The Residents Initiative to Fight Traffic (RIFT), an initiative that would place an annual limit of 75,000 square feet on new commercial development in Santa Monica for the next 15 years, gathered enough signatures to get a place on the November 2008 ballot, the campaign announced.
Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC), which is sponsoring the initiative, reported that they collected 10,295 signatures – nearly twice the 5,800 required (10 percent of the registered voters) – and presented the signatures to the City Clerk’s office on Wednesday, April 23.
The proposed initiative would exempt schools, hospitals, religious buildings, and “other community-serving development” from the 75,000-sqare-foot limit, according to SMCLC, which says that the purpose of the initiative is to “fight overdevelopment and traffic congestion in Santa Monica.”
Critics of the initiative have argued that the inflexible limit is unreasonable, particularly at this time when the Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) of the City plan is nearing completion.
