Following years of NIMBY driven project rejection at the local level, the development industry, academics and millennials, who’ve increasingly been shut out of the state’s housing market by rising rents and prices, teamed with Sacramento legislators to advance a series of laws accelerating the supply of housing in California’s cities.
These laws circumvent local control, and permit developers double the housing density otherwise allowed under the current zoning ordinance provided they agree to include specified percentages of deed restricted affordable housing in their housing mix. If these developments comply with state law, project approvals are granted by City staff, without public hearings that were historically required at the Planning Commission or City Council.
As a result, developers are submitting project applications for 6 – 8 story building heights along neighborhood commercial boulevards like Pico and Ocean Park, and state and municipal law currently grants them the right to build up to 10 dwelling units on a single family lot (depending on the lot’s size), and possibly even more if the City elects to introduce ADUs into the mix.
The profile of our built environment will radically change over the next decade, and traffic congestion, and the demand for on-street parking and resources like water and electricity, will dramatically increase.
The Neighborhood Taskforce, a community based non-profit, organized late last year in response to these developments. We embrace the need for increased housing supply, look forward to increasing height and density in our downtown, and welcome vibrant new development along our neighborhood commercial boulevards. The only constant in life is change, and we welcome it. However, such change needs to be thoughtfully implemented, and that is not currently the case here in Santa Monica
First, the City is not requiring developers to deliver the breadth and depth of affordability called for by California’s density bonus law. While Santa Monica is on pace to meet or exceed its targets for market rate housing, it is woefully underdelivering on its deed restricted affordable housing goals. We need affordable housing priced below market in perpetuity for qualifying lower income people who work here, so they and their families can choose to live in Santa Monica, thereby reducing the many long commutes they must make from less costly environs to their workplace, and the traffic congestion that follows.
Second, City planning staff has signalled its willingness to grant excessively generous waivers from the zoning code’s building height limits, when, in fact, developers can reduce their storied height by moving above grade parking to subterranean garages. State law explicitly allows for height waivers only when developers would otherwise be physically unable to do so. The sometimes higher costs of subterranean parking do not justify waivers under state law; developers can account for those costs up front, and accordingly reduce the residual purchase price they offer underlying owners of properties they intend to develop. As it stands, land sellers are realizing substantially increased profits, thanks to the doubling of the residential unit count previously allowed on their properties. The City shouldn’t effectively subsidize them at the expense of our community’s urban streetscape and quality of life.
Third, our City Council recently adopted a thoughtfully crafted Realignment Plan which proposes, among other things, to focus housing development downtown, and concurrently explore ways to ensure future housing development along our boulevards remains compatible with our existing lower density residential neighborhoods. Encouragingly, last month City planning staff submitted a draft Resolution of Intent to the Planning Commission to do just that. However, the Commissioners rejected staff’s proposal the very same night, instructing them to resubmit a one sided alternative which simply called for intensified development of the downtown. Why can’t we implement the tradeoff the adopted Realignment Plan and city planning staff suggested, and achieve a win-win?
It makes sense to redistribute some housing density away from our outlying neighborhood commercial boulevards to the city’s urban core. Newly built apartments located there will facilitate residents’ ease of pedestrian access to higher concentrations of employment, commerce and the Expo line. This will help reduce automobile traffic citywide, and contribute to the revitalization of downtown Santa Monica as our city center.
As recent state laws have stripped neighborhood constituencies of their voice at most public hearings, we must develop new pathways to constructively engage City staff, appointeds and electeds to thoughtfully interpret and implement state laws with rigor and the community’s best interests in mind. We believe if all parties genuinely listen to and work with each other in good faith, we can deliver win-wins for developers, the City and our neighborhoods. If that effort fails, we must organize for change.
Loren Bloch
Loren is the president of The Neighborhood Taskforce, and was a Santa Monica Housing Commissioner for seven years.