. A proposed mixed use-facility that could include more than 116,000 square feet of commercial space, 255 residential units and a new 26,000-square-foot facility for the county's Department of Beaches and Harbor.