About the Building
San Vicente Ocean is a sixteen-home condominium of 1982 at 202 San Vicente Boulevard, and the Los Angeles County Assessor confirms it as a genuine for-sale condominium. The roll carries sixteen separately assessed parcels, each legally described as Condominium Tract 38531, Condominium Unit one through sixteen, and each returning a condominium use description. There is no ambiguity in the record: this is a purpose-recorded condominium tract rather than an apartment building later subdivided, and individual homes can be conveyed and financed on their own. The tract number itself is the cleanest confirmation available in the public record.
The plan sizes are unusually consistent. Assessor records give 1,588, 1,611 and 1,612 square feet on the parcels sampled, every one of them two bedrooms and three bathrooms. A condominium directory publishes a slightly wider set of numbers, describing two-bedroom homes from 1,577 to 1,710 square feet and three-bedroom homes from 1,609 to 1,672 square feet, which suggests some homes have been reconfigured or that marketed and assessed areas are measured differently. The tight clustering on the roll is the more reliable guide to what the building was built as.
The site density explains the townhouse format. Roughly 21,898 square feet of land carrying sixteen homes gives about 1,370 square feet of land per residence, which on three levels supports a full townhouse plan with its own front door and its own garage rather than a corridor block. Directories describe private direct-access two-car garages, an automatic driveway gate, an elevator, built-in storage and in-unit laundry, with roof decks off the primary suite on at least some plans. Confirm the level count and outdoor provision for a specific home from the recorded plan.
The 1982 construction date carries real regulatory weight in Santa Monica and it works in a buyer's favour twice over. Santa Monica's own seismic retrofit programme, adopted in March 2017 under Ordinance 2537, reaches buildings constructed under codes enacted before 10 November 1980. A building completed in 1982 was designed and permitted after that threshold and therefore sits outside the mandatory categories. Separately, the city's rent ceiling protections reach buildings completed before 10 April 1979, so this building falls outside rent control as well. Neither point removes the need to read the association's own disclosure package carefully.
The assessor's roll carries a Santa Monica R2 zoning designation for these parcels, a low-density multi-family classification. Sixteen homes on 21,898 square feet is denser than that designation would ordinarily produce today, which is the normal condition for a subdivision of this era: it was built to the standards then in force and now exists as a legal nonconforming density. That is not a defect, but it constrains what could be rebuilt on the site after a total loss, which is a question for the insurance conversation as well as for planning.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
Every parcel sampled on the assessor's roll returns two bedrooms and three bathrooms at between 1,588 and 1,612 square feet, a spread of under thirty square feet across the building. That consistency is the defining characteristic here. It means the homes were built as a single repeating townhouse plan with mirrored variants rather than as a set of different products, and it means the differences between one sale and another come down to condition, orientation and outdoor space rather than to size. Verify the specific home against the recorded plan.
Directories describe three storeys with formal living rooms and fireplaces at the main level, gourmet kitchens, in-unit laundry, and primary suites with high ceilings, a sitting area and a private rooftop patio. In a townhouse plan that arrangement puts the primary suite at the top with the best light and the only private outdoor space above ground. It also means stairs are part of daily life on every trip between the garage, the living level and the bedrooms, which is worth testing physically on a viewing rather than assessing from a plan.
Each home is described as having its own private direct-access two-car garage, which in a sixteen-home building is a materially different proposition from a shared subterranean structure. It gives the home a secure second entrance, removes the queue at a single gate, and makes two vehicles genuinely practical in a neighbourhood where kerbside parking is constrained. It also puts the garage door, its opener and the surrounding structure into a grey area between unit and common area. Read the CC and Rs to see where that boundary falls. Ask whether the association maintains the driveway surface and the gate mechanism.
A private rooftop patio off the primary suite is the amenity that most distinguishes these homes, and it is also the element that most repays inspection. Roof decks sit directly over habitable space, so their waterproofing, drainage and flashing are the single most consequential detail on the building. Ask when the deck membranes were last renewed, whether there is any history of water intrusion into the bedrooms below, and whether the deck is treated as exclusive-use common area with maintenance shared or as the owner's responsibility. The answer determines who pays when a membrane fails, which on a deck of this age is a question of when rather than whether.
