Initiative would limit development
By Daily Press Staff
DOWNTOWN The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce on Friday came out in opposition to a potential ballot initiative that would limit commercial development to 75,000 square feet of floor area annually. The Chamber’s board of directions at its March 27 meeting voted unanimously to oppose the Residents Initiative to Fight Traffic (RIFT), which has been endorsed by several neighborhood groups and the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City.
Efforts are underway to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, with volunteers gathering roughly 10,000 signatures from registered voters. At least 6,000 valid signatures must be submitted to the City Clerk’s Office by April 23.
Supporters of the initiative say it is the only way to curb development and, in turn, reduce traffic’s impact on the community. Commercial development typically causes three to four times the amount of traffic as residential development, supporters said.
The measure specifies that the limit on commercial development would not apply to the following uses: Residential, parking, schools, child and senior facilities, hospitals and other specified care facilities, places of worship, and government facilities. Additionally, the limit is expressly made inapplicable to “neighborhood-serving goods, services or retail uses” located on the ground floor of a housing development if 100 percent of the dwelling units in the development are designated “affordable” by City Hall.
The Chamber and others opposed to the initiative claim that it will do nothing to reduce traffic congestion, but will instead hamper City Hall’s ability to attract more tax revenue to fund the wide array of services and programs offered to residents.
“The Chamber board took this action based upon its belief that RIFT will not reduce traffic congestion but, instead, risks exacerbating the problem while, at the same time, reducing the city’s ability to attract funding for greatly needed mass transit,” said Chamber Chair Tom Larmore. “RIFT, through its extremely confining development restrictions, would impair the city’s ability to generate workforce housing, negatively affect its strong financial position to the detriment of residents, and hamper needed development, such as that relating to health care.”
Because Santa Monica businesses provide far more revenue to City Hall than they consume in services, Santa Monica residents would likely suffer decreases in services they now take for granted if RIFT were implemented, according to the Chamber.
“Santa Monica residents are used to high quality city services, including our excellent police, fire and human services departments,” said John Bohn, immediate past chair of the Chamber and a long-time resident. “Our beautiful streets, which use city funds for cleaning, tree trimming and lighting, will be impacted by the potential reductions in tax revenue which will result from the RIFT initiative.”
The Chamber board’s action was supported by Posie Carpenter, chief administrative officer of Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital.
“We are very concerned about the initiative’s potential impact on the delivery of comprehensive, high quality health care in our city,” she said. “While hospitals are exempt from the restriction, medical offices, clinics and laboratories needed to provide adequate out-patient care are not, resulting in limitations on our ability to provide continuity of care to patients in and out of the hospital.
“The lack of medical office space will also affect our ability to recruit and retain professional staff,” Carpenter said.
The Chamber believes that RIFT is particularly ill-timed given City Hall’s pending update of its Land Use and Circulation Element, a four-year process that has featured elaborate public workshops with extensive citizen input.
“Adoption of RIFT would undermine the city’s efforts to adopt a sensible land use plan for the next 20 years in line with citizen priorities, including economic and environmental sustainability, protection of neighborhoods and expansion of public benefits,” said Chamber President and CEO Laurel Rosen.
Supporters of RIFT disagree. They said the measure will not affect the city’s zoning policies or LUCE.
“It merely puts a limit on how much new commercial development can occur in a given year under whatever plan the city eventually approves,” a statement on the initiative’s Web site reads.
“Our city is awash in traffic; traffic our roads, streets and neighborhoods were not designed to handle,” the statement reads. “It’s bad now and will only get worse. Time spent in traffic hurts our economy by contributing to lost wages and productivity, and by increasing our fuel use. Additionally, idling vehicles cause more air pollution and decrease safety, as frustrated drivers cut through local neighborhood streets.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 29, 2008. Read the original PDF.