To amend the application process thresholds for 100% affordable housing projects and all other housing projects compliant with the Housing Accountability Act.

Read More on page 3: https://s3.amazonaws.com/smdp_backissues/022520.pdf

With the recent closure of several stores and a vacancy rate topping 15%, Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade is not immune from the nationwide shift away from brick-and-mortar retail.

While the Promenade’s total sales are up after two years of decline, the shopping district will, over the long term, need to become less dependent on traditional retailers like Banana Republic, which closed last month, and cultivate a mix of shops, restaurants, bars and entertainment venues that reflect changing consumer tastes, stakeholders said.

It’s a challenging task for a public street with 38 landlords who operate independently of each other.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/small-spaces-are-the-big-idea-for-reviving-the-promenade/186691

Ultimately, is this just another sign that our city has grown too much for our public safety folks to handle? Again, we call for our infrastructure, including public safety, to be our priority, before growth.

Read More: https://smmirror.com/2020/02/a-dinner-invitation-porn-and-a-city-on-fire/

On Monday, February 24, the City will be hosting a Community Town Hall on Santa Monica 2050. Attendees will learn about the technological, urban, and business model disruptions impacting Santa Monica and provide input on their vision for future. Santa Monica Main Library, MLK Auditorium, from 6-8 p.m.

Read More on pg. 7: https://s3.amazonaws.com/smdp_backissues/022220.pdf

Over the next decade, Santa Monica and other cities in California will have to rethink how they produce affordable housing.

The state is set to require communities across the state to produce more market-rate and affordable housing than ever before to try to make a dent in a housing shortage that has sent the price of rents and mortgages soaring and thrown thousands of people onto the streets. Housing for low- and moderate-income renters will be particularly tough to produce in the quantities that the state needs, and municipalities will need to find new ways to fund housing projects and make them cheaper and easier to build.

Currently, Santa Monica requires for-profit developers to include a certain amount of affordable units in market-rate housing projects and provides funding for nonprofit developers like Community Corporation of Santa Monica to construct 100% affordable buildings. 

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/primer-affordable-housing/186621

In Santa Monica, both market-rate and affordable developers must guide housing projects through a review process that takes one to three years.

But with a forthcoming state mandate to zone for roughly 6,000 affordable units and 3,000 market-rate units between 2021 and 2029, putting new housing through a lengthy and expensive review process is no longer feasible, Planning Commission Chair Leslie Lambert said Wednesday before the commission voted to support expediting the process for 100% affordable housing and market-rate housing up to 60 feet tall that conforms to existing standards.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/housing-could-be-easier-and-cheaper-to-build-under-new-city-plan/186559

A Tax hike is inevitable.

Read More: https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2020-02-20/skelton-newsom-state-of-the-state-homelessness

One of the region’s largest business groups is exploring a new strategy for tackling Southern California’s housing crisis: asking Los Angeles voters to upzone sections of the city, allowing larger and taller residential buildings on commercial boulevards and in other areas.

Read More: https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2020-02-19/housing-crisis-sb50-los-angeles-sacramento

Elected officials are supposed to protect the interest of their constituents. That’s not the way it works in Santa Monica.

Taxpayers are at the bottom of the list of our Councilmembers’ priorities. First are developers, followed by businesses, tourists and staff.

Last week the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City reported just one of the extraordinary perks (besides a “Taj Mahal” office building with a private art gallery) staff enjoys.

Some two-thirds -- 1,400 -- of our over-compensated City employees drive to work solo in their cars and then park free...

Read More: http://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/letters/Letters-2020/02_18_2020_LETTERS_The_Big_Giveaway.html

Local officials could allow affordable housing to be built by-right to incentivize the production of 6,000 units of housing for low and moderate-income households over the next eight years.

Santa Monica and other Southern California cities rich in jobs and public transit will be required to accommodate more housing than ever before under a forthcoming state mandate aimed at addressing the state’s housing crisis. Santa Monica will likely receive a mandate to zone for about 9,000 new units between 2021 and 2029, two-thirds of which must be affordable for low and moderate-income households.

City Hall could take its first step toward meeting that goal Wednesday, when the Planning Commission will meet to discuss recommending that City Council vote to permit 100% affordable housing projects to bypass the city’s public review process.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/santa-monica-to-consider-allowing-affordable-housing-certain-market-rate-housing-to-be-built-by-right/186387