Over Development is the issue!

Development is the major issue in our city. It's the reason I'm seeking a seat on the City Council. We have to think of our residents and a Department Of Common Sense in City Hall is a start.

Development spawns traffic and degrades our quality of life. I joined Residocracy and fought against the Hines development because our streets and our residents couldn't handle another 7,000 cars each day. 13,510 of my fellow residents joined me in saying, "STOP". Residocracy was there to help residents band together and stop a development that was wrong for our city. Now, we cannot trust our Planning Department, City Manager or City Council. That is why I am running to represent resident interests, not developer interests on our City Council.

We are a beach community. That's our charm and our legacy to future generations. Santa Monica is not supposed to just be an extension of downtown LA...we are the breath of fresh air for LA. High rises are not our future, trees are. Streets that are canyons of buildings are not the Santa Monica that we are live here for. We're already the 6th most densely populated city in California and #2 on the list of most stressed out suburbs in America. We have the least amount of Park space for a city our size in our state. Traffic is gridlocked through much of our city. 

Over 30 more developments are in the planning stages with four high rises planned from Ocean Avenue to 5th Street. We can't take more. Our light rail system has very little parking, no real bus service & only stupid bus stools to sit on. Our water supply is limited yet our City Council ignores it while rates start to spike. So, development is a threat that we have to deal with. It won't be stopped by being nice, by letting one high rise be built...we have to stop development that's not sustainable or smart, and that may harm our residents' quality of life.

I advocate height limits of four stories downtown, three stories on our boulevards and two stories in our neighborhoods. There should be no waivers or end arounds. Santa Monica can be livable forever if we do the right things now.

If our residents vote on firm height limits in our city then most development agreements will be eliminated. A developer who wants to go bigger and denser than our codes would have to go the ballot box to change our law for their project. Most developers won't want to spend massive amounts of money and then lose. They will conform to our zoning codes, our height and density rules and build projects that our residents will like. Our development agreements are almost always a good deal...for the developers. Let's change that.

I want special interests out of our Planning Department, our City Managers office and our City Council. There is only one special interest that should matter...the voice of our residents.