Editor:
The city should just pay the penalties…
Regarding state imposed housing mandates (cobbled together in a backroom by unelected officials and completely unenforceable)…
How much are the potential penalties? Certainly a lot less than the cost of avoiding them. The city should halt all plans at increased housing and instead just pay the penalties. Of course, in reality, the penalties will never be paid - most of the cities in the state will refuse to either build more housing or pay the fees, and the whole mandate will be abandoned and reworked by the state after the next election cycle. In the meantime Santa Monica will have crammed its single family neighborhoods with four story affordable apartment buildings because that is where the cheapest land is.
Peter Borresen, Santa Monica
