> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Proposed property swap riles participants - URL: https://www.smdp.com/proposed-property-swap-riles-participants/ - Published: 2008-06-05T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T19:47:33.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Real Estate & Housing, Santa Monica, #archive-import *Negotiations for affordable housing lots raises doubts* *By ALICE OLLSTEIN Special to the Daily Press* OCEAN AVE Property owners looking to swap land with City Hall so that more affordable housing can be built feel they are not being given the same attention as the owner of a beachside hotel even though they believe their deal is superior. The owners of two lots located at 603 Arizona Ave. and 2600 Broadway feel that City Hall is not being genuine in its evaluation of their properties and want to know why the issue has not come before the City Council for a vote five months after recommendations were made to the Housing Commission. They feel that the owners of Casa del Mar, which is located adjacent to the city-owned lot to be swapped, are offering a deal that is inferior because it would cause City Hall to replace 127 parking spaces. “We felt like we had been dealt with unfairly,” said Barbara Dehne of 603 Arizona, LP, which owns the Arizona and Broadway properties. Their concerns are shared by at least one councilmember, who asked for city staff to continue evaluating the offers before making a final recommendation to the council. In an effort to provide lower-income Santa Monicas with more affordable housing, City Hall began negotiating a swap of its 1920 Ocean Way lot for another, larger property. In July of 2007 the city’s Housing Division sent out a Request For Proposal for a property swap in order to build more affordable housing on the beachfront. By the deadline in August, three properties entered into the running: 603 Arizona Ave., 2600 Broadway and 1828 Ocean Ave., which is owned by Casa del Mar and currently serves as a parking lot for employees. According to criteria set forth by the City Council, they were looking for sites that could increase affordable housing, with preference given for proximity to the 1920 Ocean site. Of the three proposals received, the 1828 Ocean site has the highest potential housing yield and is in closest proximity to the city property, city officials said. At a Housing Commission meeting late last year, city staff recommended negotiating exclusively with the owners of 1828 Ocean — Neptune Walk LLC and Edward Thomas Companies., which runs Casa del Mar and Shutters on the Beach. Dehne found this “unfair, or at a minimum, misleading.” Dehne noted that 1828 Ocean was the only site violating an RFP requirement — no contingencies or encumbrances. The “contingencies and encumbrances” on the 1828 property exist because the space is currently being used as an employee parking lot. Dehne and her team were surprised when, at the next Housing Commission meeting, what she called “a completely biased staff report” was presented recommending 1828 Ocean as the participant most viable for further negotiations. Her group protested this decision and were joined by Councilmember Kevin McKeown, leading the commission to agree to conduct a more detailed analysis of all the responding properties. McKeown, who was the subject of political attack ads in the November 2006 election that were paid for by Edward Thomas, wrote an e-mail to the commission, saying, “This is not a decision based on the value of the three properties, but on the value of fair process and making sure that public decisions are made openly and not negotiated unequally.” McKeown recommended reopening the RFP to all interested parties including the original three. The director of Housing and Economic Development, Andy Agle, explained that replacing the 127 parking spaces would be the responsibility of City Hall if the exchange is conducted, but that the challenge is “not insurmountable.”Edward Thomas Director Tim Dubois further noted that parking is “just one of many things to be negotiated,” but declined to elaborate. Dehne believes City Hall has been negotiating with Edward Thomas for years and that the RFP was issued only because City Hall was required to by law. “Maybe the city threw the RFP out because they had to,” Dehne said.“We don’t know how serious they were about negotiating with other properties \[besides 1828 Ocean\]. They’re too focused on what they’d already been doing.” In the Nov. 15 council meeting, Dehne informed the Housing Commission that 2600 Broadway and 603 Arizona, LP combined in order to offer City Hall potentially two locations and many more affordable housing units. Five months later, however, the council has yet to review the proposals. The owners of the 1828 property feel that the decision is still up in the air. “I haven’t heard one peep from the city since the request for proposals,” Dubois said. “There haven’t been any discussions.” City Hall became the owner of the property located at 1920 Ocean Way in July 1979\. The purpose of the swap is to provide more low-income housing in more diverse areas of pricey Santa Monica. Other potential options available to City Hall include sale of the 1920 Ocean Way site without a swap or development of affordable units on the site. “We are trying to achieve as much affordable housing as possible, because the need for such housing is a pressing issue in Santa Monica,” Agle said.“We’re losing due to vacancy decontrol and the Ellis Act, so we’re doing whatever we can to combat the impact of those laws.” The Ellis Act, written in July of 1986, allows landlords to go out of the rental business, evict tenants, and withdraw units from the housing market. Vacancy decontrol, which became effective in 1996 and was amended in 1999, means that a landlord can increase rents to whatever the market will bear when a unit is vacated. “One of the things we’ve tried to achieve with affordable housing is geographical diversity,” Agle explained. “We want housing in neighborhoods throughout Santa Monica, not concentrated in one area, to accommodate tenets with jobs, family and social networks. It’s important to create mixed income neighborhoods and to have that element of diversity.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/060508-05_01.jpg) (Photo: Special to the Daily Press) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 5, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/060508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)