YOU’D THINK AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF more than 1,100 units of low-income housing would have City Hall planners and politicians dancing with joy. Ehhhh! Wrong!
If anything, the news has been met by a gnashing of teeth. Using the same development standards created to make it easy and economically feasible for “nonprofit” public housing developers — specifically the city’s own Community Corporation of Santa Monica — to build low income housing, a private developer, NMS Properties, has unveiled plans for nearly a thousand, single room "affordable” apartments in the mid-city area.
NMS already has five, four-floor buildings consisting of 933 low-income, or “deed restricted,” single room occupancy units (SROs) on its drawing board. These units are usually 400 square feet or less and renting for around $1100 per month, the singles are en-suite, as they say in the hotel business, with kitchenette and full bath — ideal for one or two occupants.
Over the last few years, City Hall has been changing zoning codes to facilitate public housing in many of the city’s multifamily and industrial neighborhoods. Citizen complaints about the greater height, increased density, less parking, lack of a retail stores on the ground floors and elimination of environmental and public review promulgated by the new codes were totally ignored. It was necessary to make construction of public housing economically feasible for developers like CCSM — or so we were told.
But, when Naum “Neil” Shekhter, whose for-profit, NMS Properties, took advantage of these same liberal codes to propose building more and larger "affordable” SRO projects, the roof fell in.
Recently, the City administratively approved (without public review) Shekhter’s proposed 100 unit SRO at Olympic and 20th Street, another nearby 65 unit market-rate SRO and about a half dozen smaller, deed-restricted SROs from local nonprofit developers such as Step Up on Second without batting an eyelash.
Shekhter’s plans for 623 deed restricted units on a recently purchased 3-acre plus parcel currently used as artist studios, lofts and post-production facilities at 3025 Olympic Blvd. (known as “Drescherville") ran red flags up the flagpole. The possibility of 145 more Shekhter SROs on Broadway east of Lincoln Boulevard made planners and politicians downright catatonic. Over 1,100 SROs are currently in the pipeline and suddenly, the city was being overrun with single-room apartments.
The city’s and the politically dominant Santa Monican’s for Renters’ Rights’ number one priority is more and more housing — especially low income, public housing. Therefore, City Hall’s negative reaction to Shekhter’s proposals is hypocrisy on a monumental scale.
Pleas for SROs specifically for working singles, seniors and even recovering homeless alcoholics (through the city’s vaunted “Housing First” program) have been ignored or dismissed as impractical in the rush to build hundreds of multi-bedroom, public housing units for low income families. The city’s housing policy is so discriminatory against singles that CCSM routinely recruits families from all over Los Angeles County to apply for its multi-bedroom city-subsidized projects, here.
Because recent public housing has been built almost exclusively for families, Shekhter recognized a crying need for SRO housing and its profit potential. The project he proposes for “Drescherville” is amid a no-mans-land of mostly industrial buildings far removed from amenities such as markets, laundries or cafes. Prospective tenants range from retirees and single working folks to Section 8 recipients and others on assistance.
The project’s impact on traffic and city services could be considerable. Based on government reports, the potential for these properties to become nasty, crime ridden tenements is high.
Last Tuesday, City Council quickly adopted an emergency interim ordinance that modifies development review thresholds, including a requirement for a development review permit for any development that exceeds 50 units. Obviously, this was done to head off or mitigate the number of and type of large projects Shekhter or future developers may have on their minds.
Only time will tell whether City Hall has created a bigger mess or performed a miracle cure. One thing’s for sure, some lawyers are going to make money.
The bottom line is that by ignoring the need for a balanced housing policy and by stacking the decks for favored public housing providers, city planners and politicians created a nightmare and it has bitten them on the behind.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 30, 2007. Read the original PDF.