Culver City Council:

​Do not eliminate R1/single-family zoning in Culver City.

The End of Single-Family Neighborhoods in Culver City? 

​What's happening:
On Monday, June 28 at the specially-noticed joint Planning Commission/City Council meeting, Mayor Alex Fisch, Vice-Mayor Daniel Lee, and Councilmember Yasmine-Imani McMorrin made it clear that they wanted to allow up to 4 units (duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes) to be built on single-family lots throughout Culver City. Councilmembers Göran Eriksson and Albert Vera disagreed.

What does this mean? It means that despite public opposition, the Council majority pushed ahead with their desire to upzone or allow up to 4 units to be built on every lot over 4,950 square feet.  They told the General Plan Update team to dive into a month’s long study with the stated desire to ultimately result in the abolishment of single-family home zoning. If you're following along in detail, they chose "Option #3."

The intent of the study is to deliver a certain result.  They are calling this a "study," but it's a study to figure out HOW to upzone. It is NOT a study to figure out IF the city should upzone. 

Our neighbors in current R2 neighborhoods are not exempt. They too will be upzoned. At the moment, R2 lots can have a duplex, an ADU, and a Jr. ADU. If Culver City is upzoned according to the words spoken by three council members, R2 can also change forever. Cute older R2 duplexes can be torn down to make way for large quadplexes.

The council majority claims that the only way to create a “fair and equitable” city is to upzone. They purport that this will solve the lack of housing and affordable housing issues. They claim that the mere existence of single-family homes unfairly “segregates” these neighborhoods from the necessity of taking on the shared burden of creating additional housing. They stated that Culver City should provide housing for anyone who wants to live here.

Their theory amounts to none other than “trickle-down” housing, which guesses that increased numbers of units will magically decrease overall rent and home prices. This is “build it and they can afford it” magical thinking. Their arguments are unproven and filled with holes. Not a single council member is a professional housing expert or city planner. They did not campaign on eliminating R1 zoning. They refused to allow an alternate study based on current (post-pandemic) conditions in addition to the study they did approve. They pressed on with their untested and experimental political and philosophical positions.

We firmly believe that affordable housing, attention to the actual interests of the community, along with complete and adequate notice of major decisions should be what a city government focuses on. There are many creative solutions to providing more affordable housing in Culver City that do not involve eliminating R1 zoning. 

If this moves forward:
This rushed council-mandated push to eliminate R-1/Single-family zoning will be incorporated into the General Plan housing element and submitted to the state this autumn. The dominos will start to fall. It will set up a self-inflicted requirement that the city follows the path to abolish single-family home zoning. This will lead to the permitting of untold numbers of million-dollar-plus townhomes in the formerly single-family home neighborhoods. The three-plexes and four-plexes that will be built throughout Culver City will only benefit the developers and speculators and will do nothing to help solve the affordability crisis. It will do nothing to help the unhoused or help current income-burdened families in need. It will do nothing to uplift our BIPOC community and support the antiracist policies that our community has pledged to vigorously pursue.
​
Our community loses and only the developers and speculators win.
What council directed staff to do:
Majority Council (Fisch, Lee, McMorrin) directed staff to study "Option #3." This means that they directed staff to study how they could get rid of R1/single-family zoning in this fashion:

Option 3: Hybrid Approach to Low-Density Single-Family Areas: "This hybrid option uses parcel size and geometry to ensure the lots are better suited to accommodate additional infill development. • Lots in low-density single-family areas less than 4,9501 square feet would remain the same. Detached single unit residential, ADUs, and JADUs would continue to be allowed. • Lots in low-density single-family areas equal to and greater than 4,950 would be allowed to evolve with Incremental Infill 1. Detached or attached single unit residential, ADUs, JADUs, duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes would be allowed. This would allow up to 4 units on a lot, requiring the 4th unit to be affordable.  Link to full document is here:
This map shows that Culver City would be upzoned everywhere, including R-2 neighborhoods. 
This map shows the R-1 neighborhoods slated for upzoning. 
Background:
On Wednesday, June 23, The Culver City Council was to discuss eliminating R1/single-family home zoning. The public outcry via the number of speakers against this idea lasted 6 hours. It was determined at 2 a.m. that the meeting would continue on Monday, June 28 at 3pm. It was at that meeting that council voted 3/2 to direct staff to study how to eliminate R1/single-family zoning. 

This "upzoning" scheme was in response to an organized group that incorrectly believes eliminating single-family zoning will create affordable housing and help alleviate racial inequity in Culver City.​
Council vs The People:
  • Over 1,550 Culver City residents spoke at council meetings, signed petitions, and wrote letters in opposition of upzoning.
  • The city's online survey only received 683 participants. The city's two workshops only had 77 participants.
  • Residents pleaded with the council to hold community meetings or send out an announcement. They finally sent out one tiny postcard a few days beforehand.
  • Residents had to resort to mobilizing and informing their neighbors themselves.
  • In council meetings and in comments on the petition, residents expressed more and more their frustration and disappointment in council as council majority continued to change their justifications as to why they wanted to get rid of R-1 zoning, as each justification was easily debunked. 

The Overall Housing Issue:
This extremely complicated housing issue has lots of moving parts, and demands complex solutions, not a simplistic sledgehammer. At its core, there is a lack of affordable housing throughout the country. Because of high rental and residential land prices, many people are rent or mortgage-burdened, meaning that they pay more than 50% of household income for rent or mortgage payments.

