By LEGAL NEWS & VIEWS BY DAVID PISARRA
Santa Monica is a hotbed of activists. People here like to rant and rave about nuclear weapons, the homeless, President Bush and anything having to do with the City Council.
One of the things that people do not realize about being a councilmember is that they are the most important player in the real estate game.
Ask any developer who their greatest competition is, and they are likely to say it’s the City Council. For it holds the keys to the kingdom of development.
Projects can be delayed in this city to the point where they are not financially viable, so the land goes unused. For example, the old Pioneer Boulangerie property on Main Street.
Now I know the council will say it was Architectural Review Board’s fault in dragging the approval process on for years. And the ARB will blame the plan-ning department, and planning will blame building and safety, and they will say they take orders from the City Council.
But at the end of the day, after all the buck passing, who gives a rat’s patoot. The city is not reaping the positive rewards from a proactive government at all levels.
The ARB should be thinking of ways to accomplish the twin goals of allowing development and maintaining the character of the city.
Planning officials should be considering how to best accommodate the increase in population.
The City Council should be facing the reality that Santa Monica, like all other beach communities, is going to be developed. One look up and down the coast at any large city, and anyone can see that the way of the future is bigger and denser.
Redondo, Manhattan, Hermosa, are all gorgeous beach communities that have systematically grown up. Yes they are crowded, yes they are stupidly expensive, but the reality is, if someone is willing to pay for it, it is not overpriced.
The home we just bought in April is a ramshackle, 864-square-foot home on a 7,100-square-foot-lot. We paid a stupid amount of money for it. But we did so because we have the land to expand to a decent sized home.
The problem is that the home is located in the R-2 zoned part of the city. This means that we could theoretically build a two-story apartment complex, or condominiums on the lot.
Our goal is to build a 2,000-square-foot home that we can entertain in, and have a backyard.
Now the fun begins. Because we are located in an R-2 zone, we must go through the following process to get a building permit. We start with plans at Building and Safety. They tell me to safely assume a eight-week process for them to review the plans. That’s two months of waiting, while they review plans for a single-family home on a huge lot.
Then, assuming they find the plans acceptable, we have to go in front of the Architectural Review Board, and that is another eight weeks for them to review the plans.
Finally, we go to plan check, which takes between three and five months to review the plans, and let us get back to them if they have any modifications. And they always do.
So in order for us to put a simple extra 15 feet on the back of our home, and add a second story, it is seven to ninth months of approvals.
As a comparison, we spoke with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety. They said that a second story addition should take between four to six weeks to be approved.
City Hall on the one hand wants to limit development to maintain the unique character of Santa Monica neighborhoods, or so the agenda for May 11, 2004 says, specifically in Attachment A, subsection C, which reads, “The City Council adopted this moratorium to provide the city sufficient time to evaluate the effects of this high rate of development and to develop appropriate requirements and programs to preserve the city's character, diversity, and quality of life in this period of drastic change.”
City Hall wants to preserve character. This is a laudable cause, and one that I fully support. But, as usual, with the law of unintended consequences, by delaying and frustrating the process for those, who like me, want to develop a single-family home, they are making it financially untenable. My property is a prime condominium development parcel. Anyone other than my partner and I, would develop it as condos, because City Hall is making it so hard to build a home there.
There is no reason why our second story addition should take so long to get an approval. But the fact that it is taking so long made us consider developing condominiums rather than a home.
The City Council wants less dense development, so it should allow those who want to keep air and light available to have the ability to do so quickly.
Next Tuesday the City Council considers yet another zoning ordinance, (unless it extends the existing ordinance again) this one specifically exempts single-family homes from the ARB process. The council needs to know that residents want homes developed, not apartments and condominiums.
I have a vested interest in this. We cannot move forward with an architect, a contractor or a structural engineer until we know what the codes are. I’ve spoken with two members of the council. One of them was very helpful, but suggested that we wait to apply for our permits, because the upcoming zoning changes could affect the outcome for us. The other one, when asked what the council is doing about the process, said, “we have a consultant looking into that.” Not hard to figure out who I’d vote for again.
The truth is, we’re lucky. We have the resources to wait, but if we didn’t, we would have sold this home to a developer and let condos be built. The reward we get from the city is delays, delays, and an outside consultant “looking into” the situation. (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 July 6, 2004. Read the original PDF.