At a meeting to determine the future of the soon-to-close Santa Monica Airport, residents voiced opposing views: Service workers pleaded for affordable housing, while students called for more sports fields. The City Council went with a plan excluding housing and preserving the 192-acre site for open space, recreation and civic uses.
The vote effectively shuts the door on turning one of Southern California’s most sought-after redevelopment sites — about 2 miles from Venice Beach and 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles — into housing as the state rushes to plan for millions of new homes by 2031. Instead, the “Great Park” design by planning firm Sasaki envisions trails, athletic fields, event spaces and cultural amenities in the area surrounded by apartments, steering clear of residential or commercial development when the airport closes in 2028.
The development stakes are unusually high: Santa Monica faces a state mandate to plan nearly 8,900 residential units by 2029 — but the city has issued permits for only a fraction of that number. A 2024 Rand Corp. report found Santa Monica has one of the region's lowest rates of multifamily housing approvals.
Even so, council members said pursuing housing on the airport site would trigger a public referendum and likely ignite years of legal and political delays. The city was weighing three options for the land, two of which included housing, but chose the only one that avoids a ballot measure.
“If we let 192 acres sit empty while we wait, we risk potentially increasing vulnerabilities to crime, misinformation and competing ballot initiatives,” said Vice Mayor Caroline Torosis.
While one council member, Jesse Zwick, pushed to devote at least a portion of the site to housing, the rest of the council concluded there was no political will to override a 2014 voter-approved land-use restriction known as Measure LC that bars any non-park development on the airport site without another public vote.
Zwick, the lone dissenter, said the city was passing up its “only opportunity” to use public land for deeply needed housing. Other council members warned that pushing for housing could stall redevelopment and lead to unmanaged encampments or competing visions for the site.
Airport animosity
Santa Monica Airport, a general aviation facility tucked into one of the most densely developed and expensive areas of coastal Los Angeles, has long been a flashpoint in the city’s planning battles.
Its proximity to the beach, high-value neighborhoods and major job centers makes it one of the most coveted redevelopment sites in Southern California. The city acquired the site in 1926 using a parks bond and developed it into a municipal airport that in the 1960s would transition into a general aviation airport with no commercial flights, hosting flight schools, private planes and charters; it handles a fraction of the traffic seen at regional hubs like LAX or Burbank.
The airport is surrounded by high-value neighborhoods where the asking apartment rent of $3,356 is nearly twice the nation's average. The site has been targeted for closing since the 1980s, when noise complaints and safety concerns escalated. A series of student pilot crashes and lawsuits over operational limits deepened public frustration.
The city spent decades gradually reducing airport operations — imposing curfews, shortening leases and converting facilities to other uses — and eventually won legal authority to take control. A 2017 settlement with the Federal Aviation Administration allowed the city to shorten the runway and ultimately close the airport by the end of 2028.
Measure LC, passed in 2014 with the support of more than 60% of voters, codified that once the airport closed, the land could be used only for parks, open space or public facilities unless another public vote approved a change. The measure was designed to prevent dense housing or office projects from replacing aviation use.
With the Sasaki plan adopted, Santa Monica is set to move into environmental review and schematic design through 2026. That process calls for traffic and noise studies, financing discussions and additional community workshops. Officials say this timeline should position the city to begin construction shortly after the airport shuts down.
Flexible spaces
Council members said the park would include flexible spaces for performances, a botanical garden, an improved aviation museum and potential public-private partnerships to generate revenue. City staff also floated ideas like Echo Park-style paddleboats or a recycled water reservoir to serve the region.
While the plan avoids developing more apartments in the area, fee-based elements like managed athletic fields and event programming may help fund long-term operations. Construction is expected to be phased over several years.
In contrast to Santa Monica’s decision, nearby Orange County transformed the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station into a sprawling master-planned community called Great Park Neighborhoods with more than 10,000 residences.
Across Los Angeles County, roughly 20,000 multifamily units are under construction, down 15% from a year ago, and only 3,000 of the 17,200 units permitted this year are affordable, according to CoStar data. In Santa Monica, just 472 apartments are currently being built, representing a 1.8% increase in total inventory. Even with new projects like Related California’s 280-unit 710 Broadway slated for completion this year, supply remains far behind demand.
"It pains me to see an entire generation raised here that can't afford to live here," said Debbie Mattis, a 40-year resident who said she has raised two children in Santa Monica. She urged the council members to explore a plan for the airport that included affordable housing alongside park space in the redevelopment.
As long as Measure LC remains in place, Santa Monica’s largest swath of public land will remain off-limits to housing.
"I'm not talking about a sleepy patch of grass where nothing is being used. I'm talking about a vibrant civic space," Torosis said.
He compares the future power of the "Great Park" to generate economic growth around its borders to that of St. Louis' Forest Park and New York City's Central Park: "We want this to be a regional asset for people all over the Westside of LA."