Meeting: March 11, 2025
1 16 ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBERS DAN HALL, JESSE ZWICK, AND MAYOR PRO 2 TEMPORE TOROSIS
3 Request of Councilmembers Hall, Zwick, and Mayor Pro Tempore Torosis that in 4 order to examine the City’s historical preservation through the lens of social 5 justice, the Council direct Staff to return with options to implement additional 6 recommendations from the Landmarks Commission report “A Place for Everyone 7 in Santa Monica’s History.”
8 On June 14, 2022 the City Council reversed the landmark designation of a property 9 - 1665 Appian Way - owned, built and occupied by a leading proponent of racist real 10 estate practices. The Council also unanimously adopted a motion directing the 11 Landmarks Commission “to work with the Committee for Racial Justice and other groups 12 within town, to try and come up with some criteria and framework for addressing these 13 kinds of issues when they arise in the future, so that we will have a standardized way of 14 dealing with these unfortunate situations.”
15 The Landmarks Commission established a sub-committee and formed a Working 16 Group for Social Justice in Preservation which embarked on a two-year collaboration by 17 the Landmarks Commission, City Staff, the Committee for Racial Justice and community 18 stakeholders to create an expanded lens to evaluate the City’s historical landmarks. The 19 recommendations from this effort are presented in the report, A Place For Everyone in 20 Santa Monica’s History: Report from Working Group on Social Justice/Equity in 21 Preservation.
22 The report offered seven recommendations based on participant research, 23 listening sessions, and involvement of the diverse resident communities that have been 24 traditionally underrepresented in the City’s Landmarks designation processes. The report 25 also addressed repair of harm from racial and other inequities in the City’s historic 26 preservation processes.
27 At its June 10, 2024 meeting, the Landmarks Commission reviewed the report and 28 adopted a motion that the Subcommittee send a letter to Council noting that the 29 Commission “endorses the report recommendations with the staff framework; including 30 that there are steps we can do right away with existing resources; and other 31 recommendations require additional time and resources to develop and will return with 32 future budget requests.”
33 On February 11, 2025, the Landmarks Commission presented the report to City 34 Council and Council passed direction to Staff to begin implementation of all 35 recommendations that did not require additional resources (Recommendations #4, 6, and 36 7). Councilmembers proposed bringing any further recommendations forward via a 16 37 item, which we now do.
16 ITEM BY COUNCILMEMBERS HALL, ZWICK, AND MAYOR PRO TEMPORE
TOROSIS
A Place for Everyone in Santa Monica’s History
38 By doing so, it is our intent to encourage a neutral examination of a building or 39 site’s history through the lens of social justice, inclusive of race, gender, orientation, 40 veteran status, and any other protective class typically recognized by the City of Santa 41 Monica, to provide applicants and appellants with equal opportunity to additional tools to 42 designate landmarks (e.g. the Philomathean Hall or Tucker House) or to appeal landmark 43 designations (e.g. 1665 Appian Way).
44 In order to examine the City’s historical preservation work through the lens of social 45 justice,
46 WE THEREFORE MOVE THAT THE COUNCIL:
47 1. Direct the Interim City Manager to work with the Landmarks Commission further 48 and return to Council no later than one year from today with options and costs to 49 implement Landmarks Commission Recommendations # 2 and 3. 50 1.1. Text of Recommendation #2: “Ensure that landmark nominations, and/or 51 the reports that analyze them, take a much closer look into owners and 52 occupants of proposed landmarks to learn more about the people 53 associated with our historic places, because it is in the people that the 54 stories reside.”
55 1.2. Text of Recommendation #3: “Create Santa Monica guidelines for 56 interpretation of the City’s Landmark Designation Criteria and evaluation of 57 historic integrity to assist applicants, decision makers, and others active in 58 the process, and include special guidance on how to uncover and interpret 59 the history of previously underrecognized groups.”
60 # # #