With the Santa Monica Council election campaigns in progress, we thought it would interest you to see the candidates’ views on historic preservation in our city. Five of the seven candidates– Sue Himmelrich, Kevin McKeown, Greg Morena, Pam O’Connor, and Ashley Powell– answered our questionnaire. Their responses are below, along with some comments from the Conservancy.
1. What do you see as the biggest impediment to Santa Monica’s stated goal of preserving its historic, architectural and cultural resources? What obstacles or disincentives to historic preservation are you aware of?
Sue Himmelrich:Â The biggest impediment seems to be the glacial speed of the preservation process. I understand that the San Vicente Historic District is just beginning to formulate its guidelines though Council approved it in 2015. The 11th Street bungalows were identified by Susan Suntree 15 years ago and the City is just beginning to look at a preservation plan after several have been demolished. In a city like Santa Monica with so much pressure to develop, our historic properties seem to be lost in the shuffle.
Kevin McKeown:Â Â Ignorance, greed, and litigation. These can be overcome with commitment and persistence, as we did with preservation of the Shotgun House, a process I helped begin, supported every step of the way, and finally saw to fruition a decade and a half later.
Greg Morena:  I think a lack of awareness by the community and others as to the importance of preservation in preserving the character of our city is one impediment to preservation. Developers want to come here because of our robust economy, but that is largely a result of our city’s historic character. Recent procedural changes have devastated the Landmark Commissions ability to fight demolitions and preserve our historic resources. First and foremost, we must find ways to work within our legal framework and restore the Landmark Commission’s ability to track historic structures, and fight for their preservation. We must create better incentives and benefits for preserving historic buildings. We must simplify the regulatory process for landmarking and adaptive reuse. And we must make potential developers better aware of federal, state and local taxes and fee incentives associated with historic landmarks.
Pam O’Connor:  Escalating property values and the expectations of new owners of properties for amenities that require greater square footage of buildings, especially residential buildings.
Ashley Powell:Â There are not enough incentives to preserve historic, architectural and cultural resources in Santa Monica. Currently, the only incentives are state and federal programs such the Mills Act which reduces property taxes on designated historic properties with approved restoration and maintenance plans. Previously proposed limits on the amount of individual or aggregated Mills Act contracts would be a further disincentive to applying for landmark or historic status.
2. What do you see as the greatest opportunity for the City to promote preservation and remove the impediments above? For example, are there any ordinances, policies, procedures or programs that the City could adopt?
Sue Himmelrich: I am not an expert in historical preservation, so when I search for solutions, I look to jurisdictions that have successfully preserved their special districts and architecture. In that search, I found a technical assistance bulletin entitled “Drafting Effective Historic Preservation Ordinances: A Manual For California’s Local Governments” at http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1072/files/tab14hpordinances.pdf, which provides what may be helpful advice to us in reformulating our policies and procedures. The bulletin states that: “Probably the most crucial consideration in drafting the powers of a preservation commission is that the review body be given adequate power to protect historical resources. This will in many cases require that it have the power to forbid demolition or alteration, not just delay it, even though such power may be exercised infrequently.”
Our Landmarks Commission needs to have this ability if it is to have any power to preserve our historical areas and structures. And when this power is exercised, staff needs to move quickly to prevent destruction of designated resources. We must establish a policy creating the presumption in favor of preservation and placing the burden on those who want to destroy existing structures or neighborhoods.
The manual also criticizes the approach taken in our ordinance of requiring that a structure be at least 50 years old, noting that this “runs the risk of eliminating a number of worthy historical resources from protection (some important Modernist architecture in California is barely 50 years old, for example).” While this is just another example of how our law may deviate from the suggested approach, we need to take a long, hard look at how we measure up against the standards suggested by experts.
Kevin McKeown: Reconsider and rewrite our Landmarks Ordinance, strengthening it to accommodate the latest court precedents.
Greg Morena: As the owner of my family’s 40-year-old restaurant on the Pier, The Albright, I am a true advocate of historic preservation. Unfortunately, I am not yet an expert on what the City can and cannot do. I am committed to removing barriers to historic preservation and believe it is critical to keeping Santa Monica, Santa Monica. The City must put an emphasis on adaptive reuse projects that take our beautiful, historic buildings, and utilize them. I see adaptive reuse as a means to make a dent in our affordable housing crisis. I see that adaptive reuse as a means of boosting our economy as one of the things that attracts visitors here is our historic character.
