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# Planning for SM a $1.6M question
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/planning-for-sm-a-1-6m-question/
- Published: 2004-08-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:48:58.000Z
- Author: John Wood
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Apartment complex proposal squashed while answer is found*

CITY HALL — A pending $1.6 million overhaul of the policies that govern development and traffic in Santa Monica was a key reason officials on Tuesday denied a proposed apartment building on Colorado Avenue.

Members of the City Council agreed the project had broad implications for its neighborhood, an area zoned for studios and light manufacturing businesses. They felt the project should be put on hold until City Hall’s key planning documents are updated.

That process will take at least two years. San Francisco-based consultants Dyett & Bhatia have been hired by City Hall for $1.6 million and will begin their work in September, said Ellen Gelbard, a special projects director for the city. At issue are the zoning ordinance, and land use and traffic flow policies. The policy documents were last updated 20 years ago.

While the consultants get to work, projects that test the boundaries of the current zoning ordinance or challenge it will be in limbo, officials said. That includes the 145-apartment building at 2834 Colorado Ave., which officials said was denser, taller and simply different than the other projects in its surrounding neighborhood.

“It was certainly a large project,” said Amanda Schachtner, the planning department staffer who oversaw the proposed housing project. “It was, at some points, four stories and 45 feet (tall). In some communities that’s probably not a large project, but in Santa Monica it is. We have a very low profile, and 145 units is a lot of units.”

The City Council agreed not to move the project forward, following a recommendation by the Planning Commission and City Hall staffers. The developers now have to scrap their plans for an apartment complex in order to conform with current code or wait two years for consultants to complete their update to planning documents.

What’s entailed in the update is a lot of public input and brainstorming about how the city should look before the documents return to elected leaders for discussion and approval, Gelbard said.

“We really want to hear from the community about what they want to see in the next 20 years,” Gelbard added. “It’s a huge process.”

The documents govern everything from what long-term goals the city has for its growth to how individual projects should be managed, what building limits should be in place and how dense projects should be, among other issues.

Gelbard said the idea behind the overhaul is to “remove some of the inconsistencies and things that sometimes creep in over the years.”

City Councilman Ken Genser, who said he decided to run for office in the 1980s after large office complexes like the Water Gardens and Colorado Center were approved, said the documents are of critical importance for all of Santa Monica.

“It’s a time when the city as a whole will step back and look at the land use development policies for the next decade or two, so we can begin to say certain areas should change or evolve to different uses or different scales, and at the same time we will do the circulation element... where we’ll taker a look at the capacity of our streets,” he said.

“I think it’s exceptionally important,” Genser added. “It’s going to have a significant effect on the city for the next several decades.”

As to the project’s price tag, Gelbard said farming it out to a consultant was the only feasible way to get the work done. Included in the overhaul will be meetings with neighborhood groups and others, surveys of residents and developers, outreach to school-age kids, and joint meetings of the City Council and Planning Commission.

“This is a huge amount of work,” she said. “There’s no way two or three internal people could manage this work. They’re going to have their hands full just managing this contract with the consultant. So that’s what we’re going to be doing.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 12, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/081204.pdf?ref=smdp.com)