Why Richard McKinnon?

By Richard McKinnon

I'm running to control development, protect neighborhoods, and to turn Santa Monica Deep Green.

As I door knock the neighborhoods, the first question people always ask as they open the door is, "What's up with all this development in the city?"

Today Santa Monica residents question why the city's business model is so driven by new buildings. The current thinking has been that the model should be "keep building," as well as generate revenue from fees, hotel taxes, and increased tourism.

But change and its subsequent problems--traffic, parking, and congestion--have happened so rapidly, the city and residents can't absorb it. With the pace of change now overwhelming residents, the dilemma is how to sustain progressive values across the City.

Therefore, the essential foundation of my platform is to control development.

Santa Monica is a living, breathing being that evolves over time. Evolving with this city--balancing it, sustaining it--is why I'm running for City Council.

My approach springs from a conviction that Santa Monica is perfectly livable without new buildings. We can't, nor do we want to, stop all building--replacement and adaptive reuse is necessary, new technologies and great design are useful--but every building, including its height and density (Floor Area Ration or FAR), must be justified, be done well, and be done responsibly.

The LUCE is structured to make this happen with Tiers 1 and 2 being predictable and known. It is Development Agreement (DA) land that is causing the major flashpoints.

I always start out being skeptical about the excessive claims developers make about every building and the alleged community benefits it will bring. Neighborhood amenities are a great idea; but in the Santa Monica context, big tall buildings are foolish. Justifying a building by promising community benefits is a negative, everyone loses, game.

The developer mindset is simple: "Let it all rip, baby, and bring on the bulldozers," followed by the ever-classic, "Let's knock over these old things, build it up, and build it high."

But when did the concept of risk disappear from the equation?

Real estate development is a risk business. While every developer wants to maximize the potential of their projects, neither the City of Santa Monica nor its residents owe developers an inalienable right to profit at resident expense. That's what's been happening as every developer has asked the City to give them enough entitlements to cover any potential risk. Hence every DA has become a battlefield of too big a building, too much height and FAR, too many small apartments, and not enough community benefit.

Santa Monica should be a low-level city that faces the beach with clear and limited building heights.
1. Ocean Avenue: As the premier boulevard in the city, Ocean Avenue must be protected from large-scale development. To protect the skyline, no new building should be above 54' (4 or 5 stories). An existing hotel wouldn't lose its current height, but wouldn't gain the right to add condos on their upper floors over the hotel. And overall, hotel projects shouldn't be a base for condominiums.
2. From Ocean Avenue to 4th Street (west), building heights should be low--approximately 47 feet.
3. Slightly more height could be allowed in the center of the City, towards the south, and around the train line (which is the sensible place to build whatever development does occur, such as apartments), but only as far as the old limit of 84 feet, or 7 stories. In detailed terms:

• The Gehry and Wyndham buildings: no higher than 54 feet.
• The Miramar: no higher than the existing hotel.
• At 4th and Arizona (owned by the City): no higher than 84 feet, including any hotel.
• At Bergamot: a low-scale development, with on-site parking and a support system for art.
• Any Wilshire Blvd. development: limited to 4 stories.
• The Light Rail corridor is the proper place to propose additional housing and higher density.
• On Lincoln Blvd.: no buildings to exceed 54 ft. and no auto dealerships built south of the I-10, as per the Land Use Circulation Element (LUCE). A Lincoln Avenue that is simply driven by market economics will become a faceless mish-mash of box stores and national chains rather than encouraging smaller, entrepreneurial, retail-oriented consumer shops.

The most fundamental concept to reject is that tall towers should be built along Ocean Avenue, including the proposed 300-foot towers.

Similarly, why are we cramming a huge 148-foot building onto a City lot (4th and Arizona)? Why are we entertaining any plan to build commercial office space that will worsen the imbalance between jobs and residents?

I repeatedly voted against the Hines project because its design, density and traffic impacts--largely a result of the commercial space--would have been deleterious to the welfare of city residents. To now take away the things that make our City unique--the light and air and relationship of the City to the ocean and beach--is to ruin our legacy.

