Question on historic preservastion :
(from Santa Monica Mirror questionnaire):

6) What is your position on historic preservation?

I believe that a community’s architectural heritage is a necessary, critical part of its identity – the best parts of which should be treasured and preserved.  As City Council liaison to the Landmarks Commission, I have worked to make our community’s Landmarks Ordinance more transparent and resident-friendly, while working to provide incentives and rewards to those who chose to landmark their buildings. 

Question on historic preservastion :
(from Santa Monica Conservancy questionnaire):

2.  Santa Monica has an award winning Historic Preservation Element and Landmarks Ordinance.  What new steps can the city undertake to better preserve Santa Monica's unique historic character?

As Council liaison I sit in during the meetings of the Landmark’s Commission and marvel at the local history that comes through during discussion of various local properties.  I would love to get this knowledge more out into the public, as that would help build our collective historic consciousness.

We need to continue to educate people about the positive realities of the City’s Landmark’s Ordinance, including the improvements we made in 2003 in response to the Prop. A debate. The fact we’ve seen an upswing in Mills Act awards suggests this overall process has already been fruitful.  We have to build on this and the positive atmosphere at the Landmark’s Commission meetings really helps.

We should be proud of our new real estate disclosure law requiring notice when the property is designated as a historic resource or listed on the city’s inventory of historic resources.  Hats off to the Landmark’s Commission as well for this.

Recently we took a positive step in granting greater flexibility in substantial remodels of non-conforming structures, which will incentivizes retention and rehabilitation of potentially historic structures.

Looking ahead, the comprehensive nature of the City’s General Plan update is going to give us all a chance to really focus on what we care about – and that is going to be a chance to really involve people in who we are, which I think is going to help generate additional excitement for historic preservation

As we look at updating the Landmark’s ordinance further, we will deal with exotic questions like adaptive reuse, parking, and even transferable development rights.  I look forward to the community discussion of trade-offs involved in these approaches.

We should also keep the Development Agreements option in mind in special circumstances involving potentially historic structures as part of larger developments, because of the flexibility they offer in putting together a deal that can incentivize retention.

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