After being held over from the previous City Council meeting, the matter of additional funding for Jubilo Village has approval, but still needs to be included in the city’s next budget.
By taking it out of the current fiscal year and including it with the budget for next year, the loan request to cover a shortfall in funding won approval. On a 3-1-1 vote, with Mayor Dan O’Brien voting no and Council member Albert Vera, Jr. abstaining, the council approved funding to be finalized be at the June 9, 2025 meeting.
The popular affordable housing development is a partnership between the Culver-Palms Methodist Church and the Community Corp. of Santa Monica – an historically successful developer of affordable housing. It is planned for 95 units, on the property now occupied by the CPM Church on Sepulveda, and will offer family sized apartments of multiple bedrooms along with amenities like laundry and community space.
The project, which has been in development for six years, hit a major snag when funding that had already been approved by Culver City was suddenly revealed to be technically unavailable. The funding that was approved at the council meeting for Jubilo Village would be to make up for that surprising and still somewhat inexplicable error. The CCSM would not have proceeded to this point – Jubilo Village is considered “shovel-ready” and was originally due to break ground in January- had the city not already guaranteed the support.
The audience was packed with supporters; the green signs that people held up bore captions like “Culver City Needs Jubilo Village” and “Fund Jubilo Village.” Dozens spoke at the podium in support of the affordable housing, while only a few spoke against it.
The City’s Chief Financial Officer, Lisa Soghor, offered that caution was what most cities would prefer; taking the funding out of the reserves would put that balance just below what was considered a prudent reserve.
Tara Barauskas, the Executive Director of CCSM, offered a list of more than a dozen funding sources that could be applied for and the calculated percentage of probability of what monies would come through. The loan needed to make up the shortfall on the housing vouchers that Culver City had already promised to CCSM for the project would, she emphasized, be repaid.
While Mayor O’Brien stated repeatedly “Everyone wants this it happen…” he stated that the money needed to come from the county, or the state.
The motion to include the funding at the budget meeting allowed it to move forward; Voting on the appropriation at last night’s council meeting would have required a four-fifths majority, as it would be an amendment to the current budget.
With support from Vice Mayor Freddy Puza, Council member Yasmine-Imani McMorrin and Council member Bryan “Bubba” Fish, the three votes in favor allowed the loan to be put into the next budget cycle.
The vote on the budget will take place on June 9, 2025.
Judith Martin-Straw