ACTION Apartment Association

Santa Monica Term Limits Campaign Enters Final Lap

04/23/2018 1:23 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

April 21, 2018 -- With a self-imposed deadline of April 30, volunteers are “on track” to collect more than enough signatures to place a proposed initiative on the November ballot imposing term limits on the Santa Monica City Council, the head organizer said Friday.

In its final lap, the proposed ballot measure has a team of 100 signature-gatherers (a dozen of whom who had just signed on from Santa Monica College Friday) hitting the pavement with an extra push.

Mary Marlow, who heads the Santa Monica Transparency Project -- a city watchdog group -- said she is optimistic.

Development appeal scheduled for light council agend

04/23/2018 9:34 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Congested traffic on neighborhood streets is driving community concerns over a planned four-story development that stretches an entire city block across from Pancho’s Tacos at 2903 Lincoln Boulevard. The City Council will consider the neighborhood’s plight at Tuesday’s public meeting when they hear an appeal on the Development Review Permit for the 47-unit apartment complex with ground floor shops and restaurants from the CIM Group.

“We just see mass out to the edges,” said the appellant, Rachel Kelley, before the Planning Commission ultimately approved the permit in a 5-2 vote Jan. 10. The promised two levels of underground parking with 150 spaces have done little to quell neighborhood fears of congestion and increased competition for precious parking on Ashland Avenue and Wilson Place.

AND: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2018/April-2018/04_23_2018_Mixed_Use_Project_on_Lincoln_Will_Have_%20Devastating_Impact_Neighbors_Claim_in_Appeal.html

Backers of Statewide Affording Housing Initiative to Submit Signed Petitions Monday

04/20/2018 4:25 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

April 20, 2018 -- The campaign to repeal California' vacancy decontrol law, which if approved could have a major impact in Santa Monica, has announced it has gathered more than enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot, according to a news report.

The campaign plans to hand in petitions with 565,000 signatures on Monday and will be holding rallies that day in Sacramento, Oakland and Los Angeles, said an article published Friday in The Mercury News.

For the measure to be placed on the ballot, the campaign needs to submit the verified signatures of 365,880 voters by late June.

Council to discuss city challenges at weekend retreat

04/20/2018 9:53 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The City Council plans to have a strategic and broad-based conversation this weekend during an annual retreat at Virginia Avenue Park. The conversation will focus on how to apply new technologies to “transform service experiences” and fix problems without hiring more city staff.

“Like other traditional industries facing disruption in recent times (Newspapers, record companies, automobiles, travel agents, etc) we must re-examine every aspect of our operating model or face brutal choices down the road,” says the staff report from City Manager Rick Cole’s office.

In 2015 the Council adopted five strategic goals to focus their attention on key issues including mobility, maintaining an inclusive and diverse community, the Santa Monica Airport, homelessness, and education. Starting this year, a strategic goal team will publish a performance report every fall to track metrics and milestones.

If the California Legislature can't compromise on housing, rent control is in our future

04/20/2018 9:44 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

By The Sacramento Bee Editorial Board

Members of the Legislature certainly talk a good game about solving the housing crisis, insisting they’re eager to speed up residential construction, spare cash-strapped tenants from surging rental prices and stop poor people from sliding into homelessness.

But talk is as cheap as the cost of inaction is high. And on Tuesday, the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee managed to accomplish both by voting to kill a bill that could have made a real dent in the housing crisis and put a much-needed damper on a statewide ballot initiative to expand rent control by repealing the 1995 Costa-Hawkins act.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article209236549.html#storylink=cpy

The Eﬀects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality

04/20/2018 9:38 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The Eﬀects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco ∗
Rebecca Diamond†, Tim McQuade‡, & Franklin Qian§ October 11, 2017

Abstract

In this paper, we exploit quasi-experimental variation in the assignment of rent control in San Francisco to study its impacts on tenants, landlords, and the rental market as a whole. Leveraging new micro data which tracks an individual’s migration over time, we ﬁnd that rent control increased the probability a renter stayed at their address by close to 20 percent. At the same time, we ﬁnd that landlords whose properties were exogenously covered by rent control reduced their supply of available rental housing by 15%, by either converting to condos/TICs, selling to owner occupied, or redeveloping buildings. This led to a city-wide rent increase of 7% and caused $5 billion of welfare losses to all renters. We develop a dynamic, structural model of neighborhood choice to evaluate the welfare impacts of our reduced form eﬀects. We ﬁnd that rent control oﬀered large beneﬁts to impacted tenants during the 1995-2012 period, averaging between $2300 and $6600 per person each year, with aggregate beneﬁts totaling over $390 million annually. The substantial welfare losses due to decreased housing supply could be mitigated if insurance against large rent increases was provided as a form of government social insurance, instead of a regulated mandate on landlords.

Read the full report: http://conference.nber.org/confer/2017/PEf17/Diamond_McQuade_Qian.pdf

Santa Monica City Council “Retreat” to Look at Offering Faster and More Agile City Services

04/19/2018 12:43 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

April 19, 2018 -- Faced with a community that demands more and faster City services, the Santa Monica City Council on Saturday will discuss how to make City Hall quicker, more agile and affordable as it tries to meet the demands of a growing population.

In a special morning “retreat” at Virginia Avenue Park’s Thelma Terry Auditorium, the council will contemplate the demands on services in the rapidly-evolving 21st Century, including what it can learn from the private sector -- especially in fields which had to radically change to survive.

City of Santa Monica Enters Second Year of Fight Against Voting Rights Lawsuit

04/18/2018 3:15 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

April 19, 2018 -- Legal costs are rising, although it is not clear how much the City of Santa Monica has spent on the Voting Rights lawsuit filed by local Latino activists that is entering its second year.

Santa Monica officials say they have not tallied the specific cost of fighting the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) lawsuit filed in April 2016 by activists in the Pico Neighborhood, Santa Monica's poorest and most racially diverse area ("Santa Monica Facing Lawsuit Over At-Large Council Elections," April 13, 2016).

In 2017, total fees to the outside firm handling the suit -- Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher -- were nearly $5 million, although the price tag included other legal matters, said Finance Director Gigi Decavalles-Hughes.

California Lawmakers Kill Housing Bill [SB827] After Fierce Debate

04/18/2018 8:11 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

SACRAMENTO — Just before a committee of California state senators voted on a landmark bill to ramp up housing production by overriding local resistance, legislator after legislator talked about a dire affordable-housing crisis that demanded bold action and a marked increase in new building.

Then they killed the bill.

Rent Control Board abruptly ends talk of potential ballot measure

04/17/2018 8:22 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The Rent Control Board appeared to put the kibosh on the possibility of broad rent control reform this November once and for all at their April 12 meeting when Boardmember Todd Flora moved to suddenly cancel any public discussion of a proposed ballot initiative from staff. Looking out at a packed chamber, Flora suggested they table the discussion rather than listen to a group of angry landlords who showed up to voice opposition to vacancy control.

AND: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2018/April-2018/04_17_2018_Santa_Monica_Rent_Board_Again_Tables_Measure_to_Expand_Rent_Control%20.html