By Niki Cervantes and Hector Gonzalez
Staff Writer

June 22, 2015 -- A sweeping new zoning law for Santa Monica is expected to win the City Council’s approval Tuesday, even as its slow-growth foes ready an initiative to challenge the “activity centers” and other large developments allowed under the proposed provisions.

The debate over a new Zoning Code Update and Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) amendments – which will guide development in the bayside city for the next two decades -- has sharply divided the Council.

Public hearings have drawn hundreds of residents and local business owners, but one increasingly influential residents' group, Residocracy, has publicly criticized the process and announced it will skip Tuesday's hearing.

Instead, the slow-growth group is focused on finalizing an initiative that would place a cap on the size of construction projects allowed in the seaside city, said Residocracy founder Armen Mellkonians.

A key part of Tuesday’s debate is expected to center on the proposed “activity centers,” exempt special zones near bus and rail lines where taller and denser projects could be built under a proposed Tier 3 category

Supporters argue that the category creates a stringent approval process for developers and ushers in badly needed housing. Opponents counter that the City’s infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle what would be some of the largest developments in Santa Monica.

Originally, planners envisioned five activity centers where mixed-used retail and housing could be development around “open spaces and gathering spaces,” but over the course of many meeting the number dwindled, according to the staff report.

On a 4 to 3 vote in May, the Council voted not to allow taller buildings on Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, removing the proposed Tier 3 category which opponents said would increase congestion in an already busy area. 

On Tuesday, the Council  will reconsider “whether to allow Tier 3 development” in a designated mixed-use zone on Colorado Avenue and portions of Broadway, 20th Street, and Cloverfield Boulevard, according to the staff report.

Staff is recommending eliminating the Lincoln Boulevard and Ocean Avenue activity center overlay near the Expo Rail Line transit corridor.

“The net effect” of eliminating the Lincoln/Ocean Park Overlay “would result in the elimination of four out of five Activity Centers originally envisioned in the LUCE, with the Memorial Park Activity Center Overlay remaining,” staff wrote.

The move has failed to allay the concerns aired by Residocracy. The group is completing its first draft of the initiative and expects to begin collecting signatures soon, Melkonians said.

It would be a “travesty,” Melkonians said, to allow more big developments to be built without voter approval.  “Santa Monica is already built out,” he said. “We are maxed out.”

If the Council approves the new zoning law, some 20 new projects, including several major developments that would change the face of Downtown, would begin making their way through the planning approval process this year, City officials have said.

They include three Downtown hotels along Ocean Avenue with housing, a mixed-use residential development at the old Fred Segal site on Colorado Avenue and a $400 million mixed-use project on City-owned land in the heart of Downtown

The Planning Commission has been unable to review many of the projects in the pipeline because its focus has been on the proposed zoning law, Martin said.

After the process is completed, the Planning Commission will turn its attention to the priority projects stalled in a “very clogged” pipeline of proposals, Martin said.