This week we found out officially, what many of us already know experientially, that Santa Monica is the most expensive city to conduct business in. Our academic neighbors to the East, Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute of State and Local Government studied some 216 municipalities and found that among fees, taxes, wages, rents, crime and housing costs, Santa Monica is the most expensive.
There is an unspoken belief in Santa Monica that one is so darned lucky to be here; to own a home here, to open a business here, to own an apartment building here etc, and as such as owners in such a fortunate place, they can shoulder the burden of any added costs or regulations.
While anyone in Santa Monica is decidedly privileged, this represents a hubris that we see in so many areas of our city which I believe is because we are: 1) run by ideologues, not pragmatists/utilitarians, 2) do not have fair minority representation because we have an "at large" political system, instead of districting and 3) we are 71% renters, who bear few of the costs themselves for business fees, bonds and other "costs to do business" in the city and so have very little incentive to push back against added fees and expenses.
What happens when you don’t evolve but operate in the hubris of superiority?
Let’s look at Westwood, the entertainment, shopping and dining district that has serviced UCLA students and locals for decades.
I have fond memories as young lad of Westwood’s beautiful movie theaters, of bicycle pedicabs and performers. Crowds poured in to see the latest film or dine in one of the popular restaurants. Retail rents soared and then came the newly redesigned promenade and Westwood fell from its magical pedestal. There was a new kid and over the next 30+ years, retail rents in Westwood essentially stayed the same. Now it's mostly just UCLA kids and the occasional local—gone are the days of exuberant crowds.
In May I wrote a column about the death spiral of the promenade… How ironic that the destroyer of Westwood is now itself frozen or worse spiraling. What Westwood lacked and what the Promenade now lacks is continual progress and evolution. Tied down with heavy zoning and bureaucratic barriers to open, businesses lack the freedom to adapt and evolve.
And, so, we get the most expensive city. An ethos that we are all just so lucky to be here. My love for this city is like that of a grandparent who is suffering from dementia. I will always care for it, even as it hurts me, even as it acts stupidly and erratically, because I know deep down it’s good, and means well, it’s just kind of broken.
When we are a city, whose policies are voted in by people who by and large don’t have to pay for them (renters) we end up in a situation where the regulations and expenses are not commiserate with what is fair and practical.
The cost to landlords is roughly twice in annual fees as Los Angeles landlords. But who cares about landlords, right? They’re a bunch of rich jerks who make a ton of money off Santa Monica residents, right? But also… we want landlords who are going to take good care of their buildings and ensure that residents have safe, clean well-maintained spaces to live in. We also want mom and pop landlords, not large corporate overlord landlords, don’t we? So, in that sense, we all care about having ‘good’ landlords and we want to incentivize them to be good.
We make the building process so expensive, difficult and time consuming that businesses often take over a year to get through a remodel process to be able to open. My children watched for what felt like an eternity for MochiDoki to finally open, so they could get mochi ice cream. Why does it need to take so long? Why are the fees so expensive? Don’t we want mochi ice cream in our city? The city is working on this, and I’m grateful, but why has it taken so long to solve such an obvious problem?
And developers… those evil greedy bastards. They don’t care, right? But we also want more housing, so we’re kind of in a pickle because we need the people that we hate to take a huge financial risk to build more housing. So, with building and planning hurdles as high as they are, it took the state stepping in to make a path for new housing to be built.
And Rent Control the sacred law of Santa Monica… I guarantee it’s coming, this election, you’ll hear it: "They’re going to take rent control away if you don’t vote for us!" So instead of making rent control work better for our citizens, we continue to let it linger, with the poorest renters having higher relative to income rent increases, wealthy renters owning second homes and paying very little for rent and people essentially stuck in their apartments because they are priced out of moving. There are ways to make this better for renters, but it requires admitting that it’s not working, and stopping the fear mongering around rent control.
What is Santa Monica doing about any of these issues? I see them trying, but the ethos slows improvement greatly… because well… we’re all just lucky to live here. And if anyone tries to improve anything, they are going against the ideology of the city, they are trying to take away everything that you love from you.
I can offer solutions. Sure. I have lots of ideas. So do the people who work in our city hall and the business owners who are trying to bring you pizza and coffee, the people who want to build housing or maintain their properties, but we are not a city looking to improve. We are meandering into stasis, waiting for the boomers to die off, (who like Westwood are living in an 80’s fantasy) so we can inherit our city and actually make real improvements. Adapt. Evolve even.
Miles Warner
