WHAT’S THE POINT?
Santa Monica is an idyllic little town on the coast, holding all the promise of that golden vision of California that is so often pictured in the media.
It’s a vision of golden-tanned beauties bouncing along the beach, fair-haired young men competing in friendly contests on the water, and kindly seniors relaxing and enjoying their retirement as they play shuffleboard on the bluffs, with the red-orange glow of a tremendous sunset as a backdrop.
But the reality is, the city is changing. It’s becoming a city of single people, a population of non-families who inhabit apartments and condominiums in greater numbers. The retired folks no longer populate Palisades Park in the great numbers they once did. They have been driven out by hordes of homeless who make camp for the day in what was supposed to be a pleasant environment for all.
The gentle city of yesteryear is dying quickly. We have a city that is fast approaching the congestion and density of Manhattan. As land values have increased, the developers are no longer building single-family homes. They can’t afford to. Instead, they build apartments and condominiums.
This is simply a matter of economics. It’s so expensive to do any development in this city that the only thing that makes sense is to build a building that will provide maximum return on investment. I have a choice with my home. We can build a second story, and it will take up to nine months to get a permit to build, or we can spend 18 months and build condos that are going to make us a handsome profit and provide much-needed housing in a tight market.
In a city that has a housing shortage, this is not morally wrong. It might be the only ethical and morally responsible thing to do.
The problem is development leads to congestion and greater use of our public assets. It puts a drain on our public services and that impacts the quality of life.
We don’t have time for leaders who claim to “see the future.” The future is here, and the problems are real.
We need leaders who are prepared to deal with today’s problems, today. We don’t need leaders who hire the Matrix Consulting Group — at a cost of $70,000 — to tell us what we already know. We need leaders who are ready to step into the breach and make the hard calls. If I hear one more politician say, “It’s a complex problem, and we have staff looking into it” — as more than one local leader has said about zoning, the homeless and traffic — I think I will vomit.
We have a city that is 62 percent nonfamily households. We need leaders who are going to build a city for their issues. It’s sad that families in Santa Monica are disappearing.
This is a city that has approximately 25 percent of its resident population living in single-family homes. The rest live in apartments and condominiums. That is the future of this city. The concentration of people is increasing. It will continue to increase as more people desire to live here. That will drive property values up, which means people want to develop their land.
The current City Council has faced the tough issues of streets, sewers, parking structures, parks and public transit. Though they frequently prove themselves to be a group of blathering bureaucrats, they have acted to protect our city.
They have recognized that we need to build for the future. We need to invest in our infrastructure — those items that economists call “public assets.” And I don’t just mean traffic circles and islands.
Now the question is who pays for it. There will be a large outcry that there is no money for infrastructure. But there was lots of money just a few years ago. It seems to me that this used to be a city that was attractive to business and development, and had positive cash flow. It has become unattractive to business, has brought development to a mere trickle and is running on financial fumes. Could there possibly be a connection?
There is an old saying, “It is never too late to turn back when going down the wrong road.”
This situation can be turned around. In fact, it must be turned around. The question is, who will do it? A good boss is sometimes brusque, sometimes yells, occasionally kicks a few rear-ends, but in the end, has the wellbeing of all as their goal.
We don’t need pandering politicians who preach on one topic. Even if that topic is the homeless, or the evil landlords, or hedge heights, or how bad developers are. We need leaders who understand where money comes from. We don’t need leaders who play to the lowest common denominator. We need leaders who understand finance.
This is not the time of the feel-good choice. Now, more than ever, we need to evaluate our candidates as complete leaders. We don’t need one-trick ponies. We need people with varied experience and who can see the big picture.
Now is when we should look at each candidate with a jaundiced eye and make some hard choices. Because they will have to make hard choices for the next four years. (David Pisarra is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664-9969).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 14, 2004. Read the original PDF.