After 11 years at the helm of Santa Monica’s planning department, Suzanne Frick is leaving this month to become planning director in Long Beach. Frick has played a significant role in the momentous changes to the beach town, including creation of the Third Street Promenade in its current conception and the city’s office district at Santa Monica’s eastern border that includes the Water Garden and Colorado Center. Frick took over as head of planning shortly before the 1994 Northridge earthquake and was instrumental in the city’s rebuilding process. But Frick’s department has also taken flak from developers and business groups for tying up projects in red tape and dragging out the approval process. Meanwhile, some Santa Monica City Council members have complained that Frick’s department has been sluggish to respond to its priorities and projects.
Question: Santa Monica has never been easy on developers, but lately the level of complaints of red tape and delays seems to have escalated. What’s changed?
Answer:
There’s a combination of things. There’s a great desire in Santa Monica to pass regulations to shape and mold development. In the last 15 years, the city has enacted rules and regulations that sometimes conflict with each other. We have to sort through those when a development is proposed and moves through the approvals process and that takes extra time.
Q: The findings of an audit of the planning department last year also found inefficiencies and too little staff.
A:
The amount of development activity in Santa Monica in the last five years has been unprecedented. The growth in the number of projects has outpaced our staffing. Combined with new local rules on development, there’s been a slowdown in the process. There’s also a disconnect between the community’s desires and what developers are proposing, so there’s been snags before the Planning Commission, which has raised the community’s concerns. When you have these things happening, projects get bogged down.
Q: What’s being done to change that?
A:
The city is rewriting its general plan that will guide development for the next 20 years. We are already six months into the process, so there’s about another year and a half to go. We need to change our regulations and upgrade our zoning codes. The next challenge is staffing. The city needs to decide what priority planning will have in the city.
Q: Over the years, you’ve been the subject of personal attacks from residents and last year by members of the city’s Planning Commission.
A:
My position, or anyone in this position, will always be a lightning rod for those who like what is going on in the city and those who don’t like what’s going on. I understood that no matter what (former planning commissioner) Kelly (Olsen) and other commissioners said about me, their heart was in the right place for protecting Santa Monica. But it was a very difficult time for me. It wasn’t just an attack on me but an attack on my department and all of the staff.
Q: At one Planning Commission meeting you gave a five-minute response defending your department.
A:
It was very rare for that to happen publicly. But the attacks were happening in public and the response needed to be public also.
Q: Stories about drawn-out approval processes in Santa Monica are legendary.
A:
No question the city has some responsibility in the delays, but on the other side there are usually issues with respect to the applicant whether it’s not hiring the right professional, not having the right plans and drawings, or waiting too long to make corrections. There is usually another side to the story that doesn’t get aired, nor should it. The issue is about solving the problems and moving ahead. The vast majority of applicants move through the system relatively quickly and that’s the story that isn’t told.
Q: How has Santa Monica changed since you joined the city’s planning staff 21 years ago?
A:
It’s a completely different city. When I started there wasn’t a hotel district along Ocean Avenue or an office district on Colorado or the Third Street Promenade in its current form. It wasn’t the vibrant urban environment it is today.
Q: What was your initial reaction to Macerich’s proposed 22-story residential towers along with rebuilding its current mall space?
A:
It’s a great dream. It’s great to have a property owner of Macerich’s size to think big and have vision. We let them know it would be controversial and we knew that going in. But we thought it also contained key outstanding components downtown, including extending the Promenade a fourth block, a pedestrian orientation on all sides of mall and open space.
Q: What are some of the hardest Santa Monica development projects you’ve had to contend with?
A:
The St. John’s hospital expansion was very difficult to work through. They are a non-profit hospital and the city had some desires for public benefits that the hospital couldn’t entirely accommodate. Reconciling the needs of the city and the hospital took a lot of give and take on both sides. The Water Garden was very similar. There were community objectives and developer objectives and they clashed. It took sitting down with both sides and coming up with mutual solutions.
Q: Why has development always been contentious and controversial in Santa Monica?
A:
It’s an active community and historically it has been a community where residents organize and tend to be very involved. Any project in Santa Monica will require a lot of community input. Council members encourage public participation and they make themselves available to the public. There’s a heritage of activism.
Q: Have the stakes gotten higher as the developers have changed from local builders to national corporations?
A:
There has been a higher level of sophistication of development but while the players might be changing, the rules and regulations are the same. It’s the same story.
Q: How does Santa Monica see itself developing?
A:
There’s a conflict between a desire to grow and to also be a small town. They need to reconcile those competing objectives.
Q: Do you know of any city that’s been able to do both?
A:
Not in my mind there hasn’t. It’s hard to be those two things. They are going have to decide which they want to be.
Q: Why did you decide to jump to Long Beach?
A:
It was the right time professionally for me to move on. Long Beach for me is a much bigger canvas and an opportunity to use much bigger tools and techniques.
Q: Much like when you started in Santa Monica, you’re heading to a city that’s redrawing its development and planning. What would you like to see done?
A:
It’s hard to say, I haven’t spent a lot of time there yet. The planning process will crystallize how the community sees Long Beach growing. Maybe they want it to be a regional anchor and an office destination. It already has great neighborhoods and how they knit those areas together will determine how Long Beach will grow.
Q: Are you moving to Long Beach?
A:
No, I’m staying in Venice. I love this area. I’m sure I’ll also find areas that I like in Long Beach. But this has been my home.
Q: What do you believe are some of the most well-planned cities?
A:
I love Paris and London, San Francisco and New York. I also like smaller cities like Boulder, Colo. and Madison, Wis. I love that they are vibrant and active and that they have so many mixes of uses. The other element that’s important to me is a human scale. They all have a very real connection to the people who live there. They are on a scale that someone can relate to their environment.
