But city officials say housing is a priority
Despite a soaring demand for housing, local architects and developers say Santa Monica has put a freeze on new housing development.
While a severe shortage of housing in the Los Angeles region may have many communities looking at new ways to make it easier for developers to build more residential units, local builders are concerned Santa Monica is looking for ways to slow down the process.
Many say that it takes longer to get a project approved in Santa Monica than it does to construct it.
“I think there’s a slow growth movement going on and residents and those in City Hall not wanting growth,” said Johannes Van Tilburg, a local architect who also teaches at the University of Southern California. “It’s kind of a moratorium without calling it a moratorium.”
Van Tilburg and other local architects said in the early 1990s, Santa Monica was on the forefront of housing policies. But they say that’s changed.
It used to be that combined residential and commercial uses would get quick approval.
“The mixed-use thing, they have really backed away from it,” Van Tilburg said. “I don’t know why, but they have really backed away now. It seems to be a different era.”
Some believe the city is trying to put the brakes on rapid development — which has added hundreds of new residential units downtown — because it creates heavy traffic congestion. Critics also say a recent city law that now mandates even small developments must go through a public review process is just another delay method.
“Santa Monica has residential areas that need to be protected because they are already built out and we don’t want the dislocation of current tenants,” said Joan Ling, executive director of Community Corp. of Santa Monica, a developer of local affordable housing. “But all the work the city did to promote construction in the downtown region is being lost by the unpre-dictability and delays that new resolutions... create.”
City officials deny that development in urban areas is being squashed and they continue to promote housing.
“I don’t think we are slowing down housing at all; I think the city remains dedicated to housing and looking at policies that will allow us to build even more housing,” said Councilman Richard Bloom. “But we want it done in the right way and make sure that it fulfills the needs of the city for our future generations.”
Officials point out that Santa Monica is built out and what remains should be used for affordable housing.
The 2000 census results indicate L.A. County is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. Over the next 10 years it is anticipated a population the size of the City of Los Angeles will relocate into the county.
“People are on the way, they have their bags packed and their decisions to come to L.A. have already been made,” Van Tilburg said. “People are coming and we are not building for it.”
The rapid population growth has many communities throughout the area adopting aggressive housing policies that will allow developers to build more housing on smaller parcels of land, and give developers incentives for including housing into commercial projects.
Pasadena, Culver City, Beverly Hills, and Los Angeles, among others, are currently debating how to change their housing policies to encourage more development, builders say.
Van Tilburg believes that those communities, all of which are considered to be built out, future housing development should go along the major boulevards.
There are more than 250 miles of boulevards in Los Angeles that could sustain future housing development, Van Tilburg said. And the corridors are already connected to the region’s bus and rail mass-transit system, making them ideal for mixed development uses.
The same goes for Santa Monica. Van Tilburg believes Santa Monica’s boulevards are largely under-developed and could be used as a place to build thousands of more housing units to the city.
“Drive from the wave on Wilshire Boulevard to the ocean, and you’ll see that it is totally under-developed buildings. It is just totally under-developed,” Van Tilburg said. “There is where the city should allow mixed-use commercial buildings with three or four floors of residential units on top.
“Right now it’s just old tired retail that is empty and some of which is even bordered up,” he added.
Councilman Herb Katz, a local architect, does not believe housing needs to be concentrated in any one area of the city.
“I’m not seeing them necessarily on the boulevards,” Katz said. “I think there is enough in-fill that it can go almost everywhere. It doesn’t have to be contained to just one area.”
And Katz hopes other cities in the region will not only debate aggressive housing policies but actually put them into practice.
“I think they may be adopting some of it, but I don’t think they are far enough along the line, and they aren’t being nearly aggressive enough,” he said. “If they were being aggressive, we wouldn’t have to do as much here.”
Councilman Ken Genser believes development will have to be funneled into urban areas.
“We can’t keep sprawling, we’re going to run out of land if we keep going the way we are,” he said. “We need to make sure transportation is there and the infrastructure is there... so we don’t have to scar the land to build the housing.” Project’s fate rests with city
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 21, 2002. Read the original PDF.