News about rents, zoning changes, and other issues related to the cost of housing.
When does the city-wide voter approval requirement in Santa Monica’s Measure LV apply to an existing building? I’ve heard people say that LV would apply for everything from repair after an earthquake to replacing a toilet. First of all, it’s…
The following is a response from downtown community member Babak Mozaffari in an online forum about how Santa Monica’s measure LV will increase housing costs. It is reprinted with the permission of the author. You are right that high demand increases the…
This Sunday, the New Urbanism Film Festival is sponsoring a unique and fun tour of new and proposed Transit Oriented Development along the Expo Line between the Culver City Station to Downtown Santa Monica. Learn how neighborhoods can build to embrace…
Last month, Santa Monica Next reached out to all 10 candidates for City Council with an 11 question questionnaire. Some questions were written to give voters an idea of the candidates personality, others on their positions. So far, six candidates…
This week the annual New Urbanism Film Festival returns to Los Angeles. The grand opening is Thursday night! There are plenty of screenings, plus walking tours, storytelling, and more. Event details at NUFF website. Below are five recommended film screenings that Santa…
Emotions often run deep when the topic turns to political solutions to the homeless problem in Los Angeles. That sentiment was very much evident just by the provocatively titled panel discussion on homelessness held Friday morning: “Confronting the Shame of…
The reality of living in Southern California is that individuals, organizations, and the government always need to be prepared for earthquakes. But this November, Santa Monicans will be asked to vote on Measure LV, an extreme measure that would hinder…
Learning to share has always been difficult for kids. It’s proving just as hard for adults to figure out, too. In a fresh round of bickering over how the new sharing economy should work, Airbnb, a heavyweight of the emerging…
Proponents of no-growth measures like Measure LV, or the Land Use Voter Empowerment (L.U.V.E.) as its backers have dubbed it, in Santa Monica often seek to expand political support by framing their measure as a necessary response to trends of…
The Los Angeles League of Conservation (LALCV) voters released a statement earlier this week urging Santa Monica voters to reject the Land Use Voter Empowerment (L.U.V.E.) initiative. LALCV argues the anti-growth initiative will both hinder the city’s ability to provide…
Santa Monica city planners offered a glimpse into the future of the bayside city’s thriving downtown Thursday. The new online tool lets visitors see which properties are likely to redevelop in the next 20 years and explore three dimensional renderings of…
The post originally ran at Streetsblog California. The California legislature returned from its summer break last week and now has one month to finish all the business it started in this session. If it can. Pending issues include a bill…
What can the last 150 years of Santa Monica’s history teach us about the next 20? A lot, city officials hope. This Saturday at 10 a.m., the city will continue its series of workshops on preservation and change in Downtown…
This article originally appeared on Streetsblog Los Angeles. This week marks a noteworthy anniversary. The first city-scale zoning law in the United States was enacted on July 25, 1916, in New York City. The New York Times tells the story in an…
The following post was authored and submitted by Bryan Schonfeld, a Ph.D student in Politics at Princeton University. Last week, the United Kingdom voted, via referendum, to leave the European Union, harming its economy and much of its political system in…
