Watching our City Council squabble, I wonder why the R1 "granny flat" issue divides rather than unites us.

Santa Monica is being subjected to state housing growth standards, the same standards applied to a city like Fresno where subdivisions can be extended to the horizon across undeveloped raisin fields.

We, by contrast, are built out at an average 11,000 persons per square mile, surrounded on three sides by an even denser city we don't wish to emulate. The fourth side is the ocean, marvelously flat but fortunately too wet to pave.

Instead of fighting over whether new units should go in our already teeming R2 and R3 districts or into R1 backyards, shouldn't we be joining forces through lobbying or legal action to resist the forced and inappropriate imposition of those state standards?

How about affordable family housing in zones not now residential, along existing mass transit lines? Is that something we all could vote for?

Kevin McKeown
Santa Monica

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