Prime property in Santa Monica, California, is some of the most valuable real estate in the country. A home there will routinely sell for between two and five million dollars, and commercial real estate is prized for the most obvious of reasons: it's a great place to live, if you can stand living around liberals who want to take everything you own and are OK with being governed by clowns.
People will suffer a lot to live in paradise, and I can understand why. Perhaps if I had that kind of money, I would choose to live there. Probably not, but unless and until I inherit tens of millions of dollars from a long-lost uncle tucked away in Nigeria, I will never know.
Any rational city council would do everything it could to preserve and enhance the area for the benefit of its citizens, because, after all, that's supposed to be its job.
But this is California, where the politicians see their job as correcting historical injustices, "solving" problems they can do nothing about, and transforming paradise into slums.
This is Bergamot Station in @santamonicacity - the largest public arts complex in the Western US - small, independent galleries, artist lofts, comedy club/school, a place open to all. Owned by taxpayers.
— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) September 10, 2026
The DSA-aligned council voted in secret to tear it down for homeless… https://t.co/GAi7IW9ShX pic.twitter.com/YMqKLljCHU
This is Bergamot Station in @santamonicacity - the largest public arts complex in the Western US - small, independent galleries, artist lofts, comedy club/school, a place open to all. Owned by taxpayers.
The DSA-aligned council voted in secret to tear it down for homeless housing. 700+ units. Dead serious.
What else are they tearing down:
-TWO massive parking structures that serve the beach & 3rd St Promenade (one is already gone) for $2 MILLION/unit (including land value) homeless housing (which we pay for)
-City’s public ICE SKATING ⛸️ RINK where families & kids all gather during winter months. It’s a gem. GONE to house more homeless on some of the world’s most expensive land
-THE ENTIRE SANTA MONICA AIRPORT (I kid you not!!), pulling a bait and switch, claiming it’ll be a massive park while knowing there’s no budget, existing parks are full of bums, and state law (Surplus Land Act) will force it to become… you guess it! Homeless and affordable housing. On our dime.
-And councilman @EllisRaskin recently made a serious proposal (which the city is STUDYING!) to REMOVE THE ENTIRE 10 FREEWAY that runs through Santa Monica. You know, tens of thousands of cars a day, the ONLY route people in Malibu and northern coast have to connect to LA!
The homeless industrial complex is alive and well in Santa Monica, where bums get free drug needles and are IMMUNE FROM CRIMINAL PROSECUTION for most crimes if… they accept free taxpayer funded housing a couple blocks from the beach.
You can’t make this up! This must end!
One benefit of living in a place like Santa Monica is that the area is wealthy enough to throw money at cultural amenities when the opportunity presents itself, and apparently a prior city council did that when a rail yard was abandoned, and prime real estate opened up for development.
Rather than doing the obvious thing in such a tight real estate market, the area was converted into an arts complex with subsidized rents back in 1994. We can argue about whether that was the highest and best use of the property — I have no opinion because, as an amenity, it could be a nice addition to the community, but in my experience, most artists subsidized by the government are "meh"—but apparently the Bergamot Station does serve as part of the tourist economy, along with the stunning views and beaches.
I have to admit that I am unsurprised that there is a fight about whether the land should be turned into housing, since housing would generate real tax revenue that artist cubicles certainly would not, because the demand is so high; but only in California would the fight be over whether the land and the parking garages that help fuel the tourist economy would be turned into expensive housing for drug addicts.
Bergamot Station in Santa Monica is an historic, city-owned, 5 acre arts center & cultural hub. It houses numerous art galleries & design studios, making it a Mecca for art enthusiasts.
— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) October 14, 2024
The city plans to tear it down for 750 units of homeless/affordable housing.
Given that… pic.twitter.com/j9oiqhvAt2
Bergamot Station in Santa Monica is an historic, city-owned, 5 acre arts center & cultural hub. It houses numerous art galleries & design studios, making it a Mecca for art enthusiasts.
The city plans to tear it down for 750 units of homeless/affordable housing.
Given that the city has been spending $1 MILLION+ per unit (on top of the land value), that’s an astronomical amount to spend, not even considering the loss of a major cultural resource.
If there’s ever been evidence of the corruption behind the homeless-industrial complex, this is it. One by one, the city has been tearing down taxpayer owned infrastructure, such as high rise parking garages downtown, declaring them as “surplus” so they can gift them to developers and attract even more homeless to this seaside city.
But this IS California, and the city council is filled with leftists. Their goal is to take some of the most valuable real estate in the world and convert it into "affordable" housing and housing for the homeless, and as experience shows, whenever you do that you wind up making the surrounding area less inviting and livable.
The California state government has required Santa Monica to build nearly 2,000 "affordable housing" units on city-owned land, and there isn't much available land in a place like Santa Monica. The only way to get there is to take land that is currently in use and declare it "surplus," suddenly making it available for conversion to public housing, which, in an area like Santa Monica, requires $1-$2 million per unit to build.
‼️ Welcome to @santamonicacity where the city-owned ice skating ⛸️ & roller rink, encompassing an entire city block, is slated for demolition to be gifted essentially to developers to be turned into low income and homeless housing!
— Houman David Hemmati, MD, PhD (@houmanhemmati) November 30, 2025
The same city has already destroyed one major… pic.twitter.com/1vEY5h6Qwq
‼️ Welcome to @santamonicacity where the city-owned ice skating ⛸️ & roller rink, encompassing an entire city block, is slated for demolition to be gifted essentially to developers to be turned into low income and homeless housing!
The same city has already destroyed one major downtown parking structure blocks from here, is planning to destroy another larger parking structure, and is about to demolish Bergamot station, one of the nations largest public arts complexes, which serves the entire community and is home to countless visual and performing artists.
If you are an honest, hard-working, tax paying citizen, paying some of the highest taxes on earth, what do you get in return? Completely destroyed public infrastructure, with no places for families to go. But if you decide to come here and be homeless, you are rewarded with a free brand new condominium for life steps from the Pacific Ocean. With everything paid for for eternity. This is what they call permanent supportive housing.
Mayor Pro Tem @ctorosis and her supporters on the council, including housing lobbyist @jessezwick (yes there is a full-time registered housing lobbyist elected to the city council!) our hell Bent on leveraging California’s surplus land act to arbitrarily declare every city owned property as surplus so that they could justify gifting it to developers to turn into low income and homeless housing.
@GavinNewsom & @Scott_Wiener have turned this state into an absolute disaster. Do not allow them to roll out their destructive policies to the entire nation.
In exchange for spending approximately what a Santa Monica taxpayer paid for his home to house indigent people, the residents will get the benefit of having their access to the amenities of the city decline and the great pleasure of having thousands of people move in who are unlikely to add to the "vibe" of the city. They will instead do what people in "affordable" housing do: reduce property values, decline to take care of their properties, and, in many cases, bring crime and drug use.
The fact is that Santa Monica is a TERRIBLE place to put "affordable" housing for indigent and homeless people. You can travel a few miles east into Los Angeles and find much better sites, but liberals would howl that the best land is being "wasted" on people who can afford it.
Denying prime housing to people strung out on drugs is unfair!
It's insane. It's a blueprint for making everything worse. It ensures there are no nice places anywhere.
But that's how socialists think. They look at Cuba and see paradise. Hugo Chavez got it right!
Is it any wonder that California is bleeding residents, despite it being, arguably, the prettiest state in the nation?
The irony is that in these cases, more often than not, it is the wealthy residents who voted to make this all happen, often without realizing that they are doing so. They love the rhetoric because it makes them feel good about themselves without realizing that building something great is difficult, but destroying it takes little effort.
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