Playa Vista Provides Urban Solutions for L.A.

While we appreciate the significant coverage that The Times gave to our neighborhood designs (“This Vision of Future Covers Old Ground,” by Nicolai Ouroussoff, March 12), the review included serious inconsistencies and omissions on important issues that deserve discussion.

While your critic attempted to portray Playa Vista as a replication of so-called neotraditional town plans, even his superficial overview couldn’t help but acknowledge that Playa Vista represents something truly new for Los Angeles. As he wrote, “The project is a genuine improvement over the kind of bottom-line developments scattered across much of Southern California.”

A more complete assessment of Playa Vista, however, would have revealed its comprehensive set of neighborhood solutions. Playa Vista is not replicating previous plans, nor is it attempting revolutionary designs that may please critics but prove unlivable in reality. Rather, Playa Vista’s neighborhoods are a response to our most important critics--our future residents.

For example, while your writer touched upon Playa Vista’s “laudable environmental standards,” he offered no specifics of its evolutionary approach to community planning. From advanced urban runoff policies to precedent-setting, energy-conserving design guidelines, Playa Vista offers the most sweeping adoption of enlightened urban design principles the city of Los Angeles--or, for that matter, the country--has ever seen. These goals extend to the recycling of more than 90% of the decomissioned Hughes Aircraft building materials, turning half the property into open space and restoring native habitats on 340 acres of highly degraded property, including the Ballona Wetlands.

While it is not our intention to win awards, Playa Vista’s policies continue to receive national recognition. Most recently, top planners, architects, designers and environmentalists from the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Assn. and the California Local Government Commission presented Playa Vista with a prestigious Ahwahnee Award for design excellence.

At Playa Vista we believe that, ultimately, it is the people who will make the place. Playa Vista’s neighborhoods are the result of a decade-long process of listening to what people say they want in their homes and community. Thousands of local-resident interviews and focus groups resulted in a blending of the latest design principles with the specific desires of actual Angelenos. But it wasn’t us who achieved this. We communicated these consumer responses to two dozen of the world’s most renowned architects and planners, professionals whose wisdom is lauded by knowledgeable critics worldwide. Each of these designers had a role in translating consumer wants into the diverse mix of homes, shops, parks and workplaces that constitute the Playa Vista community.

*

As a result, Playa Vista is all about inclusiveness and balance. This will not be an avant-garde custom estate in a gated enclave, nor an ivory-tower plan appealing to a limited class of aesthetes. Rather, Playa Vista is designed for real people to live, work and enjoy life. The initial phase offers 76 custom floor plans appealing to a variety of lifestyles, including distinctive executive homes, turret offices, loft master suites, fireplaces on roof decks, contemporary lofts above retail stores, garden courts, efficient rental homes for the budget-conscious and elegant plans for families seeking their ultimate residence--all within walking distance to a great cup of espresso.

As opposed to isolating itself from the city, Playa Vista will engage contemporary Los Angeles at all levels. Your critic acknowledged as much when he reported that the range of housing runs from less than $200,000 to more than $1 million. Still, his review failed to mention Playa Vista’s unprecedented level of affordable residential units--the most far-reaching commitment of any project in Los Angeles’ history. These diverse neighborhoods are integrated so seamlessly that your writer obviously overlooked this important element. Such affordable units are in keeping with our commitment to a jobs/housing balance that minimizes automobile use.

De-emphasizing the automobile should be applauded, not denigrated by attacking the parking solutions at Playa Vista. The community plan minimizes auto trips through a nonpolluting shuttle network, with recreation and retail uses within a short stroll of virtually every housing unit.

Playa Vista responds to an urgent and broad-scale need for an improved kind of community in West Los Angeles. It will provide some of the urban solutions that Angelenos have requested.

Playa Vista may not be for everyone. Ultimately, only time and the Angelenos who guide our community design will be our judges.

Kenneth Agid is vice president of Playa Capital and has been responsible for the strategic marketing of more than 100 major, mixed-use, master-planned communities throughout the United States.

Counterpunch is a weekly feature designed to let readers respond to reviews or stories about entertainment and the arts. Please send proposals to: Counterpunch, Calendar, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles CA 90053. Or fax: (213) 237-7630. Or e-mail: Counterpunch@latimes.com. Important: Include full name, address and phone number. Please do not exceed 600 words. We appreciate all proposals and regret that we cannot respond to each.