Getting a Second Opinion on Medical Space in Beverly Hills

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Extra! Extra! Medical landlord G&L Realty Corp. says that medical offices in Beverly Hills provide a tremendous fiscal benefit to Beverly Hills. I’m guessing that whoever wrote the op-ed in the Oct. 4 issue (“Reviewing the Medical Reports”) that was signed by G&L principals Dan Gottlieb and Steve Lebowitz made a typo. What they probably meant to say was: Medical offices in Beverly Hills provide a tremendous fiscal benefit to G&L.

Let’s look beyond that little typo to the conclusions drawn by Gottlieb and Lebowitz, who ultimately seem to be saying, “What’s good for G&L is good for Beverly Hills.”

Their criticism of former City Manager Rod Wood and his Business Journal op-ed (“A Healthy Prescription?”) in the Sept. 13 issue rests on their interpretation of several “studies,” including one which they commissioned themselves. It should be noted that Wood’s op-ed was specifically in reference to ordinances being considered by the city to limit the explosion of medical office space, which already takes up more than 21 percent of the city’s limited commercial space. (In Los Angeles, medical office space amounts to about 5 percent of all commercial space.)

Wood’s point was that Beverly Hills needs to resist the shortsighted conversion of office space to medical in the longer-term interests of our community.

Gottlieb and Lebowitz argue that a study commissioned by the city showed that 9 percent of business license taxes are generated by medical uses. In their own more recent study, this amount decreased to 8.2 percent, while medical office space in the city is expanding, not contracting. Twenty-one percent of our commercial space is generating 8.2 percent of revenue. From a pure business perspective, it doesn’t seem like the most efficient use of limited commercial space. For that matter, it doesn’t seem like a great return on investment from any perspective.

Gottlieb and Lebowitz’s argument that medical uses are more important to the city than entertainment companies simply shows how narrow the blinders were adjusted when their op-ed was written. The image, cachet and lifestyle that have made Beverly Hills an internationally recognizable brand of its own have everything to do with the historical and ongoing connection with the entertainment industry. While there may be a limited number of people who use our hotels for plastic surgery, more come to Beverly Hills to enjoy our lifestyle. Our cachet is “Come to Beverly Hills and see a star – eat where the stars eat and shop where the stars shop.” It’s not: “Come to Beverly Hills to see a sick person – or the latest advances in plastic surgery.”

Don’t get me wrong: Even if medical offices aren’t the best revenue producers for the city, Beverly Hills values our medical professionals and we want our residents to have access to the best and finest doctors. But limiting medical office uses at already incredibly high levels is about maintaining a balance that will protect our residential quality of life, which is the foundation upon which our entire success as a city is based. Furthermore, there is nothing in any study that suggests Beverly Hills should commit more of its limited commercial space to medical uses.

Negative impacts

Not surprisingly, Gottlieb and Lebowitz don’t even touch upon the negative impacts that increased medical would have on the city’s quality of life. Beyond the impacts on overall community character, beyond the deadening effects on the streetscape – see how the encroachment of medical has ruined the flow and integrity of Restaurant Row – additional medical office space would create significant additional traffic and parking misery in an already overburdened city.

City planning, as pesky as it may be to developers who put their short-term profits above residential quality of life, is the charge of local government and its goal should be the long-term welfare of its residents. It’s actually pretty simple – and it doesn’t have to be incompatible with a good business climate. In the case of Beverly Hills, it’s about maintaining a unique balance, which ultimately is good for business. Good planning needs to be proactive and guided by a long-term vision that best serves those for whom Beverly Hills is actually home.

As the only Republican on the City Council, I consider myself to be supportive of our business community, but our business community needs to recognize that Beverly Hills is not Vernon; they need to respect that they are, indeed, part of a larger community. In my opinion, there is no place in our community for hard-core “anything goes” special interests that don’t care about the wreckage created by short-term “it’s-all-about-me” actions. The nation is currently suffering enough from the ongoing effects of the recession created by Wall Street’s brand of this destructive “anything goes” business mentality. It’s time we remember we live in a larger community and heed the sage words of Benjamin Franklin who urged all of us: “Do well by doing good.”

John Mirisch is a Beverly Hills City Council member.

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