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Mark Difiore
10/10/12
Intro to Community Planning
Take Home Exam #1
Stop Development, Stop Traffic Santa Monica RIFT Proposal
Santa Monica, California has had a recent problem with roads being congested with
traffic from commuters traveling to Los Angeles for work. One group has come up with a
solution to reduce the traffic flowing throughout the city during the weekdays. This group is
called RIFT, and their plan is to cap the amount of commercial development allowed per year in
the city at 75,000 square feet for the next fifteen years, which is the equivalent to 2 square acres.
This would be enough for a new supermarket and a handful of restaurants. This would be a
substantial cut for the city which is used to averaging 160,000 square feet of commercial
development each year, creating a total cut of 2,325,000 over those fifteen years. The scenic
beach side town has the perfect climate to attract tourists and businesses to the city, but also
brings homeless people, scarce parking, and hefty traffic. RIFTs initiative is to slow down the
growth of the city which will hopefully lead to less traffic. One of the co-authors of RIFT, Ted
Winterer, states We dont believe that this commercial development serves the residents. It
begins to just become an engine for revenue growth. This growth leads to more jobs and attracts
neighboring residents to come to the city and take those jobs, thus leading to more traffic.

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Not all the citizens and representatives of Santa Monica are for RIFTs plan of slowing
down commercial development. Opponents of RIFT argue that the plan will restrict the citys
ability to develop new housing projects. RIFT has emphasized that the job to housing ratio is
imbalanced and is currently at 1.6 jobs for every house. That number is only growing. RIFTs
opponents argue that the movement will not do anything to balance out the numbers, but in fact it
may make it worse. Herb Katz, a member of the city council, argues that the plan Hurts
affordable housing because a lot of our projects today are mixed use, which means there is retail
on the ground level and housing above it. If I cant build the retail because I havent got the
footage to do it, I cant build housing. That hurts affordable housing and market-rate housing.
RIFT includes into their 75,000 ft limit room to build hospitals, religious buildings, and
affordable housing projects. These projects are for 100% affordable housing projects, which is
the opposite of what Katz builds in the city. Terry ODay, Santa Monica Planning Commissioner
and co-chair opposing RIFT, argues that The majority of affordable housing built over the past
five to ten years has been mixed use and mixed income properties. And that is the best way that
we know how to build affordable housing in mixed income properties, rather than segregating
poor people into their own neighborhoods or structures. This plan opposes the city implemented
law called, Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) which was imposed to have greater
mix-use, mix income development.
The decrease in community development would also result in a drop of income and
property tax. An analysis on the project revealed that RIFTs passage would reduce the citys
expected tax revenue by about eleven million dollars a year, and the school districts by about
one million dollars a year. Supporters of RIFT counter argue by saying This doesnt take away

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any existing revenue from the cityand the change happens incrementally so that we can adjust
the budget as we go. Essentially they argue that the lost tax revenues are based on future figures
and that they will be able to handle the cuts as they go along. RIFT supporters did not take into
account the effects that their plans would have on the rest of the city, including their economics.
A similar scenario happened in Walnut Creek, California. In the mid-80s citizens were
upset at the amount of traffic flowing through the suburb on the way to San Francisco and
developed a plan that would put a limit on the amount of commercial development allowed in the
town. They felt that there was too much commercial growth occurring, which to them translated
into more traffic problems, said Walnut Creek senior planner, Ken Nodder. The plan passed in
1985 but failed to pass the Supreme Court due to ambiguities in the bill language. This is
common amongst citizen driven plans because it fails to take into account the proper measures it
requires to create an effective community plan. The town did include some limitations in the
towns general plan. The limitations implemented in Walnut Creek may have led to an increase in
the amount of traffic by pushing development to the neighboring towns. Walnut Creek could be
used in the defense of RIFTs opposers as a reason why the project should not be passed.
If I were the senior planner of Santa Monica there would be some different steps I would
take in order to resolve the traffic problem. First, I would collect data from the neighboring
towns to see how many travelers come through our town and where exactly they come from. I
would conduct this study to see if one of the possible solutions would be to build more public
transportation from those towns into Los Angeles. Another piece of data I would collect is how
many people use our city for commercial reasons and see how much it would affect our income

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if we slowly decreased out commercial development. The flaw that I see in RIFTs plan is that
the cut back is way too drastic and could lead to tourists steering away from our city and heading
towards neighboring towns that are on the rise. Therefore I believe that if we create more public
transportation and slowly cut down our development it could translate into a decrease in
congested traffic. Another possible solution that could be constructed would be to build a
highway through the town. At first this may seem like a good idea to the citizens and could be a
temporary fix to a permanent problem. The reasons I believe this would not work is that it would
cost a lot of money to build, which would be taken from the tax payers, and that this would
attract more commuters from neighboring towns to use it as a way to travel into the city leading
to more traffic. My advice to the city of Santa Monica is to create a larger public transportation
and if the problem is still occurring then they should start to cut back on commercial
development
There are different types of planners that Santa Monica could hire to resolve the traffic
issue. If the city hired a Rational Planner then they would expect him/her to collect data and find
a solution that would be most efficient to the city. They would come up with this plan and
regularly evaluate the plan to see if it is working. Another planner that the city could seek after is
an Equity Planner. This planner would come in and correct the flaws in the proposal. This
planner can be helpful but they also can alienate others in order to have a plan that they believe is
morally right. The final option that the city has is to hire a tactical planner. This planner is more
of a negotiator between two sides and tends to find a short term solution. I believe that the best
planner for Santa Monica would be to hire a Rational Planner because they would come in and
collect data to find the best long term solution for the congested traffic.

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RIFTs approach of trying to band together citizens in order to solve a community
problem is the wrong way of trying to solve the dilemma. Each city and town hire planners
where their job is to evaluate how the community is working and find solutions if there are
problems. My message to the city is to go to their city planner to see what their solution is to the
problem instead of trying to pass a bill that will most likely eventually get rejected. If the city is
unhappy with the decisions that their representatives are making then they should bring it up to
the city council to find a solution. As it stands if RIFTs plans are passed through then it will most
likely have a negative effect on the citys economy and could lead to heavier traffic.