Neighbor!
In the spring of 2021, the Southern California Association of Governments (“SCAG”) published a Regional Housing Needs Assessment (“RHNA”), which directed Santa Monica to plan and zone for the potential construction of nearly 9,000 new dwelling units during an eight year period ending in the fall of 2029. Our city is largely built out, so if it intends to actually build any meaningful amount toward that goal, significant redevelopment is required.
Over the last several years, the California state legislature has passed a series of laws that strip municipalities of much of their local control, and double the density previously allowed in the very same areas. That means height and massing will double too. Recently enacted state law also requires greatly increased density, massing and height around major transit stops, and allows single-family lots in our low-density neighborhoods to be subdivided (in some cases permitting up to 10 dwelling units per lot). All of this means existential change is coming to Santa Monica’s built environment. Our electeds, appointeds, city staff and we, the citizenry, are all drinking from this firehose of change.
The Neighborhood Taskforce recognizes change as life’s only material constant, the enforceability of these statutes, and the need to cope with them in ways that honor the growth they call for, while respecting and protecting our built environment and our existing residents as much as we possibly can.
We at The Neighborhood Taskforce are supportive of increased housing supply for people of all income levels currently being excluded from the Santa Monica marketplace. While state and local progress dashboards suggest we’ll realize our RHNA goals for market-rate housing, we are woefully underdelivering deed-restricted housing for lower-income families. Additionally, we believe the City should redistribute some of the increased housing currently slotted for our secondary “Neighborhood Commercial” boulevards (Ocean Park Blvd., Main St., Montana Ave., and Pico Blvd.) to our downtown core, and correspondingly reduce what are now rapidly approaching 6 – 8 story profiles along those streets.
With this in mind, we recently issued a questionnaire to the twelve City Council candidates who’ve qualified for the ballot. Ten of them responded, and we encourage you to click this link to read their concise responses to the seven questions we posed around the housing issue. (https://www.theneighborhoodtaskforce.org/city-council-questionairre)
Santa Monica is your city. We trust you to digest their unedited answers, exercise your right to vote, and protect the community you live in and care about.
Loren Bloch, President
The Neighborhood Taskforce