Overall, affordable housing strategies should:
  • Preserve single-family neighborhoods.
  • ​Protect open spaces and environments.
  • Ensure local control so housing is built in appropriate areas with adequate infrastructure.
  • ​Create housing in commercial areas and on publicly owned land.
  • Commit Government funding and subsidies to produce affordable housing.
Culver City and Housing:
Bringing that focus back to Culver City, California assessed the housing needs of various areas. What resulted is the RHNA (“Regional Housing Needs Analysis”) numbers, which detail a suggested number of housing units for very low income, low income, moderate, and above moderate income units a city should plan. In the next 8 years, Culver City must create  a plan to allow the permitting of a total of 3,341 housing units by 2029 (1,108 very low-income, 604 low-income, 560 moderate-income, and 1,069 above-moderate income units). At present Culver City has  around 60% of moderate and above moderate income units, but only 40% of affordable housing for lower incomes. 

Plan dates and deadlines:
By October/December of 2021, Culver City must submit a land use plan to show the state that it will allow the additional numbers of affordable level and market rate units. As confirmed by the city’s planning manager at the June 28 meeting, we can already meet those goals without gutting R1/Single-family zoning.
Here are the facts:
  • The state already allows the building of an Auxiliary Dwelling Unit (“ADU”) of up to 1,200 feet as well as an additional Junior ADU (“JADU”) of up to 500 square feet to be built on every single-family lot in addition to a single-family home, where lot space permits the buildings.
  • Affordable housing and creating more housing are separate issues and should not be conflated.
  • We can already meet the RHNA requirements with the ADUs and increasing mixed-use commercial/residential development along major streets. There is no need for the council’s action.
  • Culver City already has 15.3% fewer single-family homes than other areas in the SCAG analysis (Southern California Association of Governments) which includes all of Southern California except San Diego County.
  • Culver City already has 15.9% more 2 to 5+ unit multiplexes than the rest of the SCAG area. (CA DOF E-5 Population and Housing Unit Estimates).
  • Culver City recently passed regulations requiring that mixed-use buildings above a certain number of units (residential and commercial) must provide for 15% of affordable housing. We can provide affordable housing without decimating single-family zoning.
  • Culver City has a diverse population, which when assessed by neighborhood shows that the “non-white” population varies between 40% to 60% (General Plan Update, Table 7) Yet city councilmembers repeatedly call some parts of our city segregationist and racially exclusionary. No one denies the city’s racist past, but where is the actual evidence of current race or origin based exclusionary city supported tactics?
  • Developers want to maximize profits. Developers will build three to four units on a single family lot if it makes them money. There is no economical reality in which they will create one “affordable” unit in a 4-unit building.
  • The developers only have the incentive to focus on luxury rentals and market priced housing.

Listen to the experts, not the lobbyists:
Many housing experts, tenant unions and community-based activists, express concern that eliminating single-family zoning (upzoning) will bring in more wealthy tenants and homeowners.  Builders with deep pockets could buy a single-family lot, build a 4-plex and offer them at the highest amount possible. These housing experts say this pro-developer scenario would incentivize the elimination of our current affordable housing stock (older R1 homes and ADUs) leaving behind current residents and the people in our community who need the most help. This plan does not guarantee affordable or low-income housing.

​The State and Culver City:
The state mandates that Culver City has a plan to add additional housing by 2029. Most of that plan is supposed to be for affordable housing. Eliminating R1 zoning will not create affordable housing. It will just create more housing. City Council can already meet – and exceed – state planning mandates with current ADU (auxiliary dwelling units) and mixed-use regulations and plans. There is no need for the City Council to make hurried, substantial, and irreversible changes to residential zoning affecting all single-family residences.

​There are effective and creative solutions to our affordable housing crisis, including:
  • Landlord incentives to make rent affordable.
  • Multi-use housing/retail/office/restaurant space along commercial corridors.
  • Developing commercial/industrial and underutilized spaces.
  • Focusing on under-served areas in our city and promoting the allowed building of up to two ADUs on all single-family lots.
Articles
Over Two Thirds of All Los Angeles Rentals Are Now Owned by Speculative Investment Vehicles
A new study by Strategic Actions for a Just Economy links corporate ownership to faster neighborhood rent increases.
What's in My Backyard?
​Karen Narevsky, Jacobin Magazine
Dropping the Hammer on YIMBYISM
 LA Tenants Union

“Yes In My BackYard” advocates a deregulatory, trickle-down framework for housing policy that does more harm than good. The thread uniting YIMBYs is that we should just “build baby build” to solve our housing crisis, despite abundant evidence — including studies by MIT academics and the Federal reserve, in addition to historical evidence from cities that have pursued this approach — showing that merely adding market-rate supply does not lead to lower housing prices, but rather spurs gentrification and displacement. By empowering the real estate industry, which has long served as a vanguard of structural racism and segregation, YIMBY policies hasten the construction of cities only accessible to the rich.
Zoning changes could put a hurt on Black homeownership
Madalyn Barber, Special to CalMatters
Trickle-Down Housing is a Failure. Here’s What You Need to Know.
​Patrick Range McDonald, Housing is a Human Right
Why Do Politicians Want to Take Away Homeownership from Communities of Color?
Cynthia Davis and Susie Shannon, LA Progressive
“Upzoning” in Newton: A tool to turn over the city from one class of people to another? (Updated)
Ian Lamont, Ipso Facto

Who We Are

We're a brand new coalition of neighbors. We are a group of Culver City neighbors from all areas of the city. We are concerned about the affordable housing crisis. We believe that our city can meet the challenges of providing affordable and equitable housing for all who need it.  We know that eliminating R1/single-family zoning will not solve the problem. In fact, it could make it worse.
Videos
The False Promise of Residential Infill
​Re-zoning and Re-development (story of a Seattle suburb)
United Neighbors: ​The Fight Against Gentrification
(explaining how SB9 and SB10 will hurt communities of color)
Culver City Neighbors United
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