The Santa Monica City Council voted 5-1 early Wednesday to pursue upzoning of single-family neighborhoods near the Metro E Line's Expo/Bundy station rather than adopt a planning staff recommendation that would have increased density on multifamily parcels, reversing course on how the city plans to temporarily shield the area from a new state housing law.
The council's decision, reached after nearly an hour of technical debate over acreage, density formulas and displacement risk, directs city planners to return with options for upzoning some or all of the roughly 212 R1-zoned parcels near the Expo/Bundy station — property records show many are around 5,500 to 6,500 square feet — rather than the 65 parcels zoned R2 and R3 that planning staff and the Planning Commission had recommended for increased development standards.
R1 designates single-family residential zoning, permitting one detached dwelling unit per lot. It typically sets standards for lot size, setbacks, height limits, and density, prohibiting multi-family or commercial use. Beyond R1, common designations include R2 (duplex/two-family residential), R3 (multi-family, low-density apartments or condos), R4 (high-density multi-family), and RMH (mobile/manufactured home parks), with each successive category generally permitting greater density and building intensity than the last.
Councilmember Ellis Raskin said he settled on the single-family approach because it carries little practical effect on how much housing could ultimately be built while avoiding what he called the greater displacement risk of upzoning apartment-zoned parcels.
"In those R1 parcels you don't have the displacement risk because it's the owners of those buildings — for the most part those are owner-occupied," Raskin said, adding that the change amounts to "really just paper upzoning anyway," since state laws already in effect, including SB 684 and SB 9, allow similar density on single-family lots.
Planning Director Jing Yeo confirmed under questioning from Raskin and Councilmember Natalia Zernitskaya that R1 upzoning would need to apply to all 212 qualifying parcels, rather than a smaller subset, because singling out individual lots could not be legally justified. City Attorney's office staff said zoning law generally requires that similarly situated parcels be treated alike, calling it a bar to what would otherwise resemble spot zoning.
Councilmember Lana Negrete cast the lone dissenting vote, saying she preferred the Planning Commission's original recommendation to upzone the multifamily parcels instead. She argued the single-family approach could invite speculative buying.
"My concern is that it actually creates a more speculatory process, and properties become more vulnerable to be sold by corporate predators that come in," Negrete said, adding she wants staff to research which R1 parcels have ever been subject to rent control before a final decision.
SB 79 and the exclusion option
The debate stemmed from Senate Bill 79, the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, which took effect statewide July 1 and requires cities to allow greater height, density and floor-area ratio for qualifying housing developments within a half-mile of designated transit stops. In Santa Monica, the law applies near six qualifying "Tier 2" stops: three Metro E Line stations, three downtown bus stops, and, partially, the Expo/Bundy station in Los Angeles whose transit-oriented development zone extends into the city.
Under SB 79, cities may temporarily exclude sites from the law's requirements until one year after adoption of their 7th Cycle Housing Element, expected in Santa Monica around 2029 — meaning eligible sites could be shielded from SB 79 standards until roughly 2030. To qualify for that exclusion, a TOD zone must have at least a third of its parcels already permitting at least half of SB 79's density and floor-area standards, among other criteria.
City planners told the council that five of the city's six TOD zones already meet that threshold and can be excluded outright. The Expo/Bundy zone falls short: only about 19% of its 381 parcels currently meet the capacity test, largely because a majority of the zone lies in Los Angeles and because commercially zoned parcels on the Santa Monica side are unusually large, leaving fewer individual sites to count toward the 33% requirement.
The debate over how to close the gap
Planning staff had recommended increasing density standards on 59 R2-zoned and six R3-zoned parcels — 65 total — raising them to roughly 1.25 floor-area ratio and 40 dwelling units per acre, a level staff compared to the city's existing R3 and R4 standards. Staff said an analysis found low or no displacement risk for most of those parcels, citing existing rent-controlled and affordable units, ownership housing, and vacant lots.
Council members pressed staff on alternatives. Yeo said planners had also studied whether upzoning could be limited to parcels within a quarter-mile of the station, which would offer a "rational basis" tied to geography, but that option fell well short of the 33% threshold. Staff said including nearby Los Angeles parcels in the calculation would not close the gap either, since the city's Technical Assistance request to the state housing department found Los Angeles parcels sat just over 34% on their own — not enough combined benefit to help Santa Monica.
Zernitskaya noted that on a typical 5,500-square-foot R1 lot, SB 79 could allow about five new units, only marginally more than what state laws such as SB 9 or AB 1123 already permit, while carrying far less displacement risk given that most R1 properties are owner-occupied.
Mayor Caroline Torosis and Councilmember Dan Hall raised the possibility of narrowing which R1 parcels would be upzoned by distance to the station entrance or by using streets as boundaries, though staff and the city attorney's office cautioned any such approach would need further legal review to avoid arbitrary distinctions between neighbors.
Raskin also linked the debate to longstanding concerns about the Ellis Act that governs evictions from rent controlled units, saying the city has seen properties removed from the rental market and left vacant for years, and argued that delaying SB 79 implementation on multifamily parcels reduces the incentive for property owners to begin that process early in anticipation of future upzoning.
The vote
The motion directed staff to introduce for first reading an ordinance excluding the five qualifying TOD zones plus the downtown bus stops from SB 79 requirements, while withholding action on the Expo/Bundy zone. Staff was instructed to return with options for upzoning R1 parcels — potentially fewer than all 212, if a legally defensible geographic boundary can be identified — sufficient to meet the 52-parcel threshold needed to qualify the Expo/Bundy zone for exclusion. Zernitskaya asked that staff retain the option of upzoning all 212 R1 parcels as a fallback in case a narrower boundary cannot be justified.
The roll call passed 5-1, with council members Zernitskaya, Snell, Raskin, Hall and Torosis voting yes and Negrete voting no. Councilman Jesse Zwick abstained from the discussion due to a conflict with his employer.
Staff said any resulting ordinance affecting the Expo/Bundy zone would need to return to council for further action before it could take effect.