Working the Late Shift
By Frank J. Gruber
If you have any inclination to have sympathy for the City Council because
last week it had to hear three-dozen members of the public speak and
then deliberate past midnight over whether to make permanent an exemption
from discretionary development review for certain affordable housing
development, stifle that inclination.
The Council voted 5-2 (with Robert Holbrook and Bobby Shriver in the
minority) to make permanent what had been a temporary exemption from
discretionary review for affordable apartment buildings of up to 50
units in multi-family residential and certain other commercial districts.
It was the Council's own fault it was up so late and had no time to
deliberate other important issues, or at least it was the fault of those
members who were on the Council five or so years ago and who voted to
lower the development review thresholds around the city and downtown
to 7,500 square feet.
Based on a thin factual record but on a lot of angst from Santa Monicans
Fearful of Change (SMFC's), the Council decided to substitute one theory
of democracy for another -- to eliminate the relative certainty of the
rule of law in favor of the small-d democracy of squeaky wheel government.
You see, for about two decades the City, through extensive public process
culminating in numerous City Council votes, had rewritten Santa Monica's
zoning code. For the most part, this was a down-zoning from earlier
zoning that had been too lenient. Over a few iterations, standards evolved
that make a lot of sense for Santa Monica.
But then what do you know -- the recession of the 90s ends and people
actually start to build -- within the standards. No-growthers, who thought
they had put an end to development with the down-zoning, go crazy.
Partly for reasons of state and federal law and partly because there
is only so far the City Council will go substantively, the no-growthers
couldn't get substantial changes to the new zoning (although they can
nip at the edges continually with various design limitations and such),
so they took a new tack: they would make nearly every development in
the city subject to discretionary review.
Council Members Kevin McKeown and Ken Genser -- who don't mind staying
up late and who like to get to vote on anything of significance that
happens in the city -- led the charge to lower the threshold. Mr. McKeown
said at the time that he was motivated to act because the Whole Foods
on Wilshire, at just less than 30,000 square feet, qualified for administrative
approval.
That Whole Foods is one of the most popular new businesses in Santa
Monica. Do you think the 1999-2003 Planning Commission (think Kelly
Olsen, Geraldine Moyle and Arlene Hopkins) would have approved it if
it had been subject to the Commission's kind ministrations?
But then that's Santa Monica; some residents -- apparently the ones
City Council Members bump into in coffee shops -- thunder against development
and change, but then we sure love our Whole Foods and Urth Café,
don't we?
Can you imagine any candidate in Santa Monica running on an anti-Whole
Foods platform? But that's what lowering the development review threshold
means, because as a practical matter, discretionary development review
means that many people will not attempt to build in Santa Monica, because
of the uncertainty and the cost of additional (and unnecessary) environmental
review.
Remember how Trader Joe's gave up on the 12th & Wilshire site?
In any case, Council Members Genser and McKeown were able to convince
the other two members of the anti-growth majority on the Council at
the time -- Richard Bloom and then Council Member Michael Feinstein
-- also to vote to lower the development review thresholds.
To give credit to Messrs. Bloom and Feinstein, they struggled with
their decisions and, at least with respect to downtown Santa Monica,
insisted on the Council's commitment to make changes in the future that
would make the review process for developments downtown more transparent
and predictable. No-growth elements managed to scuttle most of those
changes a couple of years later, however, and some of the requested
changes -- such as making environmental review easier -- have never
come before the Council.
But to return to the main thread of this column, it turned out that
Messrs. Genser, McKeown, Bloom and Feinstein had another constituency
they had to deal with -- the builders of affordable housing and their
supporters. They, it turned out, were the developers most vulnerable
to the public review process -- not only because they built apartment
buildings, but also because they did so for poor people and their funding
was typically fragile and subject to deadlines.
What's more, as opposed to the no-growthers, who hadn't won an election
in Santa Monica since defeating the Michael McCarty hotel on the beach
(a cause that had appeal far beyond the no-growth community), the supporters
of affordable housing were a real constituency -- the voters had shown
their support for affordable housing not once, but twice -- with Prop.
R in 1990 and Prop. I in 1998.
And, not insignificantly, the housers were an important constituency
within Santa Monicans for Renters Rights. Although SMRR had been taken
over by the anti-growth elements during the 90s when it came to nominating
candidates for City Council, it hadn't lost all its progressive principles.
So the Council voted to exempt various affordable projects, including
100% affordable projects up to 50 units in multi-family districts, from
discretionary review. Which meant that the developments were still subject
to zoning restrictions and architectural review, but SMFC's could no
longer use anger and hysteria about "massive overdevelopment"
to prevent them from being built.
There was, however, plenty of anger and hysteria present at the meeting
last week. It's always good when Messrs. Genser, McKeown and Bloom,
those members of the Council who most often carry water for the no-growth
contingent, have an opportunity to feel their wrath, and have the illogical
arguments, ignorance of the facts, and general unpleasantness that characterizes
much if not most anti- testimony directed at them.
On the other hand, it's always good for any cause to have Mr. Genser
on its side.
I enjoyed the moment when Mr. Genser, usually a favorite of the SMFC's,
used his Mr. Spock-like powers of logic to point out that contrary to
the inflammatory rhetoric and flyers the anti's had spewed, granting
the exemption from development review would not change the zoning to
allow four-story 50-unit apartment buildings on residential streets.
It hurts, given his involvement with expanding discretionary review
in the first place, but I have to give Council Member Kevin McKeown
the "Profiles in Courage" award. That's because the SMFC group
that most fervently worked for his recent reelection, the Santa Monica
Coalition for a Livable City, sent its chair, Diana Gordon, to the meeting
to oppose the exemption, which she did -- also fervently.
Mr. McKeown, however, himself made the motion to make the exemption
permanent, which Council Member Herb Katz seconded.
Council Member Bobby Shriver gets the "on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand
award." It was a "tough one" for Mr. Shriver, who said
he supported affordable housing but made a Poli Sci argument that the
people needed to feel that they could take every issue directly to be
judged by their elected representatives. Unless the people could threaten
to withhold their votes from politicians, they could not expect relief.
While Mr. Shriver accurately described the in terrorem nature of the
typical public hearing in Santa Monica, his argument did not give much
encouragement to the majority of Santa Monicans who hope for reasoned
judgment from those they elect.
It was also an odd argument from a council member who complains that
the Council's meetings go on too long.
As often happens, it fell to Pam O'Connor, the council member who probably
speaks the least on the dais, to make the most trenchant point, which
was that the Council had to choose between standards that would apply
to everyone or an ad hoc system where everything was discretionary and
the Council would be meeting all the time.
Meanwhile, the Council will have to wait to a future meeting to discuss
the homeless report, and, among other important issues, the review of
the City's financial forecast and priorities for next year's budget
and discussion of a temporary office building east of City Hall.
But then, those are merely the mandatory tasks of a City Council -- not
the discretionary. |
