ACTION Apartment Association

Affordable Spaces for Small Business

05/31/2022 10:38 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

SMa.r.t.

Los Angeles County recently proposed a program providing financial incentives for certain “Legacy” family businesses in their original historical location. They have been facing financial hardships for a variety of reasons like COVID, gentrification, and increasing commercial real estate rents, development, and land values. These are our “mom and pop shops,” and Los Angeles is losing many of these unique and symbolic places which help support and make a part of the Los Angeles community. Does this sound familiar with what is happening here in Santa Monica?

Poll Finds Strong Support for Boosting Security Downtown

05/31/2022 10:31 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The poll taken via phone text between May 19 and 25 found that 85 percent believe Brock's call for replacing the Downtown safety ambassadors with security guards and round-the-clock police patrols would decrease crime Downtown.

Brock Proposes Alternative to Mayor's "Outrageous" Transfer Tax

05/27/2022 4:53 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Brock's measure would charge a real estate transfer tax of $15 per $1,000 on commercial properties that sell for more than $8 million, with the tax applying only to the amount above that threshold.

Himmelrich's proposed tax would charge $53 per $1,000 on all properties valued at $8 million or more, with the entire amount taxed.

Three local tax measures could appear on November ballot

05/26/2022 10:27 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

City Councilmembers agree that the City should seek to raise revenues through a ballot measure, but what taxes to increase and where to spend the money is up for debate.

City Council Weighs in on Proposed FY 2022-23 Budget

05/26/2022 10:24 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

To expedite economic recovery, enhance public safety presence and address homelessness, the City must seek a combination of new ongoing and one-time revenues.

Is Gelson’s Our Future? Bigger Is Not Better & Not Necessary! – Part 2

05/24/2022 10:54 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

SMa.r.t.

The dream of our beachfront city is about to become a nightmare! Just imagine a tsunami of these projects washing onto the beaches of Santa Monica over the next 10 years – sad, no – alarming! The proposed project supplanting Gelson’s market at Lincoln & Ocean Park is much higher, much denser, with more traffic, and overall a horrific model for the future of our city.

Local government representatives pen coastal bills

05/24/2022 10:34 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

AB 2762

Richard Bloom’s AB 2762, focuses not on coastal resources but on the housing and homelessness crisis seen up and down the California coast. It “is an intent bill that would authorize local governments to build affordable housing on parking lots that serve parks and recreational facilities,” per the California Coastal Commission staff.

Santa Monica Rent Controlled Building Sells for Record $330 Million

05/24/2022 10:17 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The former Champagne Towers -- a half-century-old rent control apartment complex -- has sold for $330 million, making it the most expensive apartment sale in Santa Monica history.

According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, Santa Monica-based Douglass Emmett purchased the 120-unit complex at 1221 Ocean Avenue from Newport Beach-based Irvine Co., for an average of $2.75 million a unit.

Mayor's Transfer Tax Campaign to Submit Signatures Next Month

05/24/2022 10:16 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Mayor Sue Himmelrich said Monday that her campaign to dramatically boost Santa Monica's transfer tax on high-end real estate plans to submit signed ballot petitions to the City Clerk by mid-June.

The proposed tax measure -- which would charge a real estate transfer tax of $53 per $1,000 on properties valued at $8 million or more to fund homeless housing -- will submit more tha 10,500 signatures, Himmelrich said.

Is the Big Housing Crunch Mostly Fiction?

05/23/2022 11:27 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

In some parts of California, there is definitely a housing crunch: small supplies of homes for sale, prices that escalate even when population has apparently stabilized and high prices that exclude most Californians as buyers.

But a massive, multi-million-unit shortage? Maybe not. At least, so suggests a scathing springtime report from the non-partisan acting state auditor.