During its Regular Meeting on Jan. 28, the City Council voted to postpone a review of short-term rental regulations until an unspecified date in the future. The decision was made because an urgency ordinance passed on Jan. 16 temporarily suspends restrictions on short-term rentals in the city to help provide housing for individuals and families displaced by the recent fires. Previously, landlords and property owners in Beverly Hills were limited to renting out a property for the short term (defined as a period of less than six months) only twice a year. Under the emergency ordinance, this restriction is waived for those displaced by the nearby fires. The restrictions will remain suspended until April 16 and may be extended for an additional 90 days after that, pending further review. Additionally, prices of a short-term rental can be increased by no more than 10% of their prior listing rate to avoid state and city price gouging regulations.
The council also adopted a resolution and ordinance for the conversion of 6,797 square feet of existing parking spaces located on the ground floor of a parking structure at 450 N. Roxbury Drive for retail uses.
The Planning Commission had previously approved this project, contingent upon the council’s decision. The resolution and ordinance were adopted unanimously by councilmembers.
The Council also discussed updates on the construction of a permanent Oct. 7 memorial, which will be located on the south side of the Beverly Hills Public Library at the corner of Rexford Drive and Burton Way.
The council reviewed the final draft of the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the permanent memorial. They discussed the proposed two-phase approach to selecting a design for the memorial. The first stage would see the city issue a request for qualified artists, designers and architects to submit potential designs, with the aim to make this as open and inclusive as possible.
Councilmembers confirmed that designers do not have to be Beverly Hills residents to participate in the design competition. “I think we should cast a broad net … it could be anyone from Daniel Libeskind, who’s done the Berlin Memorial [the Jewish Museum Berlin], to people who have designed memorials that are related to the Holocaust or other things,” Councilmember Craig Corman said.
The memorial can take up the full site location, but councilmembers are particularly interested in seeing designs that focus more on the Rexford Drive side of the location, facing the 9/11 Memorial.
A dedicated 10/7 Memorial Committee will then be formed, comprising a maximum of 10 individuals. Members of this committee would include Mayor Lester Friedman and Vice Mayor Sharona Nazarian alongside three advisory members from the fields of design, landscaping or architecture. Each councilmember will also select an individual of their choice to sit on the committee.
The second phase of the design process would require the newly formed 10/7 Memorial Committee to review the submitted designs and narrow their shortlist down to a few finalists whose designs will then be developed further and presented to the community for resident feedback.
While an initial budget of $500,000 was allocated for the memorial, the City Council was open to the idea of increasing this budget if additional funds could be raised through the city’s charitable foundation.
“There is a target budget, but it’s not a hard and fast budget. I don’t want people to think if they go $1,000 over, we can’t do that. Then they won’t submit a design that we would otherwise want to see,” Corman said.