TRAFFIC

We all know traffic and congestion are killing our quality of life. But traffic didn't get bad overnight. And City Hall appears to have given up.

Santa Monica hasn't even begun the multilevel effort necessary to tackle traffic. The City has paid lip-service to instituting programs to control commercial and company employment parking and traffic; it hasn't happened. The City also intended to encourage multimodal transit options and promote alternative transport, with similar non-results.

Santa Monica's resident population (80,000) swells 400% daily during the workweek. On summer weekends, a half million visitors per day is not uncommon. To these traffic deluges, add Santa Monicans who need to travel east. The result is ten lanes of expressway crawl, several times every day--an inevitable tide spilling into and back out of downtown, leaching into neighborhoods.

Dealing with the long neglect of traffic planning requires many individual City actions as part of a bold, overall policy strategy to cut the number of cars invading our neighborhood streets. Making transport links that ease circulation barriers for residents is essential.

Traffic mitigation begins with an effective transit system. Presently, Santa Monica has neither an efficient bus or shuttle service. We need to get people from the neighborhoods to the train or downtown. Here's how:
1. Most Big Blue Buses are too big; we need Small Blue Buses and a Circulator, or DASH system--small on/off coaches that grid the city and enable any resident in any neighborhood to easily reach downtown Santa Monica, the regional bus lines, and Light Rail, especially at peak morning and evening hours.
2. Every development project must have an enforceable Traffic Demand Management (TDM) attached.
3. Previous TDMs must be enforced.
4. High school students should be encouraged not to drive to school.
5. The city must make a major effort to encourage young, healthy people to bike (and obey the law).
6. Santa Monica must aim for zero tolerance of incidents involving cars, pedestrians or bikes. The result of too many accidents and injuries on our roads and sidewalks is a fear of walking and biking. There can be no compromise on public safety.

PARKING AND THE LIGHT RAIL IMPACT

Santa Monica has no rational parking policy. There is no such thing as free parking. Whether paid in land/condo prices, rental rates, or development projects (a parking space costs $58,000 to create), everyone pays to park. And we pay a human price when there isn't enough parking.

First, commercial enterprises must change their parking expectations and behavior. Commercial and retail operations must provide--i.e., pay for--employee parking, rather than pushing it into the neighborhoods. Businesses must provide patron parking by using shared parking alternatives with existing unused spaces. For the short-term, hospitals and hotels must provide parking for their employees as well as pay the parking fines of employees who illegally park in the neighborhoods. Looking out longer term, businesses must be financially encouraged (or penalized) until their employees use public transportation.

In 2013, as Planning Commissioner, I acted to: maintain the scale of Main Street and Montana; keep neighborhood parking; implement quick stay for quick errand parking; and crack down on the commercial and worker parking invading quiet streets. These actions are as relevant today.

The Light Rail is a game-changer, but stations have been designed without parking in the expectation that adjacent parking would encourage more traffic. This is contrary to common sense in Santa Monica and Southern California.

Urban theory argues that parking near train stations causes people to drive to a station; and without parking, the immediate area becomes denser and people walk--a positive development. While this concept could be applied immediately to Chicago or New York, it is because they have already established dense neighborhoods and significant transportation systems. Neither of these exists yet in Santa Monica.

Here, to use the Light Rail, citizens will have to get to it. Without an adequate transit system, most Santa Monica residents will not have an efficient method of accessing the Light Rail.

Light Rail stations at Bergamot, 17th Street, and the 4th Street terminus must accommodate some parking. Future use of parking areas can be revisited once there is sufficient transit service to all neighborhoods of the city. Otherwise, the Light Rail, which will drop off 400 people every five minutes on summer weekends, will not have a feasible way for Santa Monica residents to use it in both directions.

