By Jason Islas
Staff Writer

November 8, 2013 -- As Santa Monica’s new Downtown Specific Plan winds its way to approval early next year, some are worried that the final draft could be too specific.

Downtown stakeholders, local architects and several major developers expressed concern that the latest version of the draft plan presented to the Planning Commission Wednesday goes too far in regulating building design.

While it includes standard regulations like height and density limits, the revised draft plan also includes regulations on sidewalk widths, direction and length shadows new buildings could cast and even prescribes the maximum size each story can be as a percentage of the total lot size.

“This just has too many parameters,” local architect David Hibbert told the Planning Commission Wednesday. “If you want exceptional buildings and more creativity, this isn’t going to get it.”

The Plan “makes all of the decisions for you as an architect,” he said, including how much of the total lot size each floor can be, which Hibbert called the worst restriction.

Santa Monica architect and former Planning Commissioner Hank Koning agreed, singling out language in the revised plan that would, in staff’s words, “dictate building design and orientation.”

Both argued that it would leave little work for architects hoping to bring creative and interesting designs to downtown, an argument echoed by Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. CEO Kathleen Rawson.

"We all want great architecture in Downtown Santa Monica," Rawson told The Lookout Wednesday. "If the specific plan is so prescribed," she said it could restrict what architects can do with their building designs.

But, City officials maintain, the revisions to the draft Specific Plan, which could go before the Council for adoption by January, allows for more flexibility than the current plan, which has governed downtown for more than two decades.

"Every specific plan that I've ever seen contains detail and development standards," Francie Stefan, the City’s strategic and transportation manager.

She said that the new plan would be "more performance based and flexible than what we have today."

While it would put in place specific regulations, it would also enumerate the City’s broader goals for the downtown area, like increasing walkability and open space.

Francie said that if architects can show that their projects can meet the goals without necessarily following the letter of the law, there could be room for flexibility.

Still, the latest version of the draft plan is departure from staff’s original proposition, which was to maintain much of the same standards that currently govern downtown except for on eight “opportunity” sites.

On those sites, about half of which are owned by the City, developers would be able to propose projects that were larger or denser than limits in other parts of the city would allow.

Through a discretionary -- and flexible -- process, the developers would be able to negotiate for the bigger buildings in exchange for robust community benefit packages.

But, with three major hotel projects proposed at opportunity sites along Ocean Avenue that would be significantly taller than the City's 29-year-old six-story height limit set by the Council, height limits became a major flashpoint in the community. ("Residents Air Worries Over Height in Downtown Santa Monica," May 7)

The projects -- proposed along a half-mile stretch from the south side of Colorado Avenue to the north side of Wilshire Boulevard -- range from 195 feet to more than 300 feet.

Staff backed down from having flexibility on those sites and proposed capping height limits there at about 12 stories.

Later, the City Council voted not to study the possibility of additional height on those sites as part of the draft Plan’s State-mandated environmental impact report, which essentially meant that the final plan couldn’t have higher height limits unless another study was done. ("Santa Monica Won't Study Additional Height in Downtown Plan Environmental Review," August 14)

Still, developers hoping to build taller buildings would be able to propose their plans and apply for an exemption to the Specific Plan.

With more and more rules in the Plan from which developers would have to seek exemptions, it could lengthen an already long and expensive process.

That’s why, Koning said, the Plan should include a clear procedure that allows developers to apply for modifications.