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Welcome to RIFT's online home. RIFT is a ballot initiative created by Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC) to fight our city's ever worsening traffic by limiting local commercial growth. The initiative has been filed with the city of Santa Monica and 10,295 signatures (nearly twice the number needed for ballot qualification) have been submitted. The county certified the official count placing the measure on the November ballot.
7.24.08
SM Planning Commissioner Jay Johnson Endorses RIFT. "RIFT is our only and best answer to seriously control growth/density." ... read
7.17.08
LUCE Will Not Offset Negative Consequences of Development...read SM Mirror
[FYI: LUCE – Land Use and Circulation Element / A city planning document currently being revised]
7.9.08
RIFT's sponsors say the groundswell is fueled by City Hall's failure to stem development... read LA Weekly
7.8.08
USC Study finds local air pollution bad for kids. Residential traffic exposure is linked to deficits in lung function growth and increased school absences. ... read
6.25.08
City Hall spent $100,000 of taxpayer money on biased study, snubs public and railroads conclusions...read SMCLC letter to Council
6.08
LA Times Expose on Traffic
Santa Monica cited as case study of how developments pass through loopholes in state laws in Part 2 of this multi-part series. ...read
PRESS RELEASE 5/19/08
Local Traffic Initiative Certified With Massive Support, Headed for November Ballot
SANTA MONICA – An initiative to fight traffic congestion in Santa Monica is headed for the November ballot after the County Clerk certified that the residents’ group sponsoring the measure had collected well over the required signatures the group announced Monday.
Proponents of the measure known as RIFT – Residents’ Initiative to Fight Traffic – collected over 10,000 signatures of registered voters in just 10 weeks. By law, the measure only needed 5800 signatures.
“Residents are fed up with overwhelming traffic congestion and our city’s continuing failure to set limits on commercial growth, which is a major source of gridlock,” said Diana Gordon, co-chair of the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City which authored the initiative.
“Finally, residents will get to vote on a real solution that will reduce the growth in cars coming into our city.”
“We know developers are already lining up to fund an expensive and deceptive campaign against the initiative. But Santa Monica residents will prevail just as they have in the past when the city breaks faith with its residents over misguided development, whether it be the battle to save the Pier in the 70s or to halt beach hotel construction in the 90s,” Gordon said.
Santa Monicans are not alone in their frustration that too much development and traffic is threatening the very sense of place that makes their city special. Residents in Newport Beach, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Redondo Beach are either voting on traffic-related initiatives in June or have enacted them in recent years.
RIFT would place an annual limit of 75,000 square-feet on new commercial development for the next 15 years. Schools, hospitals, religious buildings and other community-serving development would be exempt. Large-scale development projects could be approved by voters.
PHOTOS OF THE SIGNATURE SUBMISSION TO SM CITY HALL
• DONATE • VOLUNTEER
• JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST
4.7.08
SM Daily Press
"... the people are taking control where city government has refused to intervene." ... read
SM Daily Press
"But here’s the reality: All commercial development doesn’t necessarily generate net revenues
to the city once the cost of providing new services required by a project is subtracted from gross
revenues. ...read
3.31.08
PRESS RELEASE
RIFT is good for our local economy and local business ...read
3.26.08
The past SMCLC effort of deny carte blanche development of SM Place proves portentous. "...the Westside is the 'dominant favored quarter' for development in Los Angeles County..." ... read
3.24.08
LA Council Rejects Project Based on Traffic
"This project (Las Lomas) would have put 15,000 cars a day in an already heavily impacted area," said City Councilman Greig Smith, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley. "The people of L.A. said we can't take that anymore. We're tired of it."... read
3.17.08
Pico Neighborhood Association (PNA) and Wilshire-Montana Neighborhood Coalition (WILMONT) have endorsed RIFT. All five traditional neighborhood groups now support RIFT.
... read
3.16.08
RIFT EXTRA
At SMCLC's request, retired Rand research engineer, Giles Smith studied patterns of land-use in Santa Monica over the past 25 years. Here is his report, which shows the massive amount of commercial development the city approved in excess of our 1984 General Plan, as well as the large amount of new growth the city is projecting over the next 20 years. The report is based entirely on city documents.
3.15.08
Why RIFT is good for Santa Monica businesses... read
3.11.08
SM Daily Press Op-Ed
"It's hard to trust City Hall on Development"
3.7.08
SM Dispatch A Vital Measure
"We don’t know precisely when City Hall decided that it knew better than Santa Monica residents and stopped listening to us, but it was some time ago, and we are now all suffering the multiple consequences of a series of wrong turns made, over our protests, by City Hall."
3..4.08
SM Dispatch Op-Ed
"Surely, by now, we should have some sense of the place that is presumably taking shape on the computer screens in the Planning Department..."
RIFT online can be accessed through the SMCLC homepage. You have a choice of three URLs to place in your browser • smclc.net • smrift.net • smrift.com. All three take you to the SMCLC homepage. Click on the BIG RIFT icon to get you back here, into the RIFT site.
SANTA MONICA RESIDENTS ARE TAKING CONTROL
OF TRAFFIC AND OVER-DEVELOPMENT