There are few absolutes in planning--every problem requires a solution through creativity and innovative thinking--but parking is needed by the Light Rail, initially to open it to most residents of Santa Monica who don't have access to the Big Blue Bus.

Similarly, whatever development happens in this city, the most intelligent place is near the train line.

SANTA MONICA AIRPORT

Closing the airport makes sense for these elemental reasons:

• What once was the main airport for Los Angeles is now a hobby facility and does not serve the vast majority of Santa Monica residents.
• Airports and air traffic create the pollution of fine particulates, posing a health hazard to residents.
• The runway is too short by one-third, especially for jets, creating a safety hazard.
• The City has lost money for the last two decades managing the airport.
• The noise level of jets is unbearable.

1. By 2015: a. Rents, charges, and landing fees need to be levied at commercial market rates. b. City subsidies need to be eliminated. c. The sale of leaded aviation fuel needs to stop.
2. In 2015, we can terminate the longstanding agreement and reclaim the western end of the airport to shorten the runaway and shrink flight operations.
3. When the airport is smaller, with reduced operations, the city should effect a final closure.
4. The resulting land should not be developed but become recreational and green-space activities, with current buildings adaptively reused and consideration given to a renewable energy resource for the City in the center of the property.

A GREEN CITY

Climate change is real. It affects us all. It's urgent. Hence we need to move. Fast.

We have the public support; rarely does anyone wonder what I mean by turning the City "Deep Green." They simply ask, "What do you want me to do?" People get this. What they need is leadership.

The City Council can set hard stretch targets and measurable goals across the board on every single area of conservation and renewable energy so that within five years Santa Monica becomes a leader in water conservation, renewable energy (i.e., solar panels), biomass fuel, wave generation, municipal energy self-sufficiency, and net zero waste.

Immediately, I would:

1. Set hard targets on putting solar on every possible roof.
2. Work on distributed and shared networks of power.
3. Require LEED Platinum standards in buildings.
4. Create financial incentives for adaptive reuse of buildings.

Santa Monica should be at the leading edge of environmental solutions to meet the challenge of climate change. Our residents expect it. We're not there yet today. We must act; the time is now.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Equity. When great wealth is created, social obligations follow. Social diversity produces stronger, sturdier cities. It is fair to allow everyone of all means to be part of our City. These are the ethics and principles that undergird all the policies I believe in and will enforce.

Circumstances ebb and flow throughout a person's life. To force out residents who have been here their entire lives because of inequitable housing values is unfair. Especially since much of the inequity occurs due to deliberate City public policy.

Santa Monica invests $500 million annually in city services. That investment makes the City a precious place that attracts new residents. It also attracts developers who want to profit from the City we have created. With greater public investment comes greater private investment. The price of real estate rises, and people get displaced. Rent control has been a mechanism for keeping affordable units, but the rent control stock is decreasing with attrition.

The population of Santa Monica has not changed markedly in two decades, but the social demographic is different. The city has lost older citizens, people with disabilities, and ethnic populations, all displaced by rising property values.

With a jobs imbalance--80,000 people live in Santa Monica while 250,000 work here--the daily commute creates the daily I-10 traffic jam. If police, teachers, fire personnel, and workers--particularly those in the service industry--have a place to live, you cut out that commute.

Affordable housing standards in Santa Monica would to people in what are considered middle-class jobs anywhere else in America (a $45,000 annual salary places Santa Monicans in the second category of our affordable housing--not extremely low, but low). In Santa Monica, affordable housing is middle-class housing.

Of the housing stock here, 73% are renters. As the price of real estate has been tugged upward, a whole layer of people has been removed. Though there is some stigma associated with affordable housing, in fact, these types of renters tend to be much more stable than market renters, especially those young entrants who can only afford small, single-room occupancy (SRO) units.

Since people in affordable housing typically have lower incomes, once they have been given an affordable unit, they stay a long time. The longer people live here, the more they are connected to the city, the more their children are educated, the more they vote. Socially, this diversity promotes tolerance. Diversity brings vitality that makes us all stronger and brings social strength to our City; we mustn't let it slip away.

