How Cities Can Support Growth Through the Pandemic

Many cities are facing economic challenges as a result of the pandemic, but there are many ways that cities can support growth. Santa Monica and Glendale in the Greater Los Angeles market make a good case study. Santa Monica has notably supported affordable housing in new developments and Glendale has instead fast tracked new projects.

“Santa Monica is a leader in requiring new development to shoulder responsibility for affordable housing and mobility issues through inclusionary housing policies and transportation impact fees,” Alan Loomis, principal of urban design at PlaceWorks, tells GlobeSt.com. “Glendale would have been well served to have followed this model when it experienced a significant building boom during the 2010s. Thousands of new housing units were built in this decade and Glendale received relatively little public benefit from this growth.” Loomis has worked at both Santa Monica and Glendale as a city planner, giving him intimate insight into the operations of both cities.

While Santa Monica has focused on growth, Glendale has instead supported new development by expediting the review process. “The development review process in Glendale is significantly simpler and less time-consuming than in Santa Monica. Santa Monica has a process wherein almost every project requires a separately negotiated development agreement, ostensibly to generate public benefits out of each project,” says Loomis. “But it is debatable whether that process has generated better results than Glendale’s expedited review process. Glendale has done a much better job than Santa Monica in aligning its various departments and divisions responsible for development review into a stronger unit with a clearer chain of command amongst city staff and commissions.” Either of these are potential strategies that cities can leverage to support growth following the pandemic.

Financial resources will also play a key role in local development. Tourism revenue in Santa Monica fell dramatically during the pandemic, but in Glendale, tourism is not a major source of income. “Santa Monica’s municipal budget is heavily dependent upon tourism through direct fees such as hotel room taxes, and indirect income such as tourism spending in shops, restaurants, and beachside parking lots. The immediate collapse of this income in March 2020 created a fiscal crisis within City Hall that required a reduction in staff and services and a restructuring of various city departments,” says Loomis.

The city reacted quickly to the financial upset by finding ways to quickly support businesses and drive revenue. “A number of long-range planning and capital projects had to be shelved, but the city was able to effectively implement a number of parklets and other on-street dining areas, or “streateries,” to support local business districts. Ironically, these sorts of initiatives had been in the planning process for years, but the pandemic managed to grease the wheels of Santa Monica’s considerable bureaucracy,” says Loomis.

While Glendale’s budget is far less dependent on tourism, the market also found ways to quickly and cost effectively support businesses. “Glendale is far less dependent upon tourism, so it was able to weather the economic downturn of the pandemic without significant impacts on city services,” says Loomis. “It too implemented a number of “streateries” on its primary retail and restaurant streets, with similar success as Santa Monica. In both cities, there is now a desire to see these temporary changes to the streets and sidewalks become a permanent fixture.”

So far, these challenges have yet to manifest as significant negative impacts. “Pre-pandemic, both Santa Monica and Glendale were highly desirable residential markets, a fact generated by good regional location for jobs, blue-ribbon public schools, and perception of general safety,” says Loomis. “The pandemic seems to have had little impact on either city’s residential desirability in either for-sale homes or new multi-family development markets. However, in both cities the work-from-home regimen of the pandemic has cooled the office market. In Santa Monica, which has had a red-hot office market for tech and entertainment companies, this cooling effect may well be a good outcome by giving the city an opportunity to rebalance itself.”