It is hard to break bad habits. One habit that is hard to break in Santa Monica is fearmongering about development.
The latest instance comes from supporters of the “Safer Santa Monica” slate. As reported in the Lookout, a “small army of volunteers from the Northeast and Sunset Park neighborhoods has been busy blanketing their single family areas with an urgent message,” namely that if the candidates backed by Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR) are elected, they “would implement SB10, a State law that allows as many as 14 units to be built on a single family lot.”
SB10 was passed by the legislature and signed by the governor in 2021. I’ll wager that few laws have been more misunderstood than SB10. SB10 is a rather limited housing law that people opposed to housing development use to frighten people like a storyteller uses a ghost story to frighten children at Halloween.
SB10 does not mandate anything. It gives local governments the authority to override voter approved limits on development, and permit up to 10 units (yes, theoretically this number could be increased if ADU’s are included) on a parcel, but only if certain restrictions are satisfied. Here is the operative language, but you can read the whole statute here:
“Notwithstanding any local restrictions on adopting zoning ordinances enacted by the jurisdiction that limit the legislative body’s ability to adopt zoning ordinances, including … restrictions enacted by local initiative, a local government may adopt an ordinance to zone a parcel for up to 10 units of residential density per parcel, at a height specified by the local government in the ordinance, if the parcel is located in [a transit-rich area or an urban infill site].”
Note that SB10 doesn’t require local governments to do anything. It does expand the power of local governments to upzone, but only in cities or counties subject to “restrictions on adopting zoning ordinances.” SB10 did not expand the power of the Santa Monica City Council because Santa Monica does not have any such restrictions. The only zoning restriction relevant to housing enacted in Santa Monica is Measure LC. LC limits development of airport land (when the airport closes) to park and recreational purposes, but SB10 explicitly excludes from its scope “[a]ny local restriction enacted or approved by a local initiative that designates publicly owned land as open-space land … or for park or recreational purposes.”
Note that if the RIFT measure in 2008 or Measure LV in2016 had passed, SB10 would expand the power of City Council to override those measures, but voters defeated both RIFT and LV handily. SB10 therefore did not give the council more power than it already had. (There is a provision in SB10 that an upzoning enacted pursuant to SB10 would not be not subject to CEQA review, but CEQA review would not ultimately prevent an upzoning for housing in Santa Monica.)
But even if SB10 had expanded the Santa Monica City Council’s power, SB10 only gives authority to upzone if the local legislative body can make a finding that doing so “is consistent with [its] obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.” Readers may remember how the issue of “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH) was a factor when the City was adopting the Housing Element in 2021. (I wrote a number of posts back then about the Housing Element and AFFH; here is a link to one of them.)
Back then, the state rejected the City’s submission of a draft Housing Element because the council’s “Change Slate” majority had ignored warnings from Councilmember Gleam Davis and voted to approve a plan that didn’t take the AFFH requirement seriously. This led to Santa Monica becoming Ground Zero for Builder’s Remedy projects. Now that Santa Monica has an approved Housing Element, no matter who is elected to council it is unlikely that any zoning changes will be made other than those required by it.
I suppose the people distributing the SB10 flyers could have ignored SB10 and without reference to specific legislation simply generically mongered fear about what the United Santa Monica slate candidates might do to single-family neighborhoods. But they wouldn’t have been able to cite an immediate threat. Ever since Sen. Scott Wiener proposed SB10, the law has been a lightning rod for anti-housing panic. People should read the law and realize how limited it is.
There is the adage attributed to Georges Clemenceau that generals are always fighting the last war. In this case, we have some people in Santa Monica who keep fighting a war that’s over, the development war that so consumed Santa Monica politics for 30 years. The war is over because the state, reacting to California’s housing crisis, has taken over land use planning when it comes to housing.
The expanded legality of ADUs under state law, as well as SB9, have already upzoned urban R1 districts to some extent. While SB10 does not apply to Santa Monica, SB1123, which the governor recently signed into law, does. The new law, among other things, allows development of up to 10 units (plus ADUs) on vacant lots in single-family zones. Because it’s a state law, there is nothing the Santa Monica City Council has to say about it.
Yet, changes under all these laws are slow and incremental. No R1 neighborhoods, nor anyone’s “quality of life”, nor, for that matter, property values, have been destroyed. (Speaking as someone who lives in the delightful, very much housing heterogenous neighborhood of Ocean Park, my prediction is that in 20 or 30 years when traditional R1 neighborhoods have more of a mixture of housing types, residents then will be quite happy with where they live. Let’s plan for them.)
You may wonder: why did the state taken over land use planning (when it comes to housing)? Because cities like Santa Monica up and down the coast, and inland too, for so long blocked reasonable growth in the housing supply.
There has always been a dance between local and national politics, a dance that can appear to take place in a maze of funhouse mirrors. That’s how Santa Monica politics in 2024 look to me. The electorate here is much different from that of the nation, but to a great extent I can’t differentiate between what I’m seeing on the local candidate mailers and the political commercials interrupting the baseball playoffs and the analysis that the national commentariat is producing.
