This is a genuinely sharp question, and the data tells a concerning story that Santa Monica’s housing advocates seem to be treating as a footnote rather than a foundational constraint.
The numbers involved actually say that Santa Monica currently sources about 75% of its water from local groundwater wells and 25% from the Metropolitan Water District, which imports water from the Colorado River and California’s State Water Project. The city serves over 93,000 residents, plus businesses and visitors.
The city set an ambitious goal years ago to reach near-total water self-sufficiency, but funding issues forced the cancellation of projects that would have made this possible — the city only made it to about 85% self-sufficiency before stalling. Meanwhile, the Water Enterprise Fund accumulated a deficit of $18.5 million from 2019-2024, with the current fiscal year expected to add another $5 million in the red. The city is now in the middle of a multi-year rate study and facing mandatory rate increases just to stabilize existing infrastructure — before adding a single new housing unit.
With this, the State signals the problem: California just launched a major update to its statewide water plan, establishing for the first time a specific long-term supply target of 9 million additional acre-feet by 2040 — responding to intensifying climate impacts producing prolonged droughts alternating with extreme storms. This isn’t background noise; it’s the state effectively acknowledging that the current water supply system cannot absorb the housing growth being simultaneously mandated.
Here’s is the tension: Santa Monica’s groundwater basin is governed under SGMA (Sustainable Groundwater Management Act) through the Santa Monica Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, a five-member consortium including Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Culver City, and the County, which is responsible for developing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Sustainable yield is a hard ceiling — you cannot simply pump more because the state orders more housing.
Adding 8,000 units to a city of 93,000 represents roughly an 8-10% population increase. Even with aggressive conservation, that translates to a meaningful increase in baseline water demand — on top of infrastructure that is already running a structural deficit, four reservoirs needing rehabilitation, decades-old pipelines and pump stations requiring modernization, the City of Santa Monica, and a groundwater basin operating near its sustainable yield.
All in all, the City is not entirely ignoring the issue, as we have water and wastewater capacity study requirements tied to the new entitlement and building permit process, requiring a capacity study be completed before building permits are submitted. So there is at least a technical review mechanism. But the deeper question is whether City Council and housing advocates are treating water capacity as a legitimate constraint on the pace and density of mandated growth, or simply as a checkbox during permitting to be managed around.
The honest answer is that the housing mandate and the water reality are on a collision course that Santa Monica has not publicly or transparently reconciled. The State is simultaneously demanding we build 8,000 units, and admitting the State may not have the water to support current demand. While the city is threading that needle quietly through rate hikes and infrastructure deferrals rather than confronting it head-on as a planning constraint.
This is exactly the kind of governance gap that warrants the scrutiny the public is trying to apply to it. A genuine long-range water capacity analysis tied to the RHNA mandates — presented publicly, with honest projections — would be a far more responsible approach than approving entitlements project-by-project as we watch the Water Enterprise Fund bleed dry.
Jack Hillbrand, Architect, for SMa.r.t. Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Web: www.santamonicaarch.wordpress.com/writing
Mario Fonda-Bonardi AIA, Former Planning Commissioner, Robert H. Taylor AIA, Dan Jansenson, Former Building & Fire-Life Safety Commissioner, Sam Tolkin, Former Planning Commissioner, Michael Jolly ARE-CRE, Jack Hillbrand AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect, Phil Brock (Mayor, ret.), Matt Hoefler, NCARB, Architect, Heather Thomason, Community Organizer, Charles Andrew, Journalist, Columnist.
