> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Sustainable city plan updated, expanded
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/sustainable-city-plan-updated-expanded/
- Published: 2003-03-15T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:48:57.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Environment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Daily Press staff*

The Santa Monica City Council approved an updated and expanded sustainable city plan last month.

The document sets long-term policy goals to harness the power of local government, business and individuals to address many of the economic, environmental and societal problems cities face across the world. The program is easy to understand and has saved the city money, while producing multiple benefits for the community and reducing its burden on the environment, officials say.

Although the original scope of the program as adopted in 1994 focused primarily on environmental issues, the program has been expanded to include housing, education, civic participation, and human dignity. The program, even before the modification, placed Santa Monica into a leadership position in the world-wide sustainability movement, officials say.

Since 1994 Santa Monica’s sustainability efforts have helped the city add parks and trees, increase the number of affordable housing units, improve neighborhood quality and safety, cut energy costs while reducing air pollutants and dramatically reduced the amount of pollution entering Santa Monica Bay, officials say.

“Sustainability doesn’t mean making do with less,” said Dean Kubani, sustainable program coordinator. “On the contrary, it means using our resources — natural, human and social — in better and more efficient ways to maximize the benefits of all that we do.”

The newly updated and expanded sustainable city plan includes new community goals for the next decade in the following areas: resource management, environmental and public health, transportation, economic development, open space and land use, housing, community education and civic participation and human dignity.

Some of the specific accomplishments of the sustainable city plan: ■ In 1999 Santa Monica became the first city in the U.S. to power all of its facilities with renewable electricity, prompting several other cities to follow suit. ■ The city’s groundbreaking environmental purchasing and toxics reduction policies are being replicated throughout the U.S. and as far away as Europe, Japan and the Philippines. ■ The recently completed Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility — the first of its kind in the world — will result in a healthier bay and lower water bills for the city.

The full plan is available in PDF on the city’s Web site at http://www.santa-monica.org/environment/policy/SCP2003.pdf.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 15, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031503.pdf?ref=smdp.com)