The City of West Hollywood invites community members to provide feedback about initial concept designs for the San Vicente Streetscape shared street and plaza improvements project. There will be a virtual meeting via the Zoom platform on Tuesday, December 13, 2022 at 6 p.m. and people interested in participating can join at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89126456842.
The San Vicente Streetscape shared street and plaza improvements project will host additional opportunities for the community to provide feedback at various stages as part of a comprehensive outreach plan. City staff and consultants will present concept designs that include and reflect feedback received from community outreach presentations and visioning activities that took place in October 2022.
North San Vicente Boulevard between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue is oftentimes the location for City-sponsored programming and other City-permitted events. This results in approximately 20 to 30 days of partial or full street closures each year. Because this area was not originally designed for these purposes, tangible challenges arise within this stretch of N. San Vicente Boulevard related to impromptu public gatherings or planned event purposes.
At times, N. San Vicente Boulevard experiences drivers that exceed posted speed limits. Beyond traffic safety issues, serious public health concerns – particularly during the summer – can potentially arise when individuals may spend significant time in direct sun and are subjected to effects from what is known as a “heat island” while standing on hardscape concrete and asphalt surfaces. Heat islands are generally urbanized areas that experience higher temperatures than outlying areas. Structures such as buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes that include trees or water elements and water bodies.
The City of West Hollywood is working with landscape architecture firm !melk to develop a conceptual vision for a new “shared street” that would allow for temporary, partial, or full closures on N. San Vicente Boulevard, account for transit, accessibility, and traffic safety needs, and would be designed as a micro-climate inspired ecosystem. This reimagined area would emphasize larger-scale outdoor gathering space, shading and green space, wildlife propagation, water resource management, and pedestrian-oriented design strategies in support of city-sponsored or otherwise approved programs and events, permitted activities, and organized or impromptu gatherings.
The intent is to have a space that can provide new flexibility and transform seasonally and situationally. If carefully crafted as a “streetscape plaza,” this bookended and protected area could operate as either a programmatic extension of West Hollywood Park, as a useful companion to the forthcoming STORIES: The AIDS Monument, or as an independent civic or public event space itself. Centrally located within the City’s westside, the San Vicente Streetscape Plaza would be well buffered from a sound standpoint from residentially zoned areas nearby yet still be very walkable and in close enough proximity from the diversely scaled neighborhoods that surround it.
For additional information, please visit the project website or contact Garen Yolles, City of West Hollywood Architectural and Urban Designer in the City’s Urban Design and Architecture Studio, at (323) 848-6827 or at gyolles@weho.org. For people who require hearing assistance or other forms of accommodation please call TTY (323) 848-6496.
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WOW WHAT’S THE HURRY? I heard about a crazy idea with no actual rational plan … And as fast as John Heilman jumped back on the City Council, he’s spending even more of insane vanity projects. (I heard he wants our public library name after himself, leading to the total stall in what was a community discussion about possible names of important people to the LGBT+ community) Heilman already has is name in lights on the sign inside the front window of the library. Moving pretty darn fast to rob the city of not just money, parking places, but the… Read more »
It can be well concluded that the city is what it is – loads of holes and trip hazards in the sidewalks, drain gutters that don’t work, broken lights rarely fixed, paint falling off and graffiti everywhere, ugly city lighting, ugly street rainbows, generic 1/4 billion$$ parks. Looking at the governing system, it is set up in many ways to be insanely overpaid, echo chamber self-absored, non-responsive, and inefficient/ineffective. Nothing is in the pipeline to change that – even the voters. There is endless money from hotels and billboards to fund everything – no checks and balances.. Find a way… Read more »
You articulated it well.
There is no There ……Here in WH.🙄
Inviting the residents to give feedback is the favorite way to passify the public into thinking their voices matter. The city does what highly paid city staff and consultants want and go through endless charades of “good will” towards the residents. There are numerous versions of Bad Faith.
A simple logical problem solving team could rectify situations expeditiously. Inexperience in City Hall leads to bad decisions because they fail to recognize competence and incompetence when they see it. Case in point outrageously inappropriate plans for Plummer Park.
Another complicated situation seems to be the plan for the Elsie Weisman House, Laurel House or Tara whatever one chooses to call the property. It has taken 15 years of “wandering in the wilderness” and thus avoiding a plausible use for the community in addition to deferred maintenance of the grounds.
Please don’t start tearing apart West Hollywood Park again. The AIDS Monument hasn’t even gone in yet. Perhaps the city could spend money on getting the street lights on Santa Monica Blvd. between Robertson and Willy Lane turned on (north side of the street). Maybe they could fix the side walls in the Norma Triangle. Maybe complete infrastructure projects around the city. Give us time use the park before you start tearing it up all over again.
“the San Vicente Streetscape Plaza would be well buffered from a sound standpoint from residentially zoned areas” But it’s not. Every time there’s an event in the PDC courtyard or on San Vicente the sound travels, uphill into the Norma Triangle. Just last month they had a very small trans rally for about 50 people but they had 6 foot high speakers, hoisted up high on scaffolding that blasted their screaming voices into our neighborhood for hours on a weekend day. We have plenty of open spaces with the new park that we just spent millions on. We don’t need… Read more »
Enough new construction for a minute. First, bring back the Halloween parade. Get the Pride parade right. Fix or upgrade existing infrastructure. Provide better lighting where pedestrians cross. Create “Pedestrian Zones” with real lighting and smart signal. Fix broken curbs. Fix sideways. Traffic law enforcement on side streets. Enough very expensive legacy projects while the rest of the city slips. Repaint curbs, crosswalks, put in left turn arrows on Crescent Heights. Nothing cray.
Participate – then you can’t complain about it later.