West Hollywood Got Its Metro. Next Stop — SB 79?

The subway vote was barely hours old when the questions started showing up in WEHOonline’s comments section. Not about the route or about the stations. The comments (and emails) were asking what happens next to their neighborhoods before the first train pulls in.

West Hollywood fought for this for a decade and Thursday it won. A lot of residents are genuinely excited to see this finally happening. The win is real.

So is the clock.

July 1st is the date. That’s when SB 79 kicks in. Ninety days from today. Governor Newsom signed the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act last October. It sets minimum development standards that override local zoning where it conflicts near designated transit stations. The K Line is light rail, Tier 2 under the law. On eligible parcels near qualifying station areas, high-density residential or mixed-use development can be approved by right. SB 79 sets minimum height floors measured in feet. Within a quarter mile of a qualifying station, local governments cannot impose height limits below 65 feet. Between a quarter mile and a half mile, that floor drops to 55 feet. For qualifying projects, the law creates a streamlined ministerial path that significantly curtails the City’s ability to deny or substantially modify a project based on height or density.

The City’s been saying ZIP, its Zoning Improvement Program, won’t bring seven-story buildings into single-family neighborhoods. That’s true of ZIP. SB 79 is a different animal. It applies to eligible parcels near transit regardless of what ZIP does. Nick Maricich, the City’s Director of Community Development, confirmed to WEHOonline this week that ZIP cannot override SB 79 where it applies.

Three future station areas in West Hollywood are tied to Thursday’s approved alignment: Santa Monica and San Vicente, Santa Monica and Fairfax, and Santa Monica and La Brea. West Hollywood’s 2020 Census population is 35,757, just above the 35,000 line where SB 79’s upzoning radius goes from a quarter mile to a full half mile. Maricich confirmed that too. The half-mile zone applies here. In a city that covers 1.9 square miles, with three future station areas, that’s a lot of West Hollywood. In case you’re wondering, because I sure was, the law uses official U.S. Census counts. In California, that means the 2020 decennial census, not interim estimates that can fluctuate year to year.

WEHOonline asked Maricich whether last Thursday’s vote triggers SB 79 near those future station areas. He said the law can apply to planned stops, not just ones already running. But the Metro vote alone doesn’t decide it. SCAG, the Southern California Association of Governments, is still drawing the official map of qualifying transit stops for the region. That map goes before the SCAG Regional Council at a special meeting in June. One month before the law takes effect. West Hollywood won’t know its parcel-level exposure until then.

SB 79 takes effect July 1. The map lands in June. West Hollywood has not yet adopted an SB 79 alternative plan.

Under SB 79, cities can adopt what’s called a Transit-Oriented Development Alternative Plan, or TODAP, to shape how that density shows up. Things like design standards, where growth is steered within the zone, or affordability requirements above the state minimum. But there’s a limit. A TODAP cannot reduce the overall development capacity the law allows. It can guide it, it can’t stop it.

West Hollywood does not yet have that kind of plan in place. The City’s Zoning Improvement Program, or ZIP, is still underway and has not been adopted as zoning or formalized into an SB 79 alternative. If nothing is in place by July 1, and once those station areas are confirmed through SCAG’s mapping, the state framework becomes the default in those areas.

ZIP is how the City can prepare for that shift, but it does not change the baseline set by the state.

To be fair, the residents who’ve been raising this issue for awhile aren’t inventing a threat or being the NIMBYs they are so lazily referred to. West Hollywood has lost roughly 1,000 rent-stabilized units over the past two decades. The City’s own inclusionary program requires 20 percent affordable units in new residential projects. SB 79 sets a baseline of 7 to 13 percent — but the law also states that where a local requirement is higher, the local requirement applies. The City clarified to WEHOonline that West Hollywood’s 20 percent standard would still apply to projects near future K Line stations under SB 79.

There is one significant protection built into SB 79 that should be noted. The law cannot be used on sites where more than two units subject to rent or price controls would be demolished, or on sites where such controlled units were demolished within the past seven years. A developer cannot use SB 79 to tear down an occupied rent-controlled building and replace it with a market-rate tower. But, the watchers will say West Hollywood residents have watched that happen anyway, through other mechanisms, under existing zoning. One recent example, an approved project at 948 N. Hayworth, reduced four rent-stabilized units to two. That happened without SB 79. The concern isn’t just what SB 79 allows. It’s what gets built in its shadow on vacant lots and underutilized commercial parcels that don’t carry that protection.

That broader shift is what’s on everyone’s radar. Maricich referenced this back in December at a packed town hall we covered. “There are state laws that have already changed what can be built in the R1s today. And there are other state laws that may come to impact these existing R1 areas. Some of these things are not our decision.”

The City says that engaging proactively through ZIP gives West Hollywood more say over what happens than fighting state law and losing. On ZIP’s timeline, Maricich acknowledged the schedule on the City’s Engage WeHo page needs to be updated. The next milestone is a policy discussion with City decision makers this summer. The website will be changed to reflect this.

The train won’t run until 2047 under the current Measure M timeline. West Hollywood has been pushing to move that up through its EIFD financing plan, which still hasn’t been formed. The subway is coming. Eventually. Truth is, many of us may be long gone by the time it finally rolls into town. That said, the zoning pressure from SB 79 doesn’t wait for eventually.

SCAG maps in June. SB 79 hits July 1. Whatever those maps show about future K Line station areas is what West Hollywood wakes up to that morning. A lot of residents are glad the subway is finally coming. The ones asking hard questions aren’t as excited, at least not yet.