Let’s begin with realignment. Nationally realignment of the political parties has been underway since the “Reagan Democrats,” but it accelerated when Donald Trump came down the escalator. In Santa Monica, realignment came abruptly with the 2020 City Council election, picked up steam in 2022, and this year was fully realized.
Realignment in Santa Monica means that the anti-development side, epitomized by Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC), is no longer allied with its previous great benefactor, Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR). SMRR enabled candidates supported by SMCLC, such as Kevin McKeown and Sue Himmelrich, to get elected to City Council. But now after realignment, SMCLC has joined with business groups supporting candidates under the “Safer Santa Monica” banner (namely, incumbents Phil Brock and Oscar de la Torre, and newcomers John Putnam and Vivian Roknian) against the SMRR-backed candidates.
As a longtime participant in and observer of Santa Monica politics, the most, may I say, amusing manifestation of this break between SMRR and the anti-development crowd has been the dispute between McKeown, still a SMRR-loyalist, and SMCLC over the question about who is responsible for the housing development that’s coming to Santa Monica after the Change Slate-controlled City Council failed to file a compliant Housing Element. After McKeown wrote a letter to the Lookout blaming Changer Slaters Brock and De la Torre, Diana Gordon responded with one slamming McKeown. Breaking up is hard to do.
Meanwhile SMRR has formed an alliance with traditional liberal/progressive groups (the Santa Monica Democratic Club, Santa Monica Forward, Unite HERE Local 11, and Community for Excellent Public Schools) to support a “United Slate” of Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Barry Snell, and Natalya Zernitskaya.
Much of the national realignment – the part where working-class whites joined with hedge fund billionaires and military-adventurist neocons – never made sense to me, but there is a logic to the realignment in Santa Monica. Fundamentally, local politics changed when California largely took over planning for housing from cities. The development wars, which defined most of Santa Monica politics for 35 years, are over, or at least no longer have any reason for being (regardless of any residual rhetoric). There is nothing SMCLC can do now to stop housing development in Santa Monica, and they know it.
It is logical that a realignment occurs after fundamental issues change. What is uncanny to me is how Santa Monica’s quintessentially local, fine-grained, often personality-based politics reflect, even through a funhouse mirror, the national zeitgeist. I want to be clear that I am not saying that anyone running for City Council this year is a Trump supporter; so far as I can tell, all the candidates are Democrats who stress their Democratic credentials and support Kamala Harris. But consider these parallels when it comes to the rhetoric, if not the issues, of this election.
Crime and crisis. From the very name of the slate Brock and De la Torre put together after their former Change Slate running mate Christine Parra decided not to run for reelection, the “Safer Santa Monica” slate, you know that they are simultaneously feeding on and stoking the public’s fear of crime and disorder. In Santa Monica this includes feeding frustration about homelessness and stoking anxiety that Santa Monica is a failed city — much as Donald Trump describes every city north of Richmond or west of Ft. Worth.
(Side note: since the Change Slate has more or less had majority control of the City Council since McKeown quit the council in 2021, to be replaced by Change Slate-adjacent Lana Negrete, Brock and De la Torre might have thought that continuing with “Change Slate” would have caused confusion. Better to play the crime card and blame someone else. “Safer Santa Monica” indeed. Meanwhile, you can’t live in today’s zeitgeist without someone invoking “take back the city” rhetoric.)
Yes, there is crime in Santa Monica. There always has been crime – Santa Monica has every characteristic, good and bad, of American cities. Crime is significantly less frequent now than it was in 2019, but has steadily (but slightly) increased since the pandemic. Coincidentally that increase occurred during the years the Change Slate has been in control, but I am not blaming them. Honestly, the City Council has little to do with how much crime there is Santa Monica. Fortunately crime is rare enough here that when there is a violent act, it is still newsworthy, which of course is what sticks in one’s mind. Think of how Trump reduces the complex issue of immigration to isolated cases of violence perpetrated by immigrants.
But is Santa Monica a hellscape like the Safer Santa Monica candidates and their supporters would have us believe? I don’t think so.
Folks enjoying themselves on the Promenade on a recent night.
In at least one important respect Santa Monica is safer now. It wasn’t that long ago – I wonder if Oscar de la Torre ever reflects on this – that there were gang shootings here every year. In those days De la Torre believed in using social services, as opposed to heavy-handed policing, to end gang violence. He and the police union were foes. I remember that time well: I almost didn’t receive the union’s endorsement when I ran for City Council in 2014 because of a column I’d written in support of De la Torre when the police were investigating him in 2010. Now – talk about realignment – the police union has endorsed De la Torre and he is running on a law and order platform.