We need to create better incentives for preserving historic landmarks. This includes incentivizing the preservation of the actual businesses that occupy many of these historic spaces. Doing so not only helps to preserve the architectural value of the space, but also the cultural value of our long-standing, locally owned businesses. As I mentioned in the above question, simplifying the regulatory process for landmarking and reuse is key. I think the city must also do a better job to support the implementation of preservation incentives.
Ashley Powell: I think Santa Monica needs to look at the ways other municipalities incentivize preservation, like Los Angeles’ Adaptive Reuse Provisions. Grants, either public or private/public partnerships, zoning code relief and preservation easements should all be considered in order to protect Santa Monica’s incredible history.
Pam O’Connor: I expect that most home owners do not want their neighborhood to decline so that their property values decline— many of the most intact historic districts are those where there is not the economic capacity to “remodel.”
Owners of buildings need to have the flexibility to add onto their buildings—in a manner that meets the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation if the building is a landmark or in a historic district.
One of the biggest impediments to historic districts is not the City but can be the residents of an historic district. For example, a number of years ago a property owner in the 3rd Street Historic District wanted to build an addition. I remember that Council meeting and thought that if I were a person opposed to historic districts, I would play that public testimony for people. It was neighbor vs neighbor. Why would any home owner want to have their home designated as a contributor in a historic district if they would face such a fight and could never add onto their home?
Additions to historic buildings are allowed if they meet the SOI Standards for Rehabilitation and the City can help educate owners on how to do appropriate rehabilitation and additions. But if neighbors make it difficult for historic building owners to rehabilitate/add onto their buildings, then owners will shy away from seeking historic designation for their buildings.
The City Landmarks ordinance needs to be updated to current best practices. In recent years cities including Los Angeles and Glendale have updated their historic preservation ordinances to comport with the California Register and National Register.
3. The City has received considerable, though finite, funds through past development agreements to be used toward historic preservation. How would you spend these funds to enhance our historic preservation program in Santa Monica?
Sue Himmelrich: As you know, I am a housing advocate, and I would spend funds to preserve existing residential structures that merit preservation to avoid relocation and speculation. Our businesses can generally afford to preserve and restore a commercial building. Small landlords and individual homeowners, however, face more challenges and should be considered for micro grants and other assistance to preserve their historic properties.
Kevin McKeown: Given the intransigence of greed and litigation, two of the three biggest impediments, the obvious start is combating ignorance through education and enhanced community awareness of the importance of preservation. It took over a decade after my request of staff as Council liaison to the Landmarks Commission for us to post suitable signage highlighting the Third Street Historic District. We can do better than that. We should also update the Historic Resources Inventory more frequently.
Greg Morena: Funds acquired this way could be used to maintain historically and architecturally valuable properties– both for residents to enjoy, like the Pier, and so they remain desirable for adaptive reuse. These funds could also be used to support our city staff as they work to design programs and foster partnerships with community groups with the common goal of preserving the local culture of Santa Monica through its architecture, small businesses, and connected community.
Ashley Powell: I would look at creating a team that would go out into Santa Monica, find potentially historic sites and work with owners through historic designation process from start to finish.
Pam O’Connor: The funds could be used to provide technical assistance to building owners as to how to rehabilitate and add onto their historic building in a manner that meets the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. Such a program could also provide technical assistance to owners on how to nominate their building for historic designation and on how to apply for a Mills Act property tax contract.
Some Clarifications
The only reference in the Santa Monica Landmarks Ordinance (Chapter 9.56 in the Municipal Code) specifying that a property be 50 years of age is in the Structure of Merit criteria, where it is part of one of two alternative (the other being listed in the Historic Resources Inventory) eligibility requirements. Notable properties designated when less than 50 years old include the former Home Savings Building, built in 1970 and first designated in 2013, and the 1981 Sun Tech Townhomes which were not even 40 years old when designated in 2017.
Our ordinance requires owners of Landmark structures and contributors to Historic Districts to submit proposals for exterior alterations to the Landmarks Commission for review to ensure that they meet the Secretary of the Interior Standards. With the recent Zoning Ordinance Update, additional incentives for preservation include the ability to apply for modifications to the allowed building envelope and other standards when proposing additions to designated properties. These provisions enable owners of designated historic properties to adapt them to meet changing needs while ensuring that they continue to retain their historic character.
The Santa Monica Conservancy has advocated successfully for the strengthening of protections for historic properties, for the improvement of incentives for preservation, and for flexibility in the zoning requirements to enable the preservation and/or adaptive reuse of more historic properties. There is clearly room for additional improvements, and we will continue to advocate strongly for improvements in the Landmarks Ordinance and other aspects of the municipal code. We welcome your participation in these discussions.
