By Ted Winterer Santa Monica
(Editor’s note) This is an open letter to Mayor Bob Holbrook and City Council. On Sept. 12, you discussed possible changes to development standards in certain zoning districts throughout our city. As I understand it, you chose not to heed the Ocean Park Association’s plea for changes to the CM3 and CM4 standards. Your decision may have been based in part on the following text from your staff report: “At the north end of Main Street, near Pico Boulevard, there are more CM3 and CM4 properties. Here too, there is a limited amount of development activity that is anticipated over the next 20 years. The most likely candidate for redevelopment may be the parcel located at the southwest corner of Pico Boulevard and Main Street.”
That same day, Sept. 12, notices of a pending demolition permit and a pending development review for a three-story mixed use project were posted for the property at 2001-2011 Main Street, the current site of the Horizons West surf shop, arguably the birthplace of skateboarding. This is not “the parcel located at the southwest corner of Pico Boulevard and Main Street.”
It seems your staff report was, at best, disingenuous — surely someone in City Hall was aware this project was in the pipeline?
If entitled and constructed, the project at 2001-2011 Main Street will be large, monolithic and at odds with the community’s ambitions for Main Street.
Your own staff report (and here they got it right) notes that the “unique scale and character of development along Main Street is an attribute that the community has stated clearly must be preserved.”
I urge you on Sept. 26, when you resume your discussion of changes to development standards, to reconsider the CM3 and CM4 districts.
I also implore you to modify the list of preferred projects in the CM2 district so that it only includes 100 percent affordable projects, historic preservation, supportive housing and child care centers. These are the sort of developments which need to be incentivized through modified standards, not market rate housing or commercial projects, as the economics of development are sufficient to encourage the production of these latter categories.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 29, 2006. Read the original PDF.