Previously, three sources of funding created affordable housing: 1) redevelopment money, 2) private sector investment in affordable housing, and 3) community benefits of affordable housing. With the loss of the redevelopment agencies (RDA) funding for Community Corp., either the private sector builds small, terrible apartment in ugly large buildings that clutter downtown, or developers put up very large blocs that the City approves in return for 20% of the units being affordable. Neither is a good outcome.

As projects get bigger to the point of huge, we have reached the point where many residents are questioning affordable units. Even Santa Monica for Renters Rights (SMRR) is asking whether the model is working.

The essential--and tough--challenge is to secure capital for land acquisition and construction. A proposed Transfer Tax applied to houses over one million dollars--equal to $9,000 for each $1,000,000 of house value--would provide some capital. In effect, Santa Monica would be getting a return on the investment we put into the services that made the property values increase in the first place.

So I support this plan to provide some funding, yet know we have to create other investment vehicles. For example, Santa Monica could offer public pension funds stable returns to buy buildings and use deed restrictions for affordable housing.

Increasingly, as values of real estate soar here and rents become very high, affordable housing is the only alternative for our city teachers, police, and firefighters. It is important that everyone from all walks of life live in our City. Santa Monicans must never allow our City to become only a wealthy enclave; our diversity is sensible and defining.

CITY BUDGET AND SERVICES

Santa Monica is unique.

City Hall collects (taxes) and invests (spends) over half a billion dollars in our City annually. For 80,000 people, that's a lot of revenue and commitment. Much spending is directed toward public infrastructure such as roads, curbs, trees, and sidewalks, and a high level of public service is funded here including police, fire, and extensive schools support. Additionally, new infrastructure has been developed, such as Tongva Park and the Esplanade.

These services and our location make Santa Monica real estate immensely valuable and the public schools fantastic.

I would not support a tax increase for the general fund. We have to look at ways of increasing our efficiency as a Council. The city should run under a balanced budget. Through technology solutions, services can be streamlined, staffing rearranged, and personnel contained. Safety--fire and police--should reflect the needs our professional chiefs believe match city conditions.

ACTIVITY CENTERS AND "A" LOTS

I have never understood, or agreed with, the "activity center" concept along Wilshire Boulevard. Therefore, in the Planning Commission I moved to abandon the idea and have it removed from the LUCE. This recommendation will happen at Planning Commission level, but the City Council needs to implement it.

I also moved for the Planning Commission to change the designation of hundreds of residential lots from commercial back to residential ("A" lots) to ensure that there be no build-up of development along Wilshire. The City Council must amend the LUCE to reflect this change. Just as with activity centers, it is the City Council that must make the change. (Five "A" lots do exist that were exempt. Part of Pavilions grocery store at Lincoln and Montana is an "A" lot and should remain commercial. If designated residential, a future condo or apartment development would eliminate an important neighborhood market. Another "A" Lot is too close to a freeway to justify residential building.)

I have consistently argued that what building does take place in our City should be around the Expo train stations where we have the infrastructure to handle the pressure; these locations will keep development away from current residential areas.

HOMELESSNESS

Santa Monica must be part of a regional solution to homelessness. City funds must be earmarked for contribution to funding for mental illness, housing, and job training for the homeless. Homelessness is a solvable problem that we need to start to solve.

FUTURE THOUGHTS AND INITIATIVES

Santa Monica has an economic base moving from what it was (light industrial, manufacturing, aircraft, and warehousing) to what it is becoming--digital and service industries and a tourism destination.

Worldwide, land near train stations is raw gold. Santa Monica is no exception; properties near the Light Rail will be in high demand. Technological companies and startups in particular are coming here, buying and renting properties.

The economic boom causes enormous disruption. Managing the pace of change in Bergamot, Lincoln Avenue, the old warehouses, the downtown is contentious, but it is imperative that Santa Monica be controlled by a careful strategy that reflects resident consensus.

