[202_Cyclist]

Getting back to development news, here's an email from someone I know who's visiting Santa Monica. There has been a bit of a spat on one of the neighborhood email listserves about the proposed development in Santa Monica without any off-street parking, as a similar project is proposed in Tenleytown here in DC. It would be 60 units without any parking. For rerference, Marilyn Simon is an obnoxious NIMBY.

" Well hello from Santa Monica, California.


Why, just the other day, I was down at the corner of Colorado and 4th, in downtown Santa Monica, where the infamous development without any parking was approved.


Let me respond to some of Marylin Simon's complaints:

(1) This project is located the "downtown core."

Santa Monica's Downtown Core is flatter and wider, but probably of the same density as Friendship Heights. It's almost certainly less dense than Clarendon, but the SFH areas don't start until much further out from the area of highest density.

(2) This project will have a density that is less than half what is being requested for the Babe's site, in spite of it being downtown and near transit.

Again, downtown is much smaller, but already there are 4-5 other developments happening nearby. Santa Monica is infilling and densifying.

(3) There are two municipal parking structures in the immediate area.

These parking structures do not provide long-term parking for residents. They are for tourists and people in transit-inaccessible areas, much like Bethesda's.

(4) It is located in the "City's Downtown Parking Assessment District," where off-street parking is not required providing the developer pays a fee.

(5) There will be 56 residential units, 48 studios and 8 one-bedroom units. The average size of the studio units is 360 square feet, and based on the sizes, 44 of the 56 units are considered "single room occupancy" units.

(6) The developer will be paying a transportation improvement contribution of $125,000 (in lieu of off-street parking) as well as a cultural arts fee of $84,510 and a childcare linkage fee of $52,799, and renting six affordable housing studio units, each with a rent that is $1,000 a month below the market rate, as required by the Santa Monica Municipal Code.

4 and 6 sound like something a PUD could take care of. 5 sounds like a misreading of the zoning code, and irrelevant."