Santa Monica’s pro-housing world just turned on itself.
Santa Monica Forward, a group long identified with the “build more homes” camp, has come out against a citizen-backed ballot initiative that would let developers construct housing on a chunk of the city-owned airport land. The move puts Forward, which still publicly backs “more housing at all income levels,” at odds with Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights and UNITE HERE Local 11, the union-aligned forces that filed language for a measure reserving up to a quarter of the airport site for homes.
With Santa Monica Airport scheduled to close at the end of 2028, the fight is not just about zoning maps. It is about whether the land becomes the expansive Great Park voters were promised, or gets remade as a mixed-use project that folds in a large dose of income-restricted housing.
In a press release, Forward blasted the housing initiative as “the wrong approach at the wrong time” and warned it “risks jeopardizing the conclusion of a decades‑long fight to close Santa Monica Airport,” while questioning how the city would pay for deeply subsidized below-market housing, as reported by Surf Santa Monica. The group also pointed out that market-rate projects citywide are already struggling to break ground and argued that a bruising ballot campaign could splinter the coalition that has been working for years to shut the airport down. For a faction that helped elect the current council majority, it is a very public break from the rest of the pro-housing bloc.
What’s in the proposal?
The initiative filed with the City Clerk in January would allow up to 3,000 homes on as much as 25 percent of the airport’s roughly 192 acres and would require at least half of those units to be deed-restricted at 80 percent of area median income, with the rest priced at up to 120 percent of AMI, according to Santa Monica Next. Supporters say that still preserves around 75 percent of the site as open space while letting voters decide whether to layer housing onto the remaining land.
If the City Clerk signs off on the ballot language, proponents will need to either collect enough signatures or persuade the City Council to place the measure directly on the November ballot, Santa Monica Next reports.
Why Measure LC matters
Any attempt to put housing on the airport site runs straight into Measure LC, the 2014 voter-approved charter amendment that reserves the land for parks and recreational uses unless voters explicitly agree to something else. That measure passed with roughly 60 percent of the vote.
Last July, the City Council voted to focus its planning on a Measure LC-compliant Great Park concept and turned down motions to immediately study housing on the land, a 6 to 1 decision that underscores why many park advocates say a housing ballot measure now could undercut the closure push, according to the Los Angeles Times. Critics warn that a public fight over rewriting the rules could hand aviation supporters fresh political cover and slow the conversion of the airport to parkland.
Political fallout and next steps
The ballot filing came from Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, backed by union members and hotel workers aligned with UNITE HERE Local 11, and lists several local housing advocates as its authors, according to Santa Monica Next. To land the measure on the November 3 ballot, backers must gather signatures equal to 10 percent of Santa Monica’s registered voters. If it qualifies, the proposal would need only a simple majority to override Measure LC, as noted by Surf Santa Monica.
Opponents, including the Great Park Coalition, have already signaled they will fight hard against the measure, arguing its timing could derail years of public planning and environmental review, according to the Great Park Coalition.
Legal and timeline implications
All of this unfolds against a legal backdrop that locks in a deadline. A 2017 consent decree with the Federal Aviation Administration set the airport’s closure date, and the city is working off a schedule that anticipates aviation operations ending no later than December 31, 2028, according to the City of Santa Monica’s project materials and press release.
City staff and consultants are already deep into environmental review and phasing plans for the Great Park, work officials say will take years to fully design and finance, as detailed by the City of Santa Monica. That long runway is a key reason many city leaders and park advocates argue that throwing a high-stakes ballot fight into the mix before closure could add years of delay and fresh legal uncertainty to a project that will already depend on bonds, grants and other complex funding tools.
For now, the battle shifts to clipboards, neighborhood meetings and dueling campaigns, as both camps gear up for what could become one of the marquee local ballot fights of November. The outcome will decide whether Santa Monica keeps its promise of a full Great Park or slices off a piece of the runway for housing, a choice that will shape the city’s open-space and housing strategy for decades.
