Despite local objections, high-rise apartment buildings could soon spring from low-rise neighborhoods across Southern California.
To the horror of slow-growth proponents and neighborhood preservationists, proposals range from a six-story apartment building in suburban Orange to 2,000 units in a 1.9-million-square-foot, 20-level complex in Santa Monica.
But because these cities didn’t have a state-approved housing plan when developers filed their applications, local leaders can’t use zoning rules or their general plans to stop them.
A little-known provision called the “builder’s remedy” created a virtual zoning holiday for developments that include low-income housing, even though the proposals, according to one city council member, are “out of scale for the community.”
“These projects, by and large, are in places where we don’t have mid-rise to high-rise buildings now,” said Santa Monica Councilmember Phil Brock. “This is the question I think every city is having. How do you do what the state’s telling us to do?”
Cities across California are now grappling with that question.
In Southern California, nine cities — from Del Mar to Sylmar — have received 26 builder’s remedy applications in the past eight months, seeking to build 8,642 new homes.
RELATED: See the list: Developers file 26 Southern California builder’s remedy projects
At least two or three Bay Area cities have received similar applications, according to press reports. The pro-housing group Yimby Law says developers are contemplating builder’s remedy applications in eight additional California cities.
And the potential for such projects is even higher — much higher. Almost half of California municipalities — including 116 in Southern California and 103 in the Bay Area — are vulnerable to the builder’s remedy because they don’t have a state-approved plan, known as a “housing element.”
Although the builder’s remedy has been on the books for three…
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