Agenda - City of Santa Monica

Consistent with the policies provided in the LUCE, the level of community benefits
described above is appropriate. Moreover, significant “project benefits” include but are
not limited to, Code required Childcare Linkage fee ($37,502) and Cultural Arts fees
($93,016).
Pending Community Benefits for Discussion
Affordable Housing Production Program
One mechanism for meeting the City’s Affordable Housing Production Program (AHPP)
is by restricting 10% of the units for very-low income households, i.e., 5.3 of the total
units (the fractional unit is satisfied by a fee). The applicant proposes to exceed these
requirements by providing eight affordable units on-site consisting of five very-low onebedroom
units and three low-income studio units, approximately 15% of the total units.
This 5% increase of three additional affordable housing units above the AHPP would be
considered a community benefit.
Based on the project’s unit composition, the AHPP requires that the on-site affordable
units consist of two-bedroom units with a minimum size of 850 square feet. Instead, the
project would provide the minimum five on-site units as one-bedroom units. The project
originally consisted of zero and one-bedroom units, where the AHPP allows the required
on-site units to be one-bedroom units. Because the applicant has worked with staff by
adding two-bedroom units to the project, thereby improving the project’s overall unit size
and composition, staff believes that this modification request is reasonable.
Council recently determined priority categories for new projects, which includes projects
that provide either 20% on-site affordable units, projects with a unit mix with fewer
studio units and more one, two, and three bedroom units, or Tier 2 pr ojects. This
project, as proposed, qualifies as a priority project due to it being a Tier 2 project. The
project, which also provides 15% affordable units, was initiated and progressed through
negotiations earlier compared to recently submitted projects. S pecifically, the
community meeting, scheduling for Architecture Review Board Concept Review, and
Development Agreement negotiations had already been c ompleted prior to Council’s
direction. Staff believes that this project was negotiated in a manner appropriate for the
size and scope of the project.
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