Affordable Housing, Displacement, and Regional Housing Needs The elephant in the housing legislation room is S.B. 827, authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). This bill, which has sparked furious debate among housing and economic justice advocates since it was introduced…
The following originally appeared on Streetsblog L.A. It is by David Levitus. Levitus earned his Ph.D. at USC with a focus on the history of cities, policy, and politics in the United States. At NYU, he majored in Economics and History. He is…
Last month, State Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) released a draft of his legislation, Senate Bill 827, which would upend zoning rules throughout California. The bill, aimed at making it easier to build housing at a time when the state…
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 —…
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 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…
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…
The question I ended my post with on Saturday was why would Santa Monica enact a Downtown Community Plan (DCP) that makes it easier to build commercial development than housing? Keep in mind that this is taking place during a…
This article originally appeared on Healthy City Local. I’m sure readers are trembling with anticipation after I ended my last post with this cliffhanger: aside from drastically reducing the advantage that residential development in downtown Santa Monica had over commercial development…
