Here's Home Depot's media letter and community letter:
Greetings Ron,
We wanted to share with you our position in this matter, as well as a letter we sent to our supporters in regards to the Sunland Tujunga site and our lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles (letter attached).
The Home Depot no longer plans to pursue its proposed store in Sunland Tujunga. In conjunction with this decision, we have informed the City of Los Angeles that we are dropping our lawsuit against the City related to this project. Throughout this process, we complied with all laws and regulations in relation to the site and believe that lawsuit was just. However, given the steps the City is requiring for us to move forward, coupled with the current economic landscape, it simply no longer makes business sense for us to pursue this project.
We wish the community the very best.
Please let us know if you have any questions -
Respectfully,
The Home Depot
The company also sent out this letter to the community:
Dear Los Angeles-Area Community Leaders and Sunland-Tujunga Community Members:
As you know, The Home Depot has been attempting to remodel and open a store in the Sunland-Tujunga-area of Los Angeles since 2004. As I have done in recent years, I wanted to keep you updated on developments in this process. I am writing today to regretfully inform you that The Home Depot no longer plans to pursue this proposed store. As a result of this decision, the company is not pursuing our pending permit application and has also dropped its lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles related to this project.
Throughout the process, the company has complied with all laws and regulations in relation to the site and we still believe the lawsuit was just.
In the coming weeks and months, we'll be marketing the site to parties that would potentially be interested in subleasing it for the remainder of The Home Depot's commitment.
Beyond announcing our business decision on the project site, I wanted to write this letter to personally thank the many dedicated supporters who joined us in our attempts to revitalize this currently vacant building. We are tremendously grateful for your support and wish the community the very best as it attempts to promote economic growth in this difficult economic time.
As for the 13 Home Depot stores and 2,500 people currently employed
by The Home Depot in the City of Los Angeles, we will continue to
commit ourselves to serving our customers and communities with the
highest quality service.
I again thank you for your continued interest and support and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.
Sincerely,
Jeff Nichols
Real Estate Director, Western Region
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
Again, I have suggested to both the STNC & to Home
Depot that the site could be used to create a vocational training facility, possibly with Home Depot launching a new division to create more vocationally trained apprentices that will grow and use the items they sell. This is needed, even as OBAMA creates 300,000,000 new jobs, and certainly would help to reduce the impact on the 50% of students now being lost byb LAUSD anfd ignored by LACCD.
This could be a good opportunity to develop affordable housing in a community that really needs it. With apologies to Barack Obama, "Si se puede" (Yes we can)!!!
LA Times
Sunday, September 28, 2008
L.A. housing plan to be unveiled
The mayor will propose a $5-billion, five-year effort to build homes for the poor and middle class. But some wonder whether it is feasible.
By Jessica Garrison
September 28, 2008 in print edition B-1
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday will unveil a $5-billion, five-year plan to build housing for the poor and middle class. The blueprint, which calls for thousands of new homes along subway and bus lines, and developments with people of all incomes living together, would, according to the mayor’s deputies, alter the look and feel of the city forever.
But the plan, which many City Council members and business and housing groups said they had not yet seen, is being released while the housing market is a shambles, the state is facing a massive budget shortfall and the economy is teetering – challenges that lead some to wonder whether it is feasible.
“I know that budgets are tight … credit is almost nonexistent,” Villaraigosa said Saturday to a room full of community and labor groups pushing for more affordable housing. “But we’re going to reject the cynics … and build a brighter future for those kids who are in the corner over there.”
The mayor got a standing ovation at the union hall near downtown Los Angeles, and chants of ”Si, se puede” (“Yes, we can”) from the dozens of people in matching red T-shirts in his audience.
Others were more skeptical when they were presented with the broad brush strokes of the plan. Some developers object to a so-called mixed-income provision that would require affordable housing to be included in new housing developments. They say that such a policy – which labor and housing groups have been pushing for years – would cast a pall over entrepreneurial efforts.
“We will work with the mayor, but the policy as it stands now does not work,” said Carol Schatz, chief executive of the Central City Assn., a business group that represents many of the city’s developers.
“It is going to make housing less affordable for everybody,” said downtown activist Brady Westwater.
On the other hand, community and labor groups, key players in the city’s politics, are lobbying hard for the so-called mixed-income plan.
“We need a new solution,” Donna Rodriguez said Saturday. The account manager, who lives in Silver Lake, said she makes $42,000 a year and spends half of her take-home pay on the $1,150 rent for her one-bedroom apartment. “Look,” she said, waving copies of her paycheck and rent checks to illustrate the problem. She added that she shares a bed with her 8-year-old daughter, Lily.
“I want bunk beds,” Lily chimed in as her mother smoothed her hair and told her to tell members of the media that she wanted her own bedroom.
Other elements of the plan, such as preserving existing affordable units and building near transit centers, are things the city already has pledged to do.
Housing has become an increasingly pressing political issue in Los Angeles. Last month, the Los Angeles Business Council released a report saying that the high cost of housing, especially in places like the Westside, “threatens the region’s continued economic growth.”
Los Angeles was designated the least affordable metropolitan area in the country last year, according to the Business Council report, because so many people pay so much of their incomes for housing. The city also has the largest homeless population in the nation. In addition, although private developers have built many high-end apartment units and condos over the last few years, there has not been a similar increase for households earning less than $75,000 per year.
“We do not produce what we need to produce. We just don’t,” said Helmi Hisserich, deputy mayor for housing and economic development policy.
