By Jorge Casuso
March 3, 2025 -- The City Council last Tuesday paved the way for large-scale affordable housing projects by declaring three City-owned sites as "surplus land" to meet its State-mandated housing quota.
The Bergamot Station Arts Center, 4th/5th/Arizona and Downtown Parking Structure 1 are the last of five City owned sites designated as "surplus land" to build 1,880 affordable units.
The City will issue Notices of Availability (NOAs) for the three properties with NOA's for the two Downtown sites issued by June 30 to comply with the Housing Element approved by the State.
The NOA for the 5-acre Bergamot site -- would accommodate 707 affordable units -- "will follow as closely as staff capacity allows," according to Heather Averick, the City's director of Housing and Human Services.
On Tuesday, the Council decided to release a Request for Proposals (RFPs) for each site and "determined that rather than wait two years between the release, staff should proceed" with the three sites "as soon as possible," Averick said.
The move comes two months after the Council voted to enter into agreements to build 130 affordable units on two City-owned sites near the UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center ("Revised Affordable Housing Development Moves Forward," December 19, 2024).
The Council will hold off moving forward with the fifth surplus land site that combines three Main Street parking lots "due to the complexity of the site, the large amount of residences committed, and additional due diligence needed before moving forward," Averick said.
Santa Monica's Housing Element, which was certified by State housing officials in October 2023, lays out a plan to build 6,168 affordable housing units by 2019.
A total of 331 affordable apartments would be built on prime Downtown real estate at the 4th/5th/Arizona site at 1301 and 1333 4th Street.
A plan to build a 357,000-square-foot mixed-use hotel development on the site was killed in December 2020 when a newly elected slow-growth Council pulled out after seven years of negotiations ('New Council Kills Plaza Project," December 15, 2020).
The sites are leased through the end of 2026 to Bank of America and Chase Bank, which want to remain "for as long as possible" and have leases that generate $2.5 million a year, staff noted in a report to the Council.
Staff also noted that city-owned Parking Structure 1 at 1234 4th Street will require a $14 million seismic retrofit in October 2027 and could be combined with 4th/5th/Arizona.
This would "create a larger parcel that would allow for more revenue-generating opportunities and community benefit opportunities in addition to affordable housing," Averick said.
The notices of Availability will emphasize that proposals for the three properties "should maximize affordable housing and revenue-generating opportunities."
The NOA for the Bergamot site -- which has five buildings leased to 30 galleries and other creative uses, and a restaurant -- should give preferences to relocate current tenants and give them the right to return, and provide commercial arts-serving uses.
"The city must enter into a 90-day negotiation process with each developer that responds to the NOA" and can "move forward with no additional RFP process," Averick said.
"If none of the proposals are acceptable to the city, the city would then begin a regular RFP process," she added. "Either scenario satisfies the requirements of the Housing Element."
