This originally appeared at The Healthy City Local. It’s been a while since I’ve written about a specific development project in Santa Monica. About a year ago I was busy writing articles about the Downtown Community Plan (DCP), and after that…
The following post originally appeared on The Healthy City Local. (Note: I haven’t written here about Santa Monica politics since my last blog last summer on the Downtown Community Plan, but I was invited to give a 20-minute talk to the…
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…
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…
In order to assure the city benefits from some of the larger real estate development projects in town, the City Council negotiates development agreements (DAs) which guarantee affordable housing, traffic mitigation, money for parks, and other benefits for the city. A…
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…
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…
This article originally ran on The Healthy City Local. [pullquote align=left]The proponents of LUVE know that they have a problem politically with the housing issue. In their statements and writings in support, they deny that LUVE would prevent housing from…
The so-called “Land Use Voter Empowerment” (L.U.V.E.) initiative, which would require a vote on nearly every new building over two stories, has qualified to be on the November ballot, Santa Monica Next has learned. The initiative, backed by the extreme…
Just south of the intersection of Pico and 28th Street sits a small apartment complex. There are four bungalows stretching back from the street, lined up side by side. On a Friday afternoon in late April, a man in a…
Juan Matute contributed research to this report, using building permit and inspection data downloaded from Santa Monica’s Open Data Portal on March 26th and April 9th, 2016. There’s a lot of talk about real estate development in Santa Monica. And…
Last week, Streetsblog California announced three new pieces of legislation introduced by Assemblyman Richard Bloom who represents West Los Angeles County cities in the Assembly. Bloom’s legislation focuses on increasing the housing stock in California by reducing the hurdles to creating…
UPDATE: The revised Downtown Santa Monica Community Plan is now available at downtownsmplan.net. A revised version of the plan that will determine the future of planning in Downtown Santa Monica will be released Friday, according to city officials. The Downtown Santa…
At the end of last year, we asked you to weigh in on what were some of your favorite Santa Monica Next stories of 2015. Your answers covered the gamut and included topics as diverse as our Throwback Thursday series,…
