By Jorge Casuso

April 9, 2026 -- What can be done when a building is designated a historic landmark, and it's learned that the original owner, builder and longtime resident engaged in racist activities at the site?

Faced with the issue in June 2022, the City Council overturned the designation and directed the Landmarks Commission to "come up with some criteria and framework" for "dealing with these unfortunate situations."

On Sunday, April 19, a special Landmarks Commission meeting will be held to discuss the findings of a report by the Preservation Working Group that addresses the role of social justice in recognizing landmark buildings.

The meeting at Marine Park Auditorium from 2 to 5 p.m. "represents a small but meaningful step toward connecting communities across Santa Monica" to discuss how history should be recognized.

According to the report presented to the Council in February 2025, “Telling truthful stories from history presents an opportunity to interpret what has come before, understand how it impacts us today, and presents an opportunity for reparative improvement in the future.”

The report "outlines the research and procedures undertaken and lists several substantive recommendations for ensuring social equity in the course of implementation of the Santa Monica Landmarks Ordinance."

After holding listening sessions with Blacks, Latinos, Japanese Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and California and Early Santa Monica Mexicans, the Working Group came to the following conclusion:

"There can be no objective 'framework' that could lead to the proper handling of difficult narratives that emerge in the course of Landmark nominations, and in Santa Monica’s history, there are many lost and buried stories that we must work hard to discover and share."

The Working Group recommended that the Santa Monica Historic Resources Inventory and Context Statement should be updated to "more deeply reflect" the history of underrepresented communities and "identify extant historic places that may help tell their stories."

It also recommended that landmark nominations "take a much closer look into owners and occupants" to "learn more about the people associated with our historic places because it is in the people that the stories reside."

Additional recommendations included retaining outside consultants from "unrepresented groups," creating a social justice advisory committee to the Landmarks Commission and providing professional training to Commissioners and City staff.

Throughout the process, the case of the nominated building that "triggered the creation of the Working Group" -- a 100-year-old fourplex near Santa Monica’s beachfront at 1665 Appian Way -- played a key role.

The building "turned out to be an ideal 'case study' of the problem," the Working group wrote, "by assuming that its architectural significance is a given and then layering in the racist narrative and its aspects related to the establishment of institutionalized racism in Santa Monica."