Marina Del Rey Ca

The loft-and-latte crowd is setting up house in the trendy Del Rey Arts District -- also known as the Marina Arts District. The tiny but flourishing neighborhood in Marina del Rey's old commercial hub is a hot spot for those with an artistic bent and is within walking distance of the beach and close to Venice's Abbot Kinney Boulevard.

With the affluent Westside of Los Angeles escaping much of the economic angst gripping Southern California, shopping center owners near the coast are spending lavishly to burnish their malls and beckon new shoppers. But there is also tiptoeing going on as these expansion-minded malls try to avoid the impression that they will overwhelm their neighborhoods with more dense development, worsening traffic and endless waits to turn left.

All along, Carla Andrus' life seemed landlocked, literally and figuratively: She was born in Utah, raised in Watts and was scraping by in a tiny apartment near downtown L.A. when, one night, her husband came across a magazine ad for classic wooden boats being built in Marina del Rey. That, he told her -- teak decks, billowed sails -- looked more like the life he'd once fancied for himself. "Well," she said, "load up the truck," and the words would amount to her salvation.

A Bay Area environmental group filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Southern California Gas Co. operations near Marina del Rey are polluting a local water table. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, charges that the utility is in violation of Proposition 65, which prohibits discharge or release of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects.

Bernard Lloyd gazed across the waterfront of his Marina del Rey neighborhood Saturday toward the site of a proposed 225-foot-high luxury hotel. He said he couldn't help but wonder whether the area was on the verge of becoming an over-developed concrete jungle choked with traffic at all hours. More than two dozen projects have been built, are under construction or are winding their way through the permit process.

With Westside rents hitting records, a group of affordable housing activists has identified Marina del Rey as the next stop in a long campaign to secure more low-income apartments along prime coastal land. Unlike most waterfront developments, the marina is owned by Los Angeles County, which leases it to developers, so county supervisors are in a position to demand more affordable apartments.

Rejecting calls for a more aggressive push to add low-income housing in Marina del Rey, Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday unanimously gave a green light for plans to redevelop a major apartment complex on publicly owned land near the waterfront. The decision deals a blow to affordable-housing advocates who had pressed the county to require more low-income apartments than proposed for the site.

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday postponed for two weeks a vote on how much affordable housing to demand in new apartment developments planned for county-owned portions of Marina del Rey. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky requested the delay to allow county officials to review the effects of requiring more moderate-income units. Affordable housing advocates have criticized the county's approach, saying it does not go far enough to provide for low-income tenants.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors backed a new housing policy for Marina del Rey on Tuesday that would expand the number of low-income apartments but failed to satisfy affordable-housing advocates. The guidelines -- if given final approval by the board -- go beyond a county task force recommendation by no longer allowing developers to pay a fee in lieu of building affordable apartments.

Betty and Arthur Klapper left New York for Marina del Rey 12 years ago and never looked back. The Marina, with its boats, restaurants and international visitors, had the urbanity they craved. Most Southern Californians "like the suburban life," said Betty, 84. "That's not our style. We want to be with people." Los Angeles County officials hope the Klappers will get a lot more company in the years ahead.