Re: Interim Zoning Ordinance Number 2394 CCS, City Council 8-14-12, Agenda Item 7-C

Regrets so late getting to this (Health matters, even for pets, trump most else…)

Most recently learned of this agenda item. Several comments for the record, if I may:

I thought Interim Ordinances could only be amended/extended for a year? [At which time, presumably, the reason for the temporary deferring of final action would by then be sorted out and more future-workable City code then set and put into practicable order?]

As important as this particular ordinance may be, this whole seeming trend to so regularly be using “interim” governance actions as these which carry problematic City matters forward seems equally so. On the 19-page SM Ordinance List [SM Municipal Code], looking just at the more recent-year codes [from among the 180+ 2211CCS series cited, to the present], I note 22 such “temporary” or “intermediate” intended “interim ordinance” actions.

Though such practice must certainly at times be a necessary way to deal with some City management matters, that kind of practice seems not at all a very elegant way to be applying foresight and good planning practice to keep on top of regulatory needs if a community is to be kept at optimal functioning efficiency and effectiveness is to be had in the handling of citizenry needs. It would seem better if that manner of deferring the clear and solid codifying of regulation, which I imagine may sometimes have time-sensitive impact on business/living-related actions, could be avoided whenever possible.

Akin to such thinking, and perhaps even more important, is the matter of how our City is overseen by the management guidance its General Plan affords for all. From the time I learned that our last City General Plan of 1984 hadn’t yet been fully updated—so we all here could have as solid a “mapping” of expected coming-decades circumstances on these bustling 8-square miles as possible—I’ve wondered just exactly what was stopping that update action from completing. Interestingly, in ~’04, when the next 20-Year City General Plan was supposedly to have already been set, crafting of the Land Use and Circulation Element, said to be 1 of 7 elements in the plan, was apparently begun [By mid-2010 it was adopted]. Late, I guess if the 20-year plan is to be renewed at all timely every 20 years, but at least progress toward that updating need…

Earlier this year, I learned that the City’s planning and zoning regulations [another element of the General Plan?], also not yet updated since ’84, is now in review/revision process. Hence, I guess the need still for some of these deferring “interim” ordinances about zoning considerations as time and needs change…
including the one up for possible extension this evening [8-14-12]:

At first read it seems to me, even if regulation might allow its extension, that this ordinance should NOT now be continued.

There are already some disquieting developments with the LUCE element, and with the seeming direction the zoning element update now may well be tending too. As others have said from various viewpoints, getting this General Plan update to the point it will then be a truly useful fresh, and comprehensive, planning tool is more the mandate; and one needing action on if such as this ordinance way of managing is to be handled more judiciously.

Regarding this ordinance in particular, it just feels {to me anyway} too much like a “quasi-eminent domain taking” action; too much of that quiet type of development/zoning dealing that seems to be finding more its way into considerations.

That kind of direction in City planning seems most destructive.

Ours is sometimes a town chock-a-block with people on its roadways and in its more populous sections. Not unlike a very-filled theater, a packed parking lot, or a too-popular climbing peak, etc.

Few would argue that when such spaces are filled to capacity there is little that can be done to accommodate more if sustaining the quality of the intended place usage, the integrity of the setting, and perhaps even the safety of its usage and users is to be maintained. Limits of use must then be set or all risk suffering in such circumstance; that “tragedy of the commons” made real if such need to set limit is not faced.

Somehow—and likely for several reasons—we in this City seem rarely to seek to have any serious conversation about such use limit-setting needs for our Cityscape. Such denial of need will likely eventually have serious consequence.

With this particular Interim Ordinance, as I read but these few pages in this City Council Report, that kind of rationalizing, word-spinning, “we can still make it work” kind of unsubstantiated justifying seems certainly at play. If of cynical bent, one might think money was the key element in this sought extension of extra land-use provisioning now.

As I recall, it has been well said in several ways at a number of our City meetings along essentially this line: “Santa Monica has some important decisions to make about space usage ahead if our City is to keep its history, livability, and very spirit in tact.”

As noted in the Staff Report for this item, “Auto dealers are an important component of the City’s economy”. But so too is much else in its various neighborhoods of economic and other importance. And, even as important as its economy, is the expectation its residents have for the type of living experiences they hope to have here. As well, serving both the economy and the expectations of visitors who come here, the very “how this City looks and feels” in what it offers socially and naturally is also of great import.

By codifying right (with extension of this ordinance), even temporarily, for businesses to exceed what was earlier judged reasonable space usage to accord neighbor needs, a dangerous pattern, a back-room “taking” precedent in effect, is being further established.
The more such circumstance entrenches the harder it becomes to “un-ring that encroaching bell”.

There is sometimes reasonable need for government to manage land use via employment of its eminent-domain power, but this, even in such a non-stated way, does not seem such a case.

At some point, whether by the guidance of our leaders, departments, staff and all under their own steam, or—perhaps more doable—in concert with thoughtful-enough dialoguing with the nearly 100,000 of us now living here, some serious discussion of how Santa Monica is going to further(?) constrain the uses to which these few square miles are put will likely need to occur.

With some more attention to such “limits” matters, perhaps handling of Interim Ordinances such as this one (and the significant number of others?) might then be made easier to tackle.

With what seems {to me anyway} to be soon enough coming our way in returning pains—economic, political, and especially environmental—perhaps attention to that “limits” aspect of planning for our future here should be sooner than later?

David Latham