Culver City Neighbors United

Save R1/Single-Family Zoning

Solving our affordable housing crisis requires thoughtful, effective, and community-building solutions.
We can preserve single-family homes and support paths to affordable and equitable housing for all.

UPZONING CULVER CITY

On June 28, with a 3-2 vote (Eriksson and Vera against) the City Council voted to direct staff to study upzoning in EVERY single family neighborhood in the City. The primary focus was on eliminating R1/single-family zoning.

Since then, The Housing Element has been "approved" by the Planning Commission. According to the planning staff, it will be submitted to the state Housing and Community Development department "sometime in August." Presumably, this will be after it's presented to the City Council on August 23, 2021.

What Can You Do?

It is important that you provide input and make comments on the Draft Housing Element. Pay special attention to Appendix B: Draft Housing Element. You have until October 1. According to the city, your input will inform the final draft prepared for the Planning Commission's recommendation in November, and the City Council's decision in December, 2021.
Check out other people's comments (yellow circles). If you agree, give them a thumbs up. If you disagree, give the comment a thumbs down.
Take a look at the site inventory of properties Page 100 of the Draft Housing Element (B-10) This is a list of homes in Culver City that the consultants deemed most likely to be torn down, recycled, and replaced (presumably by a multi-family unit). Is your home or your neighbor's home on the list? We'll soon have a suggestion about what you can do about it.
Note: Inclusion on the list DOES NOT mean that anything will happen to your property without your consent.

UPZONING THE ENTIRE STATE OF CALIFORNIA?

State Senate Bills SB9 and SB10

California Senate Bills SB9 and SB10 are making their way through the legislature. These two bills are intended to upzone/eliminate R1/Single-family zoning throughout the state. We are fighting upzoning on two fronts: locally and at the state level.

Read more here

Send an email to Assemblymember Isaac Bryan (AD54) and tell him to vote NO on SB9 and SB 10

THE CITY COUNCIL LED BY MAYOR ALEX FISCH,
WILL soon VOTE TO submit a plan to the state to ELIMINATE R1/SINGLE-FAMILY ZONING

This means a FOURPLEX could be built next door to your single-family home.
They say it will promote affordable housing. It will not.
This same experiment has failed in cities across the U.S.

WHAT ELIMINATING R1 ZONING WILL DO:
Increase housing costs
Increase rental prices
Decrease affordability
Displace seniors, lower-income home seekers, and minorities
Decrease diversity
Increase gentrification
Create more traffic in neighborhoods
Decrease parking availability
Strain our aging infrastructure

Why is the City Council* working so hard for higher-income people?
Why isn't it focusing on feasible and affordable housing?

What you can do:
Email your City Council at city.council@culvercity.org, city.clerk@culvercity.org and tell them:
“Do not vote to eliminate R1 Single-Family Zoning. It will NOT create affordable housing!
It will DECREASE diversity and affordability. It will DISPLACE seniors and forever change our neighborhoods. Please listen to your constituents."

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.

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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Save R1/Single-Family Zoning

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

The End of Single-Family Neighborhoods in Culver City?

Who We Are

Culver City Council:

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