A divided City Council voted last week to delay an already completed report on historic preservation revisions and merge several similar discussions into a single effort that would be both more comprehensive and less burdensome on staff.
The Santa Monica City Council voted last week to delay reviewing the city's Mills Act historic preservation tax program, despite staff having already completed a consultant study on potential reforms.
The Mills Act allows property owners of designated historic buildings to receive substantial property tax reductions in exchange for maintaining and preserving their properties. Santa Monica receives an average of three to four applications per year, with a May deadline for submission and required council action by October.
The council voted 5-2 to pause analysis of Mills Act policy changes and align the review with broader implementation of the Landmarks Commission's equity recommendations. The decision came after a contentious debate over whether to even hear the completed report.
Council Member Ellis Raskin, who co-sponsored the delay with Mayor Caroline Torosis and Council Member Dan Hall, said the pause was necessary to prevent piecemeal policy changes and align the Mills Act review with a comprehensive examination of the city's landmarks program.
"We've had many items come forward this year, and last year would have added more and more and more priorities onto staff's plate," Raskin said. "At a certain point we've got to pull back, and we got to stop adding more and more things onto our agendas and reprioritize."
But Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Zwick argued the council had already directed staff to evaluate Mills Act reforms in 2025, and a completed consultant report was sitting unused.
"The council directed this evaluation to be done in 2025, we're now looking in 2026 and facing potential considering advice that potentially any action we take probably should be prospective," Zwick said. He warned that continued delays could push any policy changes to 2027 or 2028.
Planning Director Jing Yeo confirmed that consultant Robert Chattel had completed a scan of Mills Act best practices in other cities, and staff had met with the Santa Monica Conservancy about potential options. However, she said staff paused work on the analysis after the agenda item was published.
Critics of the current Mills Act implementation have argued that it is costly to maintain and only benefits wealthy home owners. Wholesale abandoning the program would open the city to litigation according to the City Attorney’s office.
Santa Monica's ordinance was amended several years ago to remove discretion from approvals once three findings are met: no outstanding code violations, current on taxes, and alterations consistent with Secretary of Interior standards.
"The expectation then is created that once an application comes in, as long as those are met, that the city council will approve the application," Interim City Attorney Heidi von Tongein said. "There is therefore risk in stopping the application process without adequate notice."
Council initially asked for a review of the Mills Act in October of 2025. However, they had already authorized implementation of a broader revisions to the city’s historic preservation rules in February of that year following a joint report from the Landmarks Commission and the Committee for Racial Justice.
The partnership formed after a contentious 2021 landmark nomination for a property with both architectural significance and ties to racist history. Council directed the Landmarks Commission to develop a framework for handling such cases.
The group conducted seven listening sessions with underrepresented communities and concluded that no single objective framework could address all difficult histories. Instead, it recommended updating the city's historic resources inventory to better reflect underrepresented communities, creating interpretation guidelines, establishing a diverse community advisory committee, seeking consultants from diverse backgrounds, providing equity training for commissioners, and hosting a citywide event to broaden participation in the preservation process.
Council’s decision last week will pause Mills Act discussions and review of "structure of merit" revisions and align landmarks work plans with implementing the Landmarks Commission's "A Place for Everyone in Santa Monica's History" equity report.
The council approved the original motion to pause Mills Act analysis by a 5-2 vote, with Zwick and Natalya Zernitskaya dissenting.