Homelessness is the shame of California, of our “civilization.” However, is it worse in Santa Monica because Santa Monica has been a leader in creating programs and, to some extent, in building supportive housing, to address homelessness? Absolutely not. Do the Safer Santa Monica people ever cross the border into Los Angeles? Where encampments are all over the place? We don’t have them in Santa Monica. Why? Because as I understand it, the Grants Pass Ninth Circuit case did not affect us, because we could offer shelter to unhoused people who would try to camp on our streets.
Does tougher policing reduce homelessness? The police in Santa Monica arrested twice as many unhoused people in 2023 (1840) as they did in 2021 (981); have you noticed any impact? Both crime and homelessness are societal problems that can only be solved with social change. Reactionary sloganeering will not generate beneficial change.
Young people on a recent night enjoying life on Main Street
As for the economy, sure, there are empty storefronts on the Promenade. Much of Santa Monica’s economy is based on hospitality and retail, sectors that the pandemic hit hard. Retail here and around the country is reeling from the disruption of e-commerce.
However, today Santa Monica is a magnet for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Look at all the cranes around town, with more on the way. Large apartment buildings, now permitted under state law, are planned or under construction. Google is bringing one of its first brick and mortar stores, and the first in the L.A. area, to the Promenade.
One of the first Google stores in the world coming to the corner of Broadway and the Promenade.
One of our major Ocean Avenue hotels has been undergoing a huge upgrade, and another, the Miramar, received its final approval for its complete upgrade Monday night at the Landmarks Commission.
Workers putting finishing touches on the renovations at what will now be the Regent Hotel on Ocean Avenue.
Failed cities don’t attract investments like these.
And Cirque du Soleil is coming back to the beach.
Governmental competency. Switching over to an argument from the other side, the “United Slate” candidates charge that Brock and De la Torre, and their “Change Slate” colleague from 2020, Christine Parra, are not serious when it comes to governing; that they come to council meetings unprepared, not having read the staff reports, and waste everyone’s time in meetings that go on to the wee hours. Unfortunately, this is true. City Council meetings have become a mess. Instead of legislating, the Change Slate councilmembers like to grandstand, bringing to the vote hot button issues that the council has no power to act on, like distribution of clean needles. The obvious parallel is to the current Republican-controlled (meaning “controlled-chaos”) and unproductive House of Representatives.
The ”Deep State”/the “Establishment.” The MAGA universe uses the “Deep State” the same way it attacks journalism as “fake news.” There is a parallel in Santa Monica when the Change Slate candidates, now running under Safer Santa Monica, and their supporters like SMCLC refer to the United Slate candidates as the “Establishment.” This is consistent with decades of attacks on city staff from the anti-development side of Santa Monica politics. Experts are to be distrusted; only the wisdom of an imaginary consensus of “residents” counts (even if real residents consistently vote contrary to how the imaginary residents are supposed to vote).
I get it that since SMRR-endorsed candidates have usually had a majority on City Council for the past 45 years, and since during that time these majorities have molded City government to reflect a set of (liberal) values, that it is tempting to call SMRR and anyone it supports, or even other groups representing local institutions, like the School District, as the establishment. Sure, go ahead.
But using “establishment” as a political pejorative in 2024 in Santa Monica misses the point; doing so ignores who the candidates are. The candidates running this year with the endorsement of SMRR – Hall, Raskin, Snell and Zernitskaya – are insurgents within SMRR. They don’t consider themselves part of any establishment.
Other than Snell, who has served as an elected School Board and College official for years, the three other candidates are all a generation (or two?) younger than the leadership of SMRR. The four candidates could only get the SMRR endorsement after the collapse of the SMRR alliance with SMCLC and other anti-housing types, which effectively controlled the City Council for most years since the early 1990s. (The collapse was complete two years ago, when SMRR endorsed Jesse Zwick, Caroline Torosis, and Raskin.)
As younger Santa Monicans, the 2022 SMRR candidates and the candidates this year are running “post-development wars.” They take the need for more housing as a given, since they and their generational cohort need more housing options. They are in sync with the national zeitgeist on that, too: Kamala Harris has made building three million homes a major plank in her platform. These candidates represent a new generation of liberals, with high ideals about making Santa Monica work better for everyone.
I guess you know for whom I am voting: Hall, Raskin, Snell and Zernitskaya.
However, let me conclude on a less confrontational note. Sure, there is overheated rhetoric in this election – again, matching the national zeitgeist. But as Kamala Harris might say if she lived in Santa Monica rather than in Brentwood, we Santa Monicans have more in common with each other than we have differences. Santa Monica voters are going to vote overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. There is a lot of “narcissism of small differences” going around. As someone who has been involved for more than a decade in turning Santa Monica Airport into a great park, it is good to know that all the candidates running in the two slates support closing the airport and building the park. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to complete the current survey on the future of the airport land. It’s accessible here, and needs to be completed by Sunday the 20th. Be advised that the survey is a little complicated, but give yourself 15 or 20 minutes and you will be able to get through it.
The Healthy City Local 