Venice Planning Forum meeting

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, January 10, 7:00 a.m. at SPARC.

Notes from the initial meeting (12/27/06) of the proposed Gail Goldberg Venice Planning Forum group

History:

Approximately six month ago, in separate instances, Suzanne Thompson and Mindy Taylor-Ross contact Gail Goldberg about coming to Venice for a Planning Forum. Subsequent to that contact, Betsy Weisman and Christine Mahfouz in the Planning Dept. met with us to discuss the possibilities of
bringing Gail to Venice for a Planning Forum. Betsy related that Gail has been meeting with groups of people for walkabouts of the divergent areas of Los Angeles, and this has been a great success. We agreed that we'd approach Gail to come to Venice for a walk about with leaders in the community. We would follow that up with a Planning Forum with the entire community invited to attend and participate. The Forum would consist of breakout sessions where various topics (see listing below) would be explored in detail and opportunities and solutions identified.

Proposed Program(s):

Winter 2007

Venice Walkabout

A Saturday Walkabout in Venice with Gail Goldberg, Head of the Los Angeles City Planning Department. Several leaders of the community will participate (see listing below) and topics covered will include Land Use and Planning;
the Lincoln Boulevard Community Design Overlay/Master Plan, affordable housing; Abbot Kinney media district; Ocean Front Walk merchants zone; arts and murals of Venice; the Homeless, and the Oakwood area. The initial walkabout participants will include:

Shelia Bernard - Lincoln Place Tenants Association, topic: Affordable Housing
Steve Clare -Venice Community Housing Corporation, topic: Affordable Housing
Robert Feist - Venice Chamber of Commerce, topic: Abbot Kinney Media District
Linda Lucks - BONC, VNC, topic: Ocean Front Walk
Challis MacPherson - Venice Neighborhood Council (VNC) Chair, LUPC, topic:
Land Use and Planning
Stan Mohammed, Venice 2000 (yet to be confirmed)
Ivan Spiegel - Venice Neighborhood Council, Community Outreach
Mindy Taylor-Ross - Venice Community Coalition (VCC) topic: Lincoln Blvd.
Community Design Overlay/Master Plan
Suzanne Thompson - SPARC, topic: Venice Murals and public arts
Jataun Valentine, Oakwood Seniors Center (yet to be confirmed)

Spring 2007

Venice Planning Forum

Spring Planning Forum with Gail Goldberg, sponsored by the Venice Neighborhood Council, with the entire community of Venice invited. Topics will include Land Use and Planning; the Lincoln Boulevard Community Design Overlay/Master Plan, affordable housing; Abbot Kinney media district; Ocean
Front Walk merchants zone; arts and murals of Venice; the Homeless, and the Oakwood area.

Proposed is an all-day workshop, similar to Envision Venice, with a morning session covering an overview of the issues, followed by a lunch break, and an afternoon session covering creative solutions and planning for the
future. The list of participant and topics is the same for both events.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, January 10, 7:00 a.m. at SPARC.

Cordially,

Mindy