Jefferson Hendrick - West Hollywood Real Estate

A few items of follow up on some recent postings from this blog....

- I posted a couple of weeks ago a story the LA Times ran about parking meters in LA, specifically what the city claims are it's rules regarding broken and/or dead meters. Sunday was yet another parking meter related piece in the Times, this time regarding the ushering in of the era of paid parking (and ticketing). Who knew that Los Angeles was not the first, or the 10th, or even the 60th municipality to begin installing parking meters - even after such major metropolitan areas as Fairbanks, AK. I'd say LA has more than made up for lost time....

- In the war on supergraphics, chalk one up for up for LA City Attorney Trutanich. Eight of the giant canvas advertisements have come down in the past 3 weeks. The tallest, an 11 story ad near Highland Ave and Santa Monica Blvd. That'd be the one that Apple's had for years now, usually advertising iPods. Anyway, the interesting twist is that one of the companies attempted a little bartering with the city that seems to have been rejected. Beverly Hills based SkyTag attempted to offer $12.5 million towards the ongoing fundraising efforts to save the 138 acre expanse in the Hollywood Hills, the same effort that brought about the recent changing of the famed Hollywood sign to read "Save The Peak." The offer was turned down, with Councilman Eric Garcetti saying "We're not going to trade off beautification in one place for the visual decay of another."

- Because what would a post of mine be lately without the latest Hollywood starlets taking a brutal hit in the market? Britney Spears is on deck. It's your typical girl meets house, girl buys house, girl relists house a month later, girl loses marbles, girl gets placed under conservatorship, girl eventually relists house again at $2million loss. Nothing you haven't heard before. I'll let Your Mama break it all down for you.

....does that mean I can't park at it? This is something I imagine everyone is this city has experienced. In the last week, probably. If the meter's broken, I just park there. Once in a while, I'll call the number on the meter and report it broken IF I have time (and that's big if). When I call, I'm told, "sir, you aren't supposed to park at broken meters," which immediately makes me want to stab myself with dull pencils. I usually do it anyway and hope for the best - which is that it doesn't automatically reset itself while I'm parked there.

The Los Angeles Times ran a story this morning about just this. Can you, or can't you, park at a broken meter. Well, here's your official answer. "There's a lot of short fuses in the world, people are out of work and out of jobs. . . . I want to have a friendly, efficient" Transportation Department, said LA City Councilman Tom LaBonge. "If someone says 'I got a ticket,' henceforth, 'from a failed meter,' we want to know about that, because we don't do that."

Amir Sedadi, assistant general manager of the Transportation Department, assured members that "the policy of the Department of Transportation is not to issue any citations to broken meters." As I said above though, the caveat to that is that you have to hope the meter doesn't correct itself, which they can do.

The other problem though, besides the blinking "FAIL" message (or my favorite, "dEAd"), is when you actually feed the meter, and it only registers some of the coins (or none) that you put in. That's when I've found you can call the number on the meter, report the meter as broken, and they will tell you you are clear there for whatever the maximum time the meter allows is. You may get a ticket, but they will have your call on record and you should be able to successfully contest it if you have to (which is admittedly a waste of time and a major pain in the a$$). If it really comes down to it, you can try putting a note on the meter saying it took your coins, AND that you've reported it.

Here's something interesting, and potentially frightening, that I stumbled across doing a little bit of research for this entry. The Times ran an article about a year ago, reporting that Mayor Villaragosa was investigating the prospect of taking the city's parking business private by leasing the meters and city owned parking structures to a private party to operate. That scares the hell out of me.

At the time the story ran, the city of Chicago had just done exactly that. For an upfront fee of $1.15 billion, Mayor Richard Daley leased control of all of the city owned parking to Morgan Stanley for a period of 75 years. The deal equates to about $20 million a year in revenue for Morgan Stanley, likey to increse when they impose significant rate hikes (in some cases quadrupled) that had been planned. So in other words, the cost of parking now lies in the hands of Morgan Stanley, not the city. And get this - while the City of Chicago retains the right to both write tickets and keep ticket revenue, Morgan Stanley has the right to do "supplemental enforcement." Yes. Morgan Stanley can now issue parking tickets in Chicago.

I don't know what the latest is with LA's consideration of such a move. I'll see what I can find out. At this point though, 18% of the city of Los Angeles' mechanical meters have been replaced with Pay Stations. Let me give you one piece of personal advise on those though. Always - ALWAYS - take that receipt it gives you and hang on to it until you get back to your car and see no ticket. I've had not one but TWO instances in West Hollywood around my office where I was given a ticket that was just plainly and simply erroneous. There was nothing to even contest. I faxed a copy of my receipt and the ticket to West Hollywood City Hall, and demanded that it be cleared immedately. And it was.

Last month I wrote about several major developments going up in and around West Hollywood. One thing I'd left out and meant to get back to but hadn't yet, was the House Of Blues site on Sunset Blvd. Well I may as well cover it now, as Curbed LA is reporting that the West Hollywood Planning Commission just gave it's approval for a massive new development by Kanner Architects that'll add 149 MORE hotel rooms, as well as 35,000 square feet of commercial/retail space including a new 6,200 square foot music venue. In addition, the project will include 40 condos and 5 affordable housing units, plus another 22 of them offsite at 990 Palm Ave.

And much - I'm sure - to the chagrin of local residents, the building will be wrapped in a giant moving video screen that wraps around the top and sides of the building. That's gonna be pretty.

Hidden Los Angeles has discovered on YouTube an original documentary narrated by James Fitzpatrick from his "James Fitzpatrick Traveltalks" series of documentaries that were produced by MGM from 1930 to 1954 and ran in movie theaters before the main feature. This particular one was produced in 1935 and once refers to Los Angeles by what is formerly it's OFFICIAL name, "The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of the river of Porziuncola."

It's a very cool look at a much less insane, over populated Los Angeles. Plus you get to hear Fitzpatrick say "Los Angle-leez" and "Wil-sheer Boulevard"

Check it out HERE.