Council has passed an amendment to a Santa Monica’s water neutrality ordinance that will close loopholes used by developers to bypass water restrictions. The original ordinance, which went into effect last July, prevents new development from adding to the overall demand for water in Santa Monica. The rules mandate new projects use the same amount of water as the original development, on average, based on the five years before new construction or renovation.

However, the original ordinance only applied to projects that demolished more than 50 percent of a building and some developers were demolishing slightly less than half of a building to get around it.

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