Santa Monica contemplates commercial development ban

Articles — By forcechange on April 28, 2008 2:33 am

The Bottleneck blog has a couple recent posts regarding a proposal in Santa Monica to suspend commercial development in the city, in order to deal with the growing traffic mess. If passed by voters, the measure would limit commercial development to 75,000 square feet of floor area per calendar year.

Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce President Tom Larmore, who opposes the ban, states, “This goes far beyond office development. The commercial development definition includes a whole raft of things.”  Some of the unintended consequences may include preventing new hotel developments (which do not substantially increase traffic) and medical facility expansions. 

While Santa Monica traffic is a major quality of life issue, an outright ban on new development may not be the best solution.  Yes, unchecked commercial growth without parallel mass transit investment has been a major cause of the congestion problems.  However, an outright ban is not going to solve the problem.  The solution is, and always has been, to have smart growth—development coupled with intelligent transit and planning solutions, including things like public rails, efficient traffic signal management, mixed use buildings, and congestion pricing.  If this ban is just a temporary solution which focuses the city’s attention on the real needs (mass transit), then it might not be such a bad thing.  But if it is just an excuse to avoid dealing with the real issue of alternative transit and smart planning, then it will likely be counterproductive.

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