The City Council’s rejection of 301 Ocean Avenue as a landmark is reminiscent of another
bad Council call.
In February, 2004, the owner of Christie Court, garden apartments at 125 Pacific Avenue, applied for a demolition permit. As the apartments were over 40 years old, the proposed demolition had to be reviewed by the Landmarks Commission.
Christie Court tenants only learned of their landlord’s plans to destroy their apartments  when a Landmarks commissioner  visited the site.

Tenants (who paid between $683 and $1175 a month) attended the Commission meeting, asked for and were granted a continuation so they could  prepare a presentation. Their research posited that Christie Court was architecturally and historically significant and thus qualified for designation as a City landmark  and should be preserved, not demolished. The Commission  agreed.
The landlord appealed the landmark designation to the City Council, and the City joined
him in the appeal, presenting its own “experts.”
Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights (SMRR) has held a majority of seats on the  Council for
22 years, in large part because SMRR  has managed to convince residents  that without it “renters’ rights” and rent control would soon disappear, but, in landlord vs. tenant questions, SMRR
Council members almost always favor landlords.
The Christie Court tenants made a strong case for the preservation of  the garden apartments. The Commission’s ruling was sound. The  Council could have denied the landlord’s  appeal, approved the Landmarks decision, and preserved a historic structure, as well as 24 rent-controlled apartments.
But it chose not to do any of those things  and granted the landlord’s appeal.
Councilman Kevin McKeown was out of town. Ken Genser recused himself  as he was  employed by
Adam Moss, the landlord’s lawyer. Only two votes were needed to reject the
appeal. Bobby Shriver, an independent, voted against it, but Independents Herb Katz and  Bob Holbrook voted to grant the landlord’s appeal, as did SMRRs Richard Bloom and Pam O’Connor.
Speaking about the 81-year-old Mission-style Ocean Park complex, O’Connor, who sometimes bills  herself as a historic preservationist, said, “When you’re looking at a building, any building, it has some history behind it, It has to have a certain level of architectural integrity, and this one has been altered very much.”

Of the 25 Ocean Park bungalows assessed by a City consultant. only 10 were worthy ot landmark status, Moss said, and Christie Court was not one of the 10.
Landmarks Commissioner John Berley said the staff report, which favored the landlord, was “incomplete and incomprehensible” as it failed to “represent anything that went into the landmark decision. Without that, you are being asked to evaluate the actions of your Landmarks Commission in the abstract and, most certainly, without all the facts. ”
Commission Chair Roger Genser was also “very disappointed in the staff report” and a report by a City consultant that “didn’t respond to the commission’s points. Without that information it was ludicrous to think the  Council could make an informed decision. I was originally a skeptic,.. But the court’s density, design, location and cultural importance make it unique and fulfill three landmark criteria..,
This court is the soul of my neighborhood, and it represents the social interaction that is unique there.”

One resident called  Christie Court “the poster child for Santa Monica’s affordable housing movement.”
resident Michelle Katz asked,  “Do you think the history of the working people is important?”

The City staff report reserved its most scathing and most revealing criticism for the Landmarks Commission, accusing it of using “its power to halt development rather than as a means to protect and recognize the City’s cultural heritage… a significant policy choice and a departure from widely accepted standards.” Like the SMRR Council majority, the City staff has rarely seen a development it didn’t
like, and those “widely accepted standards” are exclusively monetary.
In fact, if the Planning Commission, Architectural Review Board, SMRR Council majority and
City staff were as scrupulous  as the Landmarks Commission, Santa Monica would be a far
happier town.

The landlord and two other people were killed in a plane crash in 2007. Christie
Court has been demolished (see photo 12/09). Condominiums designed by SMRR stalwart Ralph Mechur will rise on the site, and another chapter of our history will be lost.

note: quotes from SURF SANTA MONICA story.