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“Builder’s remedy” ingites housing boom in Santa Monica, other cities are next?
Developers capitalize on Housing Element fiasco to force 3,968 undeniable units into the city’s pipeline
https://smdp.com/2022/10/12/new-15-s...using-element/ https://i0.wp.com/smdp.com/wp-conten...00%2C458&ssl=1 Quote:
https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco...ancisco/'/ Quote:
Interactive map for projects - https://public.flourish.studio/visua...ation/11457288. |
A new way to look at this, given the framing from a quote above: California is forcing its municipalities to be Houston under certain circumstances. I love that this is actually working, and it is a shame that Texas will never do the same thing because California did it. Maybe it is possible to convince conservatives that this is financially responsible, allows developers to make more money where they want, and they can even stick it to the cities in the process. Anyone down to troll Republican State Reps down in Texas?
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Well-deserved.
A little scheudenfreude for a NIMBY city that presented a half-assed unrealistic plan to the state and got it’s ass handed back to them. I forgot where I read this recently, but apparently at a city council meeting, one of the members wanted to complain about the builder’s remedy and all the other members quickly hushed him up, so as not let the word spread and make the disaster of a situation even worse. :haha: This is a city that’s been successful at keeing the city from growing, adding only 4000 units of housing since 1970! And they reluctantly got about that many approvals from this single event. |
Four more 12-story projects en route due to Housing Element snafu
https://smdp.com/2022/10/19/four-mor...element-snafu/ Quote:
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well thats pretty crazy. lol.
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Massachusetts needs some of what Cali is having. Healey take note!!
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Looks like Ontario is about to pull the same move as California with the province forcing municipalities hands on development, even if not with the same mechanisms as California. Details will apparently be out next week.
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From what I have been hearing and dealing with, "affordable" housing isn't all that affordable. And it's not just building more units. You have to build infrastructure that can sustain more population density. And that requires building less freeways and more cycling paths and public transportation within proportion.
A single family home in California will always be expensive and out of the reach of all but the upper third of middle class workers and above. Even if you could build enough SFHs to ensure that the total average cost will be closer to the national average, it would add heavily to existing traffic and decreased quality of life. Now, I'm glad stuff is getting forced down the pipeline finally, but this isn't the full solution and I believe this will only make things worse with NIMBYs. No need to build extra housing everywhere, especially in towns and cities with car centric infrastructure. If you build close to areas along transit lines that have a ton of underutilized land ( ex. massive parking lots in park and ride stations, power centers, shopping malls, and strip malls, among others) , you would invigorate the cores of many places and avoid having to contend with residents in established wealthy enclaves who will shit on any project that may affect their property values. And, again, more missing middle housing so that people have more options between an overpriced old 3 bedroom house and an expensive new apartment unit. California, as well as the rest of the country, needs to overcome its suburban car culture, at least when it comes to combating against many of the issues it faces today. All of this shit is connected: housing unaffordability, homelessness, traffic. There's no one shot solution, but there is a lot of different things that must be done overtime to at least make things better for average working class Americans at baseline. |
As long as they're not putting up a bunch of cheap looking condo towers on the beach :cheers:.
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Agreed. Those are not pleasant to walk around. Mixed use mid rises are much better. 15-20 stories is fine.
I don't know why people think drab 30 story buildings are better just for a skyline. Doesn't help at street level. |
https://www.santamonica.gov/builders-remedy
You can check out all of the projects here, some of them look the same funnily enough. There are about 4,260 units proposed and of those there are 880 affordable units. The tallest of which is 18 floors. ------- However, that's all in the past now as the city of Santa Monica has agreed with WS communities (the developer who proposed a dozen or so builders remedy projects) https://www.santamonica.gov/blog/san...its-affiliates "The Settlement Agreement contemplates WS’s suspension of the 13 Builder’s Remedy applications. While these applications are suspended, WS may refile 13 new applications for projects with heights and floor area ratios (FARs) that comply with the City’s Zoning Code, which would allow them to be reviewed administratively by the City’s Planning staff to ensure code compliance. The City has the option to adopt an ordinance granting additional local incentives that would allow the following: 1. a 15% inclusionary requirement for the development of off-site affordable housing units, giving the owners more flexibility to pool off-site affordable housing units into one 100% affordable housing project to satisfy off-site inclusionary requirements for multiple market-rate projects, 2. the grant of state density bonus waivers and concessions for the market rate projects as if the off-site units were provided on-site, and 3. an increase in the Downtown Community Plan maximum parking requirement from 0.5 to 1.0 spaces per unit." The only development not subject to the agreement is 1433 Euclid St. https://i.imgur.com/tQ8MB2m.png https://la.urbanize.city/sites/defau...?itok=YiprwIBy In the agreement to drop multiple affordable and market rate units, they will drop litigation against each other regarding SM's leading ordinance and a violation of tenant protection legislation. https://la.urbanize.city/post/santa-...emedy-projects A powerpoint details the agreement. In conclusion, 8 projects would conform to code. 3030 Nebaska Ave would be code conforming projects with <1 acre lots. 3 projects will be withdrawn without a refiling. Of those 3 that are now gone are: https://i.imgur.com/j3X1RaX.png With the projects now subject to current FAR, they are allowed to also be subject to additonal density via the State Density Bonus Law. Here is a chart of the potential lost units via the agreement (Via: Oren on Urbannize): https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images...21b389e8d3.png So in total, around 1k units will be lost but 3k can still remain under density bonus laws. With 3 of the 13 also being removed. Other cities are following the same trends by finding agreements with developers. The opportunity to utilize Builders Remedy is also pretty much up. The chance for tall buildings may not come in SM ever, which may not be a bad thing depending on your view. |
Santa monica doesn't necessarily need tall buildings.
Downtown is very busy as is, it just needs to keep adding 6 -8 story mixed use buildings and push the central area out past 10 street or whatever. |
You are using the wrong number. 809 affordable units, though I wonder if that follows the actual definition of the word. 3896 market rate? Yeah so out of reach of most.
Where is the middle? |
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