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# Nearly $2M to be spent on increased housing costs
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/nearly-2m-to-be-spent-on-increased-housing-costs/
- Published: 2004-10-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:16:47.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Real Estate & Housing, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Construction scheduled to begin in November*

*By SUSAN TAM Special to the Daily Press*

(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public.) COUNCIL CHAMBERS — Elected officials here are expected to spend $1.8 million tonight on everything from affordable housing to an emergency response system.

City Hall will be increasing the amount of money allocated for two affordable housing developments. Sponsored by the Community Corporation of Santa Monica (CCSM), the projects need more money because of rising construction costs. Loans for the project have increased by $750,000 and $850,000 for two developments — one on the 2601 block of Santa Monica Boulevard, which has 44 rooms, and one at 1424 Broadway that has 41 rooms. Each project will cost about $14.5 million.

Once the loans are approved, the construction will begin in November. Last month, CCSM got three construction bids for each of the developments, but the low-est bidder in each case was still $1 million more than the budget had allowed. The costs were not expected but had added up due to lumber, cement and other materials getting more expensive, as well as the limited supply of contractors available.

After the increased loans are improved, the Housing Trust Fund will be giving a total of $12.4 million the two developments. The purpose of the funds is to increase the supply of affordable housing by providing loans to nonprofit developers.

City Hall and its redevelopment agency have committed $10.8 million to the projects. CCSM also has leveraged about $7.4 million from federal income tax credits and $800,000 in bank financing for each development. The projects have received more than $16.4 million in private financing.

Officials will use $111,518 from a Homeland Security Grant to buy an automated staff scheduling and notification system. Homeland Security regulations require that the police and fire departments be able to notify staff quickly during an emergency. Right now, the manual notification process is costly and slow. The new system will apply specific rules in a decision-making hierarchy to automatically notify staff by phone, e-mail and pager with details. The system then allows emergency workers to respond about their availability.

The City Council also will approve as much as $100,000 to hire an outside firm to ensure that a contractor which uses federal, state or local funds is paying workers properly and complying with the law. While the company is on a one-year contract, it could be rehired to monitor four affordable housing developments that are scheduled to start construction in Santa Monica within the next six months. As much as $20 million will be spent before 2007 in affordable housing. City Council also will accept a $350,000 grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) to run a traffic and pedestrian safety program. So far, grant funds have allowed the Santa Monica Police Department and City Hall to teach and enforce safety in the area. The department is currently focusing on cutting down the number of alcohol-related collisions, and pedestrian and bicycle accidents, as well as cracking down on seat belt laws.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 12, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/101204.pdf?ref=smdp.com)