Santa Monica officials and coastal advocates scrambled this week to organize opposition to what they described as an extraordinary move by Gov. Gavin Newsom to exempt all multi-unit housing development in the city's coastal zone from the California Coastal Act until the city completes a certified Local Coastal Program.
After a day of frantic meetings, the lawmaker most closely associated with coastal legislation affecting Santa Monica said he had no knowledge of any such measure before the chaos, that he opposed attempts to undermine existing rules and that it’s possible the entire idea may never see the light of day.
The allegation
Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network, sent an urgent appeal to colleagues Tuesday warning that the Governor had transmitted trailer bill language to the Assembly and Senate that would strip Coastal Commission review authority from multi-unit housing projects throughout Santa Monica's entire coastal zone for an indefinite period.
A budget trailer bill is used by lawmakers to enact the statutory and administrative changes necessary to implement the state's annual budget act.
"Not only is this exemption unprecedented, it will create a hole in the Coastal Act," Jordan wrote, "and could provide a template for future exemptions in coastal cities and counties statewide."
The proposed measure, which Jordan said could advance without review by any legislative policy committee and without opportunity for public comment, would require sign-off from Newsom, the Senate President Pro Tem and the Assembly Speaker.
Jordan identified at least three projects she said would benefit directly from the exemption: the Worthe Real Estate Group's Ocean Avenue project, the Seritage "Sears" project and the Athens Group's Miramar project.
"It's a very sad day when the Governor of your state wants to reward billionaire developers and harm the public's right to affordable access to the extraordinary coast that belongs to them," Jordan wrote.
She said she was preparing a sign-on letter to the Governor, the Pro Tem, the Speaker, state Sen. Ben Allen and Zbur, as well as the Senate and Assembly Budget Committees, and urged colleagues to contact their representatives directly.
A representative for State Senator Ben Allen said their office had seen the proposed language and that it has raised significant concerns.
“The Senator cannot support what is currently drafted and doesn’t understand how this came together without consultation with our office,” said Allen’s Press Secretary Ben Cheever.
A warning about self-defeating incentives
Jordan warned that the structure of the reported exemption would create a perverse incentive against completing the LCP process: so long as Santa Monica has no certified LCP in place, developers would continue to benefit from the coastal review exemption, potentially reducing pressure on both the city and the state to finish it.
Without specific language to analyze, officials said they couldn’t predict exactly what would happen if the trailer bill were to include the exemptions but the fear is that as City authority is lacking due to the lack of an LCP, if Coastal Commission authority were removed developers would be able to bypass affordability requirements or density restrictions in prime real estate areas along the coast.
Shadows of 1740
The reported trailer bill comes against the backdrop of negotiations over AB 1740. The bill has been significantly transformed since its February introduction, when it proposed broad coastal development permit exemptions across multiple urban coastal cities. An intermediate version that limited the bill's scope to Santa Monica alone drew criticism from environmental groups as a targeted carve-out rather than systemic reform.
The current version takes a narrower approach, establishing accountability timelines rather than outright exemptions: it requires Santa Monica to submit a complete proposed LCP to the Coastal Commission by Jan. 1, 2029, with the commission required to act within six months of receipt. The Coastal Commission, which opposed earlier versions, is expected to formally recommend support for the current version when commissioners convene in July.
Zbur’s response
Assemblymember Rick Zbur, who authored AB 1740, the coastal accountability bill currently advancing through the Legislature, told the Daily Press he had not been contacted by anyone in the Newsom administration about trailer bill language affecting the Santa Monica coastal zone, and that while his office was able to verify the language exists, it was not under consideration by the Legislature.
"The first I heard about this was actually from the coastal advocates yesterday afternoon, and we've been trying to run this to ground," Zbur said.
He added that it would be highly unusual for the Governor to send trailer bill language affecting his district without giving his office advance notice and that in this case, the language was drafted inside the Governor’s office but never formally presented as part of a negotiation or proposal.
Zbur reiterated his office had nothing to do with any discussions of new proposals, either with Newsom or other individuals and that he was adamantly opposed to any attempt to undermine the deal crafted through the most recent version of his bill.
Decades of delay on the LCP
Santa Monica has pursued a certified Local Coastal Program for decades. The city received Coastal Commission approval for a Land Use Plan in 1992, but the accompanying Implementation Plan — required for full LCP certification — was never approved, leaving day-to-day coastal development permitting authority with the state Coastal Commission rather than local planners.
The city adopted a revised Land Use Plan in 2018 but withdrew it before the commission acted. It formally resumed the update process in May 2023, with a target of completing both plan components by June 2027. A completed deal would transfer most of the authority for coastal development and permitting to the City and away from the Commission.
Zbur noted that he had spoken with Coastal Commission staff just the day before about AB 1740, and the reported trailer bill did not come up. The commission had not reached out to his office about it either, he said.
A lack of clarity
While the controversial language has not yet been formalized or put forward in an official capacity, it could still make its way into the bill as negotiations are ongoing. Zbur said the language was not part of any current discussions related to the budget and that he has communicated directly with the Speaker of the House regarding his opposition to the idea.
Gov. Newsom’s office referred questions to the state Department of Finance.
“As discussions are still ongoing on a final budget agreement between the Governor and the Legislature, there are no final decisions to be announced at this point,” said H.D. Palmer
Deputy Director for External Affairs, Department of Finance