Residents want a walkable, livable City that is in scale with their needs and daily lives.

The 3rd Street Promenade is an economic engine of the city but is so congested and tourist-focused we need to expand this retail and shopping center to 2nd and 4th Streets. Though not as strictly pedestrian, we can change the nature of these streets to make them viable retail streets, take the pressure off 3rd Street, and change the whole orientation of the City from tourist to serving residents and visitor alike.

The next street to gain momentum is Broadway, which is close to the train station, is a walkable street, has existing bike lanes, and is prime for retail and small, consumer shop development.

ABOUT ME

In 2000, my wife and I brought our six-year-old son here for the opportunity of America and the values and culture of its public schools. We have been renters here ever since.

American public schools transmit the DNA of this country. America's indefinable optimism and sense of the future comes from our public schools, and from within our school comes the hope of America, through good and bad times.

There is a sense of community about Santa Monica, instantly transmitted, that I've never lost the sense of. When you first arrive, you wonder if it is the beach or the environment, or the trees, or the people, or the streetscape that make this city so special. It is all of those things, and more; it's the culture.

I have served in just about every possible way in schools, including chairing the governance and site councils at Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Samohi. I was a member of the SMMUSD PTA council for five years; sat on multiple PTA committees; was committee member of CEPS and LEAD; worked on all the bonds and parcel taxes, etc.; and even painted the signs at Samohi High School entrances. All this I did, because as a non-citizen, I could.

An American citizen by late 2008, I went straight to the school board that night to comment. I was appointed to the Parks and Recreation Commission in early 2010, and a year later, was appointed to the Planning Commission in 2011.

I started the Bike It! Days at Samohi and then district-wide, was part of the Safe Routes to School effort, and have been an integral part of the whole push to get better facilities for bikes in the City. We've seen the number of bike commuters go from almost nothing to nearly 5% in five years. To this day I work to get kids walking and bicycling.

Along with Commissioner Dryden Helgoe on the Parks and Recreation Commission, we pushed for Santa Monica to become an Arboretum, which would allow for the planting of thousands more trees (including along I-10), a policy soon adopted by the City.

As a result, I know every inch of the City as a Planning person, a schools guy, a bike and walk advocate, and a tree booster.

I answer everyone's email, phone people back, respond to social media comments, and take seriously each one of the various issues that residents and other bring to my attention constantly.

At the last election I received 8,091 votes, with endorsements from Democratic Party of Los Angeles County, the Sierra Club, and Santa Monica's Coalition for a Livable City.

A group called "Beautify Lincoln" has been painting building walls along Lincoln Boulevard over the last year to great success. The walls are generally neglected, they paint them quickly in bold colors and geometric designs and something good emerges. They are now "Beautify Earth." I have worked with them to help improve Lincoln over the last year.

This year, I instituted a Pico Protection Zone to save the rapidly gentrifying Pico neighborhood.

Santa Monica is important to me--its people, its environment, its culture. As a City Council member, I will use the office to promote and improve living in this City for all its residents.

CONCLUSION

Cities evolve. That's understood. But to allow Santa Monica to be developer driven is to destroy the very thing that keeps Santa Monica special. There is a clear sense among residents that the City they want and love is not the City they have.

Overall, I believe in a walkable, livable City built for people and scaled to their needs. I have a clear, strong record on the Planning Commission of standing up to developers and fast-money schemes, of voting for residents and neighborhoods, and of protecting our diversity and the progressive values it engenders.

In the last election, I advocated this strongly. A big money, last-minute, developer-funded campaign emerged to defeat me. We have seen the results since. We must not let that happen this time.

Santa Monica is a progressive City with progressive values. We must:

1. Control development
2. Put residents first
3. Protect our neighborhoods
4. Turn the city deep green

This year is a watershed election. Choose the old ways and you will get an over-built Santa Monica.

But there is another way. I will be campaigning on the need for this new direction.

I ask for your support.

Thank you for your consideration and attention.