The Santa Monica City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday to raise development limits on 89 single-family lots near the Expo/Bundy transit station. City officials said the move is needed to temporarily exempt the surrounding transit zone from a state law that allows taller, denser housing near transit.
The ordinance, adopted on second reading, applies to R1-zoned parcels in the Pico neighborhood. The area is bounded by Interstate 10, Dorchester Avenue, Exposition Boulevard and Centinela Avenue. Projects there may now reach a floor-area ratio of 1.25 and a density of 40 units per acre, but only if they build to that maximum density.
Mayor Caroline Torosis and Councilmembers Ellis Raskin, Dan Hall and Barry Snell voted yes. Councilmembers Lana Negrete and Natalya Zernitskaya voted no. Councilmember Jesse Zwick was not recorded in the roll call.
Under Senate Bill 79, a city can temporarily exclude a transit zone from the law if enough of the zone's parcels are zoned to meet the law's thresholds. Community Development Director Jing Yeo said the Expo/Bundy zone will be excluded starting Oct. 23. The exclusion lasts until one year after the city adopts its 2029-2037 housing element, which Yeo put at about October 2030. The city will send the ordinance to state housing officials, known as HCD, for a 90-day review, which can be extended 30 days.
Raskin noted that existing state laws already allow up to five units on a 6,500-square-foot single-family lot. SB 79 currently permits buildings of 55 to 60 feet in the zone, he said, while the city ordinance caps height at 28 feet.
"So this is essentially a downzoning," Raskin said.
Yeo said the city has received three preliminary SB 79 applications. Raskin said a newspaper report on incoming projects was "Exhibit A as to why we need to hit pause right now."
Yeo advised the council to "close the window as quickly as possible because nothing stops us from continuing to work on something else."
The council also directed staff to return with options for upzoning fewer parcels. Staff are to consider displacement risk and look beyond the parcels nearest the station. The Neighborhood Taskforce, a nonprofit, says a Santa Monica-only calculation requires only 52 parcels, citing staff figures.
Torosis, who proposed the direction as an amendment, said, "I really feel just personally horrible, and I know that that doesn't solve any problems." She added that "we are not trying to destroy neighborhoods" and contrasted renters who fear displacement with homeowners. "If you are a homeowner who owns your home, you are going to be compensated for that home," she said.
Torosis said she wanted the council to "make a policy determination that we should upzone fewer parcels and assume the risk."
City Attorney Heidi von Tongeln said she was not aware of the city ever zoning noncontiguous parcels and that the idea would need study. She said the city should not face compliance problems as long as Tuesday's ordinance stays in place during that study.
"I don't want people who are against what is happening tonight to, I guess, get their hopes up that something might change in the future," Hall said.
Zernitskaya said she voted no because of the amendment. "I feel like it gives folks false hope that we're going to be able to reduce the number of parcels impacted," she said.
Negrete said, "We have to look at things just beyond a map, and we're not looking at the historical harms in the way that we should be."
When the council introduced the ordinance Sept. 8, it asked staff whether the city could count parcels on the Los Angeles side of the transit zone. On Sept. 17, state housing officials told city staff that jurisdictions may consider only parcels and data within their own boundaries. They also indicated the city might be able to exclude specific uses, such as daycares, from the upzoning. Yeo said staff could return with that change quickly.
Staff also noted that San Diego, San Francisco and Montebello have been sued over SB 79.
In a letter, the taskforce asked the council to reject the ordinance and adopt an emergency ordinance limited to 52 parcels, starting with 30 multiunit parcels that staff previously identified as having no displacement risk. Yeo said 19 of those 30 are ownership housing.
The Pico Neighborhood Association urged the council to adopt the Planning Commission's earlier recommendation to upzone 66 multiunit parcels instead. Former Councilmember Christine Parra, who said she owns one of the affected homes, wrote to Torosis, "Neither is this neighborhood yours to define."
Yeo said that if state law stays the same, every parcel in the city's transit zones will have to allow at least half of SB 79's development standards after the exclusion ends.