A condominium directory describes both two-bedroom and three-bedroom homes here, with three-bedroom plans between roughly 1,609 and 1,672 square feet, while every parcel sampled on the assessor's roll returns two bedrooms. The most likely explanation is that some homes have had a third bedroom created within the existing envelope, which is easy in a townhouse plan with a loft or den. If that matters, ask whether the alteration was permitted and whether the association approved it, and confirm what the roll and the plan say. City permit records for the specific unit are obtainable and worth pulling before you rely on a bedroom count.
Directories list an elevator, which is unusual in a sixteen-home townhouse subdivision and probably serves the garage level and the common circulation rather than individual homes. It changes the maintenance profile: an elevator brings an annual permit, a service contract, statutory inspections and eventually a modernisation that lands on sixteen owners. Ask whether the elevator serves any individual residence, what its service history looks like, and whether the reserve study carries a modernisation line for it. In a sixteen-home association a single modernisation can run to a five-figure sum per owner, so the funding position for that item matters more than the general reserve percentage does.
Due Diligence
Sixteen separately assessed parcels on Condominium Tract 38531, each coded as a condominium, with a year built of 1982 on every unit sampled. There is no evidence of a later conversion in the record, which means the homes were mapped as for-sale residences from the outset. That is the cleaner structure for a buyer: no conversion disclosures, no tenant-participating conversion history, and no legacy rental documentation to work through. That simplifies the disclosure review considerably.
Los Angeles City Ordinances 183893 and 184081 do not apply in Santa Monica. The city adopted its own seismic retrofit programme in March 2017 under Ordinance 2537, codified across municipal code chapters 8.58 to 8.80, covering unreinforced masonry, concrete tilt-up, soft-story, non-ductile concrete and steel moment frame buildings. Notices were issued to identified properties between May 2017 and August 2018, with compliance deadlines running from the date of notice. Compliance status is documented and obtainable.
The programme reaches buildings constructed under codes enacted before 10 November 1980. A 1982 completion was designed and permitted after that threshold, which puts the building outside the mandatory scope. Still ask the association directly whether any notice was received, because the city worked from an inventory rather than from perfect records, and because a townhouse over an open garage is the geometry the soft-story category was written for even where the age does not qualify.
Santa Monica's rent ceiling protections reach multi-unit buildings completed before 10 April 1979. A 1982 building is not covered and the narrow Costa-Hawkins carve-out for pre-1979 condominiums cannot reach it. Just-cause eviction protections under the city's broader housing policies still apply to multi-unit buildings regardless of construction date, so a landlord here retains process obligations. Confirm current requirements with the Rent Control Board before serving any notice. Take advice before serving anything on a sitting tenant.
The assessor's roll shows a Santa Monica R2 designation, and sixteen homes on roughly 21,898 square feet is denser than that classification would ordinarily allow today. Buildings in that position are usually legal nonconforming, meaning they may continue as built but could not necessarily be rebuilt at the same density after a substantial loss. Ask City Planning for the current designation and read the association's master insurance policy for ordinance and law coverage, which is what pays for that gap.
California requires periodic inspection of exterior elevated elements, including decks, balconies and walkways and their waterproofing, in multifamily buildings with three or more units. Roof decks over habitable rooms are the highest-consequence version of that item. Ask for the completed inspection report, the engineer's findings, the repair scope that followed, and confirmation that any work was permitted and signed off by the city. Ask whether the report covered the roof decks specifically, since they are easily treated as roofing rather than as elevated elements.
Santa Monica's home-sharing ordinance, chapter 6.20 of the municipal code adopted in May 2015, bans vacation rentals of thirty consecutive days or less unless a primary resident remains on site throughout the stay, and it applies to condominiums. Permitted home-sharing requires a city business licence. Ask separately what minimum lease term the association has adopted, since Civil Code section 4741 allows a board to prohibit tenancies of thirty days or less.
The building stands one block from Ocean Avenue at the seaward edge of the city, and the California Coastal Zone boundary in Santa Monica runs inland from the shoreline. Whether this parcel falls inside it is a question to put to City Planning rather than to assume. If it does, exterior alterations may require a coastal development permit alongside a city permit, and the division of authority is currently in transition under a 2026 memorandum aiming at full certification of the city's Local Coastal Program by the end of 2027.
Everything above is drawn from public records, city permit data and published sources. The association’s statutory disclosure package is the only authoritative answer on dues, rules, reserves, insurance and litigation — Ben will request it and read it with you before you remove contingencies.
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