By Niki Cervantes
Staff Writer

March 26, 2015 -- Residocracy.org, the Santa Monica internet-based slow-growth organization, will launch efforts to halt the City’s proposed new zoning ordinance and replace it with a law that turns development decisions over to the residents, the group’s founder said Wednesday.

“We’re trying to put it (development) into the hands of the residents,” said Armen Melkonians, who leads the organization of about 2,000 members.

 Melkonians said the group plans to start collecting signatures for a referendum, probably in May,  that would freeze a new zoning ordinance that goes before the City Council for consideration in mid-April.

In addition, it would collect signatures for an initiative proposing a new ordinance meant to hand more authority on zoning issues over to the residents, Melkonians said. 

He said it was not determined yet when organizers would begin collecting signatures, since the deadline is different under state law for referendums and initiatives.

In addition, the language for the initiative is still being developed and additional details are not available, he said. But he pointed out examples of other cities in California – such as Encinitas, Yorba Linda and Santa Barbara -- that have controlled growth by such means as limiting building heights.

Also under consideration, he said, is requiring voter approval of development contracts, although whether that would apply to all building or those projects that reached a particular size and density was also undetermined.

The new zoning ordinance (ZOU), after two years of study and hearings, goes to the City Council for hearings on April 14 and April 15. It codifies the city’s Land Use Circulation Element (LUCE), itself a guide to what can and cannot be built for the next quarter century.

But Melkonians said the ordinance and LUCE allow too much building and are too influenced by special interests.

“In 2010, the LUCE promised to protect Santa Monica and yet we have already seen the massive developments it has incentivized and those that are in the pipeline,” Melkonians said in a letter to the Santa Monica Lookout. 

“The LUCE is the shaky foundation of the ZOU and they both bring massive developments and increased traffic congestion to our beach town. They are just TOO BIG, TOO MUCH, and TOO TALL and do not belong in Santa Monica.”

Melkonians said it was not known yet when petitions for the initiative would begin circulating.

He said he expects the council to approve the zoning  update, probably in May, and that it would take 30 days for the ordinance to become law.  He said it was likely Residocracy would start collecting signatures during that 30-day window.

The window for the initiative is 180 days, he said. Valid signatures from 10 percent of the city’s 64,625 registered voters are required.

Organizers want a special election held to consider to the ballot measures, he said.

 In the meantime,  Residocracy is launching an e-petition drive among its members  in the next couple of weeks to gage the level of support or opposition to the Citys’ new zoning ordinance.

He said the results would be delivered to the council during its April meetings on the zoning ordinance.

Approving the new ordinance would result in “imminent release of an explosion of density and traffic congestion slated to affect Santa Monica for generations to come” he said, adding that two days of hearings before the City Council is not nearly enough time to allow for such a huge decision.

Residocracy successfully gathered more than 13,500 signatures to halt a 765,000 square-foot mixed-used development project last year.

The organization has been outspoken in its criticism of both Santa Monica’s zoning ordinance and LUCE, contending they are full of loopholes that would allow the kind of growth and development that would overwhelm the city and push out many of its existing residents. (Slow Growth Advocates Could Seek to Scrap Planning Policies, November, 24, 2014)