Downtown Santa Monica is one of the few places in the city where any new housing gets built, including affordable housing. The Kaufmann Apartments at Step Up on Colorado is the latest project to open in the city’s thriving Downtown.…
Southern California Public Radio affiliate KPCC, in partnership with the Milken Institute, assembled a panel of experts Wednesday night to answer the question: can high-density housing solve the housing crisis currently facing L.A. County and California? For those who have…
Santa Monica’s City Council met Tuesday night to discuss the complicated topic of affordable housing funding. Since the city’s funding for affordable housing subsidies from about $15 million a year plummeted to about $2 million a year in 2012 when California shut…
Summer may be winding down, but that doesn’t you have to slow down. This week, join Santa Monica Spoke for Handlebar Happy at El Cholo, see Jefferson Starship perform at the Santa Monica Pier, help the Council figure out how…
In early 2013, the City Council met to set criteria that would get certain projects prioritized. With about 35 development agreements then pending, the Council wanted to make sure that the projects that moved forward the fastest were housing projects,…
Another moderate-sized mixed-use housing project is wending its way through Santa Monica’s development agreement (DA) process this week, stopping at the Planning Commission on Wednesday for consideration. The 64-unit (six-story) apartment building with ground floor retail — proposed at 1451…
The dust is settling from the recent zoning ordinance update and downzoning amendments to the city’s Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE). It will take some time to really understand the impact of the decision to eliminate the possibility of…
Things on the dais got tense Wednesday night when the City Council deliberated whether to remove key elements of the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE), making it more difficult for future housing to be built on major boulevards. The Council…
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…
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…
Welcome back! We hope that everyone enjoyed their holidays. At Santa Monica Next, we were able to get some much-needed downtime. Now we’re rested and ready to get back to work. What are you most looking forward to in 2015, Santa…
Editor’s Note: Happy holidays from the Santa Monica Next team. We will return in the new year with regular coverage. The City of Santa Monica is calling for volunteers to help in the fight homelessness in the bayside city this January. Join City staff…
With three meetings left in 2014, the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a small, 32-unit housing complex along Pico Boulevard, the first — and likely last — housing project to get discretionary approval this year. The project comes…
(Note: This article was originally published at Los Angeles Streetsblog. The issues, however, are regional and remain vitally important to the future of smart urban planning in Santa Monica and other cities in the county.) It is no secret that Southern…
