Today, LA City Council passed the motion to appeal the South LA Planning Commission's decision to deny a permit for a hotel on public land. This vote makes the hotel development one step closer to happening.
We are grateful to all who wrote or called their council member to tell them to vote no on this motion and keep this public land for public good.
We just elected a new slate of council members on the grounds they are going to be progressive on housing, so this vote is especially disappointing. Unfortunately, it is business as usual at council: flouting regulations to appease corporate developers.
Under California’s Surplus Land Act, public land is supposed to be prioritized for affordable housing. As we've already highlighted, both the City Zoning Administrator and the South LA Planning Commission opposed this development. To get around these decisions, District 8 Council Member Marqueece Harris-Dawson instead took the decision to a council vote and introduced an amendment to have it approved by the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) committee, which he chairs.
There is no local hiring agreement in place for this hotel, proposed for the vacant Bethune Library site. Tourism tax revenue goes into the city’s general fund, not to the district. This development will employ outsiders, serve tourists from out of town, create more pollution and traffic in the neighborhood, and enrich the Marriott corporation, based in Maryland, all while contributing to gentrification and displacement in the area.
Meanwhile, South Central does not have enough affordable units for the people who live here. There is, however, a 240-room Radisson Hotel less than a mile away from this site.
We plan to keep you updated, and continue fighting as hard as we can to ensure whatever gets built on the Bethune site truly serves the community.
Next month, we will have a community screening of the documentary that Artivists United made about the Bethune site and a discussion about what people would like to see there. We also plan to oppose the motion when it is taken to the PLUM committee in the next few weeks.
In solidarity,
The UNIDAD Coalition