Admit it. You probably think Zoning is pretty dull. And I feel your pain, because it is. But the Zoning Ordinance Update is also the most important decision facing our City Council right now and will change our city more than anything else over the next 15 years. The good news is I can tell you everything you need to know about it in the two minutes it takes to finish this article.
First of all, look around. Santa Monica IS special. We live in an urban paradise and our front yard is the Ocean. Most of us realize things may change a bit over time, but we love our city and don’t want politicians or developers or anyone else screwing it up. Ever.
Second, there is a BIG difference between residents and developers. You live here because you love it here. Developers are here to make money. Scorpions sting, tigers have stripes and developers always go where the money is. They’re already making a killing here and want to make even more by building more buildings wherever the City Council will let them. If you need proof, look around. See all the new buildings? Tired of gridlock on Wilshire? Those buildings and that traffic are the result of too many politicians allowing too many developers to build too many buildings too fast. They make the money. We pay the price.
The third thing you should know about zoning is a lot of concerned residents saw all this happening so they formed neighborhood groups like Wilmont and Residocracy to convince the City Council to put resident interests ahead of development interests. We don’t get paid like developers and their attorneys and PR people do, but we’re having an impact. For the first time in a long time, the majority of current Councilmembers seem to be listening more than past Councils did. They’ve already thrown out some of the really bad things from the Zoning Ordinance Update, like so-called ‘Activity Centers’, which are really just big developments that would draw a lot of traffic to neighborhoods. Most residents think tall buildings should stay Downtown, but developers want them pretty much everywhere, even far away from the Expo line.
The fourth thing about zoning is there are some really crafty people who PRETEND they want the same things as you do, but they don’t. They advocate for the same things developers want. They pretend to be socially progressive and say they support affordable housing, but they know the vast majority of the housing developers want to build would be expensive, market-rate housing, and NOT the kind that someone who actually needs affordable housing can afford. These same people also throw out wonderful words like sustainability, even though they know you can’t achieve sustainability by merely building taller, bigger and denser. Maybe they think we have plenty of water and not enough traffic or something. I don’t know. What I DO know is this group includes current and former City Council members and other local officials who support the SAME things developers do, which is more and denser development. In other words, they want what developers want.
Do YOU want what developers want? I doubt it.
Do developers care about you? No. They care about money.
Should you trust them and their friends? No.
I don’t. And neither should you.
What zoning all boils down to is this: The Council will either approve a Zoning Ordinance that makes most residents happy, or they’ll approve one that makes most developers happy.
That’s where you come in. When you’re done with this letter, write one of your own. Email it to every newspaper and send a copy to all seven Council members. Join a neighborhood group. Attend a Council meeting and tell the Council exactly how you feel and what YOU want. Developers and their friends pay people to tell the Council what THEY want every day. And a lot of what they want is still in the Zoning Ordinance.
It’s time to tell the Council what YOU want. Or, let developers and their minions do all the talking and let them shape our city for the next 15 years.
Zoning may be dull, but our city’s future depends on it.
Sincerely,
John C. Smith
First of all, look around. Santa Monica IS special. We live in an urban paradise and our front yard is the Ocean. Most of us realize things may change a bit over time, but we love our city and don’t want politicians or developers or anyone else screwing it up. Ever.
Second, there is a BIG difference between residents and developers. You live here because you love it here. Developers are here to make money. Scorpions sting, tigers have stripes and developers always go where the money is. They’re already making a killing here and want to make even more by building more buildings wherever the City Council will let them. If you need proof, look around. See all the new buildings? Tired of gridlock on Wilshire? Those buildings and that traffic are the result of too many politicians allowing too many developers to build too many buildings too fast. They make the money. We pay the price.
The third thing you should know about zoning is a lot of concerned residents saw all this happening so they formed neighborhood groups like Wilmont and Residocracy to convince the City Council to put resident interests ahead of development interests. We don’t get paid like developers and their attorneys and PR people do, but we’re having an impact. For the first time in a long time, the majority of current Councilmembers seem to be listening more than past Councils did. They’ve already thrown out some of the really bad things from the Zoning Ordinance Update, like so-called ‘Activity Centers’, which are really just big developments that would draw a lot of traffic to neighborhoods. Most residents think tall buildings should stay Downtown, but developers want them pretty much everywhere, even far away from the Expo line.
The fourth thing about zoning is there are some really crafty people who PRETEND they want the same things as you do, but they don’t. They advocate for the same things developers want. They pretend to be socially progressive and say they support affordable housing, but they know the vast majority of the housing developers want to build would be expensive, market-rate housing, and NOT the kind that someone who actually needs affordable housing can afford. These same people also throw out wonderful words like sustainability, even though they know you can’t achieve sustainability by merely building taller, bigger and denser. Maybe they think we have plenty of water and not enough traffic or something. I don’t know. What I DO know is this group includes current and former City Council members and other local officials who support the SAME things developers do, which is more and denser development. In other words, they want what developers want.
Do YOU want what developers want? I doubt it.
Do developers care about you? No. They care about money.
Should you trust them and their friends? No.
I don’t. And neither should you.
What zoning all boils down to is this: The Council will either approve a Zoning Ordinance that makes most residents happy, or they’ll approve one that makes most developers happy.
That’s where you come in. When you’re done with this letter, write one of your own. Email it to every newspaper and send a copy to all seven Council members. Join a neighborhood group. Attend a Council meeting and tell the Council exactly how you feel and what YOU want. Developers and their friends pay people to tell the Council what THEY want every day. And a lot of what they want is still in the Zoning Ordinance.
It’s time to tell the Council what YOU want. Or, let developers and their minions do all the talking and let them shape our city for the next 15 years.
Zoning may be dull, but our city’s future depends on it.
Sincerely,
John C. Smith
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