News about rents, zoning changes, and other issues related to the cost of housing.
Last week, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) put out a report calling for coastal communities to build more housing to tackle the dire shortage of homes — and the resulting affordability crisis — currently facing the state. According to…
For decades, Santa Monica has prided itself on being a statewide leader in efforts to build and preserve affordable housing. Now, in the context of local, regional, and statewide housing affordability crises, the bayside city’s failure to build new homes…
California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office released a sobering report Tuesday that looks at the roots of California’s dire housing affordability crisis and how to solve it. The report lays the blame for the current housing crunch (and the skyrocketing rents and…
Editor’s note: The following originally appeared in The Healthy City Local. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission. Santa Monica Next welcomes guest contributions and editorials. We look for fact-based content relevant to the future of the city. Submitting your writing does…
According to a report released Wednesday by pro-labor group, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), AirBnB, a short-term rental listing website, is making the regional housing crisis even worse and driving up rents, especially in Santa Monica and…
Next month, the City Council will consider a document that will impact Santa Monica’s future for the next several decades. When the Council votes on the ZOU it will have to decide whether or not the foundation upon which the Santa…
Earlier this month, the Santa Monica Housing Commission voted to recommend extending the time people can spend looking for a place to live through the federal rental subsidy program known as Section 8. While the recommendation to increase the time period…
Note: This article originally appeared on The Healthy City Local. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission. In the last couple of posts I’ve been trying, mostly by means of rereading Mike Davis’s City of Quartz, to put anti-development politics in Santa Monica into a…
For my last post I reread parts of Mike Davis’ City of Quartz to give me some perspective on what’s going on today in Santa Monica with anti-development politics. As perceptive as Davis was, however, it was also interesting to see, in hindsight, what…
“If the slow-growth movement … has been explicitly a protest against the urbanization of suburbia, it is implicitly—in the long tradition of Los Angeles homeowner politics—a reassertion of social privilege.” —Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los…
Santa Monica, like the rest of the region, is experiencing a historic housing crisis that is driving up prices and forcing working and middle-class families out of town. While Santa Monica requires about 30 percent of all new housing built to be permanently subsidized, there…
Coming up in Santa Monica, we have a special Valentine’s Day Kidical Mass bike ride, a retreat on affordable housing hosted by the Housing Commission, and the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce’s Organization of Women Leaders (OWL) will honor two local…
Editor’s note: This post was originally posted on The Healthy City Local, the blog of long-time political observer and former Planning Commissioner, Frank Gruber. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission. Let’s see, a few days ago I was complaining about how the…
While most of the message at Tuesday’s State of the City event focused on the many positive trends in Santa Monica, one trend came up that could have a devastating impact on the bayside city’s booming tech sector: fear of growth.…
It’s a new year and that means it’s time for Santa Monica’s annual State of the City breakfast. Billed as an “networking and educational event,” the breakfast is a chance to hear from business and community leaders — including Santa…
