Last week’s Part 1 covered the deadlock: thirty-three years of Santa Monica failing to get its Local Coastal Program certified, and a bill designed to bypass that process entirely. The housing provisions deserve their own examination–a project in the coastal zone could double in size under the bill’s exemptions. The affordable unit count would not double with it, deeply affecting neighborhoods such as Wilmont, with a concentration of rent-controlled units (this is the case with the first version of the bill, before its extensive makeover this past week. More on that later).
Historical resources present a related uncertainty. The bill does not explicitly address how designated or eligible historic structures within the coastal zone would be treated under the new permitting framework. Buildings that might otherwise survive Commission review as a mitigating consideration could find that backstop removed. That question has not been answered.
A second bill waits in the background. SB 79 imposes density requirements near major transit stops, and Wilmont currently sits outside its boundaries. The boundary is a definition. Change the definition of a major transit stop, and Wilmont moves inside it, subject to SB 79’s density mandates stacked on top of AB 1740’s exemptions. This situation is not unique to Wilmont, but to most of the other city neighborhoods as well, including those outside the Coastal Zone.
What the bill actually did
The bill’s supporters have framed it largely around event permitting: the World Cup, the Olympics, beach festivals. The development provisions tell a different story.
The state bill, in its original form, would enable density bonus stacking that could produce towers on corridors adjacent to residential neighborhoods. The multifamily-zoned parcels within the coastal zone but outside the narrow 300-foot beach buffer, including Wilshire Boulevard, Arizona Avenue, Santa Monica Boulevard, San Vicente Boulevard, and Colorado Avenue, are precisely the locations where new housing exempt from Commission review could rise. No future council could undo those changes.
The amendments
Last week’s new amendments make several significant changes: the proposed bill’s sunset date moves from 2037 to 2029. The housing-related provisions remain, but confined to an area between Wilshire and Pico Boulevards, where housing projects would avoid Coastal Commission review if it does not approve Santa Monica’s new Local Coastal Plan by mid-2029. It will now move to the Assembly for a full vote.
There were extensive discussions about removing the housing provisions entirely. Abundant Housing LA, the highly influential pro-development lobbying organization, co-sponsored this bill, and removing those provisions was never a serious possibility. The shortened timeline and reduced geography are concessions to political reality, not to the bill’s critics. The Coastal Commission remains opposed and said so directly in a letter to Zbur’s office: the Commission believes that concentrating the exemptions between Wilshire and Pico imposes excessive development pressure on a narrow stretch of the coastal zone. But the Commission has no authority to force the city to complete the LCP. That power simply does not exist.
The bill imposes a certification deadline, yet the consequences of failure fall on the Commission, not on the city. If the LCP is still uncertified when the deadline arrives, the development provisions automatically snap back into effect. Even in its latest version, the bill creates a perverse incentive for development interests to obstruct or delay LCP certification, because once the LCP is completed, the housing exemption disappears. Delay ceases to be a procedural problem and becomes a strategic advantage.
That mechanism is the bill’s sharpest edge. The sunset is real only if Santa Monica acts and the Commission accedes. If it doesn’t, the exemptions come back.
The amendments are not what Zbur’s office previously represented. The bill still weakens Coastal Act protections and sets a precedent other coastal cities will eventually invoke, and the process that produced it remains mired in controversy.
The backlash, and the backup plan
The original bill has not moved cleanly through Sacramento. Community and environmental groups sent letters to the legislature opposing both the loosening of restrictions and the city’s decision to support the measure without a council vote. The housing provisions drew sustained criticism, and Assemblymember Zbur has pushed for the most recent, significant amendments that reduce the housing requirements but still require the Coastal Commission to approve Santa Monica’s upcoming Local Coastal Plan by a certain date or forfeit much of its authority here.
Against that backdrop, the city has opened a second front. The City Council is now moving to accelerate work on a certified Local Coastal Program, something Santa Monica has lacked for decades. A hastily called special meeting was convened in mid-May to discuss a new plan that would exempt most programs and projects from Coastal Commission permits. Mayor Torosis described the controversy around AB 1740 as creating a “unique window” to finally resolve the issue after years of delay.
Councilmember Lana Negrete, who opposes parts of AB 1740, was direct: “If there is one positive outcome from the significant public concern and backlash surrounding AB 1740, it is that it has accelerated the urgency around finally pursuing a Local Coastal Plan in a serious and transparent way.”
Whether that urgency is genuine or strategic depends on how you read the sequence of events and what can be expected in the city’s new plan. The city spent thirty-three years failing to produce a certified Implementation Plan. It then co-sponsored legislation to bypass the process, without a public vote. Now, facing pushback that could stall the bill in the state senate, it is moving to fast-track the very plan it spent three decades not completing.
Daniel Jansenson, Architect, for S.M.a.r.t.: Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Dan Jansenson, Architect, (former Building & Fire-Life Safety Commissioner); Robert H. Taylor, Architect AIA; Mario Fonda-Bonardi, Architect AIA (former Planning Commissioner); Sam Tolkin, Architect, (former Planning Commissioner); Michael Jolly ARE-CRE; Jack Hillbrand AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect; Phil Brock (SM Mayor, ret.); Matt Hoefler, Architect NCARB; Heather Thomason, community organizer, Charles Andrews columnist. journalist, Bruce Leddy, Human Services Commissioner, and NOMA Co-Chair.
