This next coming Tuesday, the Bergamot Area Plan is going to the city council for possible adoption. The Bergamot Area Plan, is one of the key pieces of the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) general plan. The plan scope area is at the heart of the arts and commercial office centers of the eastern end of the city, and which is soon to have train service again in a few years.
No other part of the city is slated for as much possible change as the Bergamot Area, which has at it's middle a large abandoned factory at the former Papermate site, along with a number of large surface parking lots that could feature other possible land uses. There are internal parking lot access roads today, that could eventually become new street connections with the subdividing of large "super blocks" such as the Papermate site.
Part of the balance act in passing the LUCE was that new development would be concentrated in the Expo Line corridor to preserve the scale of the historically low rise residential zones of Santa Monica, and to mitigate against the possibility of associated car trip growth. A number of other policies and TDM (transit demand management) strategies are to be employed to keep to the LUCE goal of "no new net trips".
For more information, visit Santa Monica Next.