Under the mayor’s plan, the city would pledge $200 million a year for five years from various sources, including the city’s Housing Authority, its affordable housing trust fund and its Community Redevelopment Agency, to build affordable housing.
Most, if not all, of that money would have been used for housing already, but by setting out a comprehensive plan the city hopes to use its money more efficiently and to be more competitive in winning grants, tax credits and bond funds from government and private sources. In all, the plan depends on raising an additional $4 billion over five years.
Villaraigosa acknowledged that in the current climate of economic uncertainty, some of the money the city is counting on may not come through, but he said he was confident other sources might open up. Federal dollars may flow to the city because of the foreclosure crisis, for example. He said he “sat down with three economists yesterday” and they assured him the plan was sound.
The city already has one big financial commitment from Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit that finances affordable housing across the country and has pledged $700 million over the next five years to Los Angeles to finance affordable housing projects here and to provide matching funds to attract additional private investment – a crucial role in today’s tight credit environment.
Other elements of the mayor’s plan include:
* A “Sustainable Communities Initiative” to encourage the development of 20 pedestrian-oriented, mixed-income neighborhoods along the Gold Line in East Los Angeles and the Exposition Line in South Los Angeles.
* Building 2,200 units of permanent supportive housing to get homeless people off the streets and provide them with mental healthcare, drug treatment and other rehabilitation services, as well as making more Section 8 rental assistance vouchers available for homeless people.
* Redeveloping the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts into a mixed-income housing development with some units for very poor people and some units of market-rate housing. Already, the city has purchased 21 acres adjacent to Jordan Downs.
* Buying and rehabilitating foreclosed homes and turning them into affordable housing. On Friday, the federal government announced that the city was getting $33 million for that purpose.
* Preserving existing affordable housing by taking an inventory of all the affordable, rent-controlled and Section 8-eligible units in the city and finding ways to keep them affordable.
Vocational training and affordable housing are great things (so is solar energy and apple pie). All are best left to the private sector to provide.
The private sector is not perfect. Yet it has created far more economic opportunity for Americans than the government has.
The housing plan is a boondoggle. Sure its easy to say but read it, look at it. For what is produced its nary a dent in the need and its for so much money, most of which goes to politically connected developers and non-profits. Ditto for the vocational training. That by the way is how Dianne Feinstein is so rich; her husband owns vocational training companies that get HUGE federal contracts. Helps when your wife is a US Senator.
What ST needs on that site is good, decent, midscale retail. Retail that provides them the goods they need and perhaps some of what they just want. Instead of traveling to other communities, residents in ST can stay home, shop, support their local economy and reduce their footprint on driving all over town.
There is a developer out there who will recognize the opportunity for an untapped market and work with the community to provide what is best for the community. The person who does that will get rich.
And all things being equal, nothing wrong with that outcome.
IN YOUR FACE, Home Depot Apologists!!!
Sunland-Tujunga will be successful in getting quality retail in the former K-Mart site since Sunland-Tujunga has quality people who will make it happen!!!
Conversely, Home Depot Apologists, wanting BUM FACILITIES in that space, are not quality people.
"There is a developer out there who will recognize the opportunity for an untapped market and work with the community to provide what is best for the community. The person who does that will get rich.
And all things being equal, nothing wrong with that outcome."
Just like Bill Gstes did with the computer industry for people needing work all over the world. Private enterprise is the secret for America's success story - not dictatorship.
Three cheers to the Sunland-Tujunga community for staying on message since October of 2004 when the lies from Home Depot began. I am proud to be part of this community and proud to be a NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) who questioned the industrial retailer's (Home Depot) disregard for the needs of the community and compliance with the Specific Plan. Sunland-Tujunga has been honest from the start about welcoming a company that would respect the community needs for a general merchandise retailer and possible dual-use project. Wendy Greuel represented this community as our duly elected Los Angeles City Councilmember. Joe Barrett, Abbie Diamond and Paula Warner tirelessly communicated community events, appearances at hearing and fundraising for legal expenses. Let's hear it for the good guys of S-T. We worked with pride for our community and we won!
Acting in a situation without first informing oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. ,
Acting in a situation without first informing oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. ,
Acting in a situation without first informing oneself of the circumstances of the situation can lead to even the most well-intended actions yielding miserable consequences. ,
Sunland-Tujunga needed The Home Depot.. just like it needs a Wal-Mart Supercenter. This community can be paralleled (by people who are not brainwashed into thinking it is a 'beautiful town' and 'needs to be preserved') to Bedford Falls in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life". Sunland-Tujunga, CA has an enormous and disgusting glut of liquor stores, bars, and 'hole in the wall' car repair shops which is totally destroying the community. Even Ralph's and Vons grocery prices are much higher than other LA communities because there is no true competition. This community needs a major superstore like a SuperTarget, WalMart Supercenter, Home Depot, Lowes, or equivalent if only to have some place where people can go without crawling to Potter (small businesses that charge you your soul for their products). We need a store we can go to that is open 24/7 that will enable those who work late shifts to patronise since they arent available when the 'Mom & Pop Stores' are open.
If I ever get wind of a big business trying to move into Sunland-Tujunga (which would improve the economy and unemployment situation tremendously) I will be at the front of the crowd is full support. It would also significantly improve the frighteningly high rate of expanding homeless crowds in this area as some would get jobs at a store like Wal-Mart.
-If Potter gets a hold of the Building and Loan, they’ll never be another decent house built in this town.