March 25, 2023 Breaking News, Latest News, and Videos

Column: State Usurping Key Powers From Cities

By Tom Elias

All over California last fall, hundreds of the civic minded spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars running for posts on city councils and county boards.

Some of them may now be wondering why they bothered. For over the last three years, state government has gradually usurped almost full jurisdiction over one of the key powers always previously held by locally elected officials: The ability to decide what their city or county will look like and feel like over the next few decades.

That’s done via land use decisions which control how many housing units and commercial sites can be built up in a given time.

Via a series of laws mandating new levels of density everywhere in the state, whether or not they are needed and justified, this key local power now belongs to largely anonymous state officials who know little or nothing about most places whose future they are deciding.

It’s being done through the elimination of single-family, or R-1, zoning. It’s being done via the new requirement that the state Department of Housing and Community Development approve housing elements for every locality. If HCD does not approve such a plan for a city, developers can target it with virtually no limits, if they choose.

It’s all based on a supposed need for at least 1.8 million new housing units touted by HCD. This, despite the fact that the state auditor last spring found that HCD did not properly vet the documents and other instruments on which that estimate was based.

What’s more, only three years earlier, HCD was claiming more than 3.5 million new units were needed. Less than one-eighth that many have risen, yet HCD has cut its need estimate considerably.

And yet… cities and counties must do what they’re told by this demonstrably incompetent agency, or risk lawsuits and big losses in state grants for everything from sewers and road maintenance to police and fire departments. State Attorney General Rob Bonta even set up a new unit in his Justice Department to threaten and pursue noncompliant cities.

This leads localities to approve developments in ways they never did before, including some administrative approvals without so much as the possibility of a public hearing.

It leads to the absurd, as with Atherton trying to get state approval of a plan forcing almost all local homeowners to create “additional dwelling units” on the one-acre lots long required in the city. That’s instead of building almost 400 townhouses or apartments in a town of barely 7,000 persons.

And in Santa Monica, because the city council did not get its housing element approved, developers can probably not be stopped as they make plans for at least 12 large new buildings. So much for bucolic seaside living.

Santa Monica is also an example of a city buckling to state pressure to allow huge projects opposed by most of its citizens, a majority of whom are renters. That city has done nothing to stop or alter the largest development in its history, to be built on a property at a major intersection now occupied by a grocery and several other stores.

Despite heavy community interest, evidenced by the more than 2,000 persons on a Zoom call about the project last winter, the city will hold no public hearings and does not respond to most written communications from its citizens about the development. All because it fears the state will sue if it objects.

Several cities have begun to fight parts of today’s state domination of land use. Four Los Angeles County cities – Redondo Beach, Torrance, Carson and Whittier – are seeking a court order negating the 2021 Senate Bill 9, which allows single family homes to be replaced by as many as six units, with cities unable to nix any such project.

As city councils and county boards see their constituents objecting loudly to much of this scene, it’s inevitable that other lawsuits will follow. No one can predict whether or not courts will find the state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom have vastly overreached in their power grab, which is all for the sake of increased density and based on unfounded predictions by bureaucrats who answer to no one.

Related Posts

SMa.r.t. Column: Going Bare

March 20, 2023

March 20, 2023

(part 3 of 3 articles) Every City faces periodic interruptions to its normal life. Some interruptions in our City are...

Santa Monica Mall Owner, Macerich, Finds Way Out of Retail Property Crisis

March 19, 2023

March 19, 2023

Move comes amidst a crisis for retail property owners, with loans coming due for refinancing with much higher interest rates...

Historic Santa Monica Property “The Witbeck House” Listed for Sale at $22.5M

March 19, 2023

March 19, 2023

Greene & Greene-designed home features 26,000+ square foot lot with five bedroom home A historic property known as The Witbeck...

New Affordable Housing Complex Completed in Santa Monica’s Pico Neighborhood

March 18, 2023

March 18, 2023

Las Flores offers 73 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments at 1834-1848 14th Street By Sam Catanzaro Community Corp. of Santa...

Column: SB 9 Ended R-1 Zoning, but It’s Not Meeting Goals

March 11, 2023

March 11, 2023

By Tom Elias More than a year after it took effect, the landmark housing density law known as SB 9...

SMa.r.t. Column: The Urgency to Retrofit Earthquake-Deficient Buildings, Part II

March 10, 2023

March 10, 2023

Santa Monica’s earthquake-retrofit laws are being bypassed by some building owners, and the city may have trouble enforcing those ordinances...

Scooter Braun Buys Nearly Century-Old Oceanside Building in Santa Monica for $25.9 Million

March 10, 2023

March 10, 2023

Music entrepreneur buys 1927 four-story brick building at 3355 Barnard Way By Dolores Quintana Scooter Braun, a talent manager and...

Santa Monica Planning Commission Approves Eight-Story Hotel Development on Colorado Avenue

March 10, 2023

March 10, 2023

Hotel would bring 74 rooms to 516 Colorado Avenue A new hotel development has received clearance from the Santa Monica...

Santa Monica Canyon Home Designed by Case Study Architect Listed for $10.5M

March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

Home originally designed by Case Study architect Thornton M. Abell  By Dolores Quintana A Santa Monica Canyon home originally designed...

New Office Complex Underway at Former Santa Monica Tow Yard Site

March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

1650 Euclid Street development from Redcar Properties will include three stories of office space A new office complex is set...

SMa.r.t. Column: The Urgency to Retrofit Earthquake-Deficient Buildings

March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

Recent early-morning tremors off the Malibu coast, and the huge and terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria have made us...

Kath’s Oscar Forecast 2023 Part One

March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

FILM REVIEWKATH’S OSCAR FORECAST 2023 PART ONE95th Academy Awards March 12th at 5:00PM on ABC In this column and the...

Brookfield Corp Defaults on $784M Worth of Loans for Two LA Towers

March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

Brookfield fails to pay a $465 million loan package for the Gas Company Tower at 555 W. 5th St. and...

SMa.r.t. Column: ​​Reinforcing the Future – A Revisit

February 27, 2023

February 27, 2023

Six years go we discussed, in these pages, the city’s then-renewed earthquake-retrofit rules. At the time we argued that the...

Connie Britton and David E. Windsor Win Bidding War for $5.6M Santa Monica Home

February 26, 2023

February 26, 2023

Couple plays $600,000 over the asking price for custom-built home Actress Connie Britton, of White Lotus, Nashville, Friday Night Lights...