Choice of Early Dinner Entrees $10.95 Residents worry about scale
A major affordable housing project is planned for Main Street that will cost $11 million for 44 apartments.
Community Corp. of Santa Monica wants to build the complex on the southwest corner of Pacific and Main streets.
The five-building complex could house about 185 people in 22 three-bedroom units, 16 two-bedroom units and three units of four-bedrooms and one-bedrooms that would rent for $500 to $1,300 a month.
Currently, the 27,045-square-foot site proposed for the project is vacant and used to have apartments on it. The five buildings in the complex, which would be connected by upper-floor walkways, are gathered around a series of internal courtyards. The entire project will keep 50 percent of the land for open space.
The largest building Community Corp. currently manages is a 62-unit complex in an eastside neighborhood, but the largest affordable housing development the group has built from the ground up is a 45-unit complex near the corner of Ashland Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard, according to planners.
“It’s on the large size for us, but it’s not totally put of the realm of what we do,” said Community Corp. Executive Director Joan Ling.
Ling said Community Corp. manages between 150 to 200 affordable housing units in Ocean Park, which is less than what the non-profit operates in the Pico and Wilshire-Montana neighborhoods in Santa Monica.
In Ocean Park, Community Corp. has built smaller affordable housing buildings that are inconspicuously placed on residential streets. The Main and Pacific project will be one of the larger affordable complexes in Ocean Park.
66B,“Most of the buildings we have done (in Ocean Park) are small buildings,” Ling said. “But what people don’t see is that we have built much larger complexes elsewhere. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
Plans for the project conform to the city’s master plan and zoning laws. A market-rate apartment complex on the same location could actually build six more units than what is proposed by Community Corp. Under state and city codes, Community Corp. can build up to 80 units on the site.
The proposal also adds six parking spots more than is required under state and city codes for affordable housing.
However, some residents living near the proposed project have said while they welcome the affordable housing, they are concerned about the size of the complex.
They say the approximately 185 people the project would house would triple the number of residents currently living on the street. The effect would eliminate what available street parking exists now and would clog nearby intersections with excess traffic, they say.
“This project will overrun our neighborhood,” said Jeff Weinstein at a recent city council meeting. “It is out of scale with what can be supported.”
However, there are many other residents who say they want the project to be developed at the proposed location at the size currently being proposed.
“The need for affordable housing is greater than ever with rents skyrocketing under rent de-control,” said Doris Ganga at the council meeting.
The divide between Ocean Park residents over the project may best be illustrated by the mixed reports from the region’s neighborhood group, Ocean Park Community Organization.
737,A report released by OPCC’s Main and Pacific Committee on Sept. 26 states that the project is out of scale and character with the neighborhood, will exacerbate the intense competition for existing street parking and it runs counter to the goals of the Main Street Master Plan, among other things.
The group’s Housing Commission, though, released a study on Nov. 11, detailing the need for more affordable housing and trumpeting the project as a well-needed and well-thought out plan.
However, neither group will likely be heard by the city’s planning commission because the Main and Pacific project has been exempted from going through the public process, which is costly — especially for developers of affordable housing who rely heavily on public funds — and can delay projects for years at a time.
The city council recently adopted an ordinance that would exempt 100 percent affordable housing projects with fewer than 50 units from having to go through the city’s planning commission and pay for an Environmental Impact Review.
A similar law was recently enacted by the state Legislature, granting affordable housing developers comparable exemptions, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2003.
Due to the exemption, the Main and Pacific proposal would only need to comply with the city’s master plan and zoning codes — and be approved by the city’s appointed Architectural Review Board to get approval.
Ling said Community Corp. welcomed the exemption from the city council and felt residents’ concerns could adequately be heard during an ARB meeting.
“We applaud the council for passing this ordinance,” she said. “While it retains design control in ARB and public process, at the same time it takes away the tools that opponents of affordable housing use to delay and kill our projects.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2002. Read the original PDF.