News about rents, zoning changes, and other issues related to the cost of housing.
Carter Rubin is a Santa Monica resident and serves as an advisory board member of Santa Monica Next. Carter has served as an appointed member on the Santa Monica Housing and Planning Commissions. Carter earned a B.A. in political studies…
Late last month, Governor Jerry Brown signed a package of 15 bills designed to begin addressing California’s historic housing crisis. Among those bills, the ones that received perhaps the most media attention were Senate Bills (S.B.) 2 and 3 —…
Santa Monica residents will have about three weeks to weigh in on the city’s new draft Electric Vehicle Action Plan. The plan is a hundred page document that outlines policies and infrastructure goals to accommodate — and encourage — the…
When opponents of the proposed Bergamot Transit Village project gathered signatures to overturn the City Council’s approval of the mixed commercial and residential plans, they promised the developer would come back with a better plan. The development they fought would…
California state legislators are back in Sacramento after a month-long summer recess and they are looking to tackle the state’s growing housing crisis with a package of bills that could generate more than $3 billion for affordable housing as well…
On the agenda for Tuesday’s City Council meeting is an item that asks staff to come up with strategies to encourage more housing growth along the mostly commercial boulevards, like Wilshire and Santa Monica. The agenda item comes about two…
On Tuesday, the Santa Monica City Council faced a difficult choice: whether to require 20-30 percent of units in new construction downtown be affordable, or whether to leave the requirement at only 15-20 percent. This is a difficult decision, with…
After nearly six years, Santa Monica has a new plan that will govern land use in the city’s 230-acre downtown through 2030. While the City Council adopted most aspects of the plan unanimously, there was a clear schism on the…
The following is a letter sent by a recent Santa Monica resident to the City Council. It is reprinted here with his permission. Dear City Leaders, I am writing regarding the Downtown Specific Plan. Although prior engagements prevent me from…
The Santa Monica City Council will vote tonight on the final Downtown Community Plan amid concerns that last minute changes to the plan’s affordable housing requirements will suppress much-needed housing growth. However, City Manager Rick Cole, in an email to…
With the final decision about the Downtown Community Plan, which will govern changes to the downtown through 2030, scheduled for next Tuesday, housing advocates are concerned that some last-minute changes to the plan’s affordable housing requirements will ultimately undermine the…
This post originally appeared on The Healthy City Local. At the City Council meeting last Tuesday night on Santa Monica’s Downtown Community Plan (DCP) the ironies abounded. As planning staff has told us many times, the DCP is the result of…
This post originally appeared on Streetsblog California. In case you hadn’t heard, last night the California legislature passed a legislative package to extend the state’s cap-and-trade system until 2030. It’s a landmark victory for proponents and a rare bipartisan accord. It…
The final series of public hearings on the Downtown Santa Monica Community Plan kicked off this week with back-to-back City Council meetings. On Monday night, more than 150 people showed up for a marathon session of public testimony on the…
This post originally appeared on The Healthy City Local. After, in words taken from the staff report, “nearly six years in development” (not too much longer than it takes to get approval to build an apartment building!), Santa Monica’s Downtown Community…
