Editor:
I find it odd that the first I heard of this project was on a billboard announcing the demolition of buildings housing currently operating small businesses (with the exception of Gelson’s) at the shopping center on the s.e. corner of Lincoln and Ocean Park.
These businesses are ones I frequent on foot as I live 2 blocks away in senior housing operated by Volunteers of America. I feel very lucky to have obtained an apartment there 10 years ago.
I do not consider the location to be ideal, however. Lincoln Boulevard was US Highway 1 before Caltrans handed part of it over to Santa Monica/LA County some years back. It used to be referred to as “Stinkin’ Lincoln”. In my opinion it is an apt moniker for its current manifestation and the highway designation is equally so.
While the air may not be as smoggy as it once was, there is an abundant amount of exhaust fumes from motorcycles, cars, small and large commercial vehicles -including multi-ton trucks, a lack of an ozone layer above us, and a shocking disregard for the safety of pedestrians by drivers of motorized vehicles, including electric scooters, bicyclists both in the street and on the sidewalks.
Improvements promised through the LINC have not entirely materialized and Covid-19 damage to Santa Monica City Government created further neglect.
Now this preposterous proposal for housing and a design that is so rudimentary and lacking in essential components it is a terrible joke AND it makes a meager dent in the kind of housing we need and currently unhoused people can afford.
Hoping that Zoom meeting on February 17 can accommodate the hordes of Santa Monica residents who attempted to join the last meeting which allowed only 100 of us in.
Killeen Pilon, Santa Monica
Editor’s note: The meeting will be available online at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82892453793.
