A proposal to exempt certain multifamily housing developments in Santa Monica's coastal zone from California Coastal Act review has resurfaced in a state budget trailer bill with new language that seems to benefit a very specific development by a Santa Monica businessman and longtime Gov. Gavin Newsom donor.
Assemblymember Rick Zbur, D-Santa Monica, confirmed exemption language was again proposed as an addition to a budget trailer bill after first surfacing in late June. He said he has already relayed his opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom, legislative leadership and the chairs of both the Assembly and Senate budget committees.
Trailer bills are specific pieces of legislation that follow the regular budget process. They are largely written behind closed doors by the Governor and high level lawmakers in Sacramento. They do not undergo the same debate as regular bills and are only made public a mere 72 hours before being voted on.
The proposed bill would add a new section to the state Public Resources Code establishing a streamlined, presumptive approval pathway for certain housing projects in Santa Monica's coastal zone, bypassing the standard California Coastal Act review process the California Coastal Commission currently uses because the city lacks a certified Local Coastal Program, or LCP.
Under the proposal, the exemption would not take effect immediately. It is written as a "secondary streamlining measure" that would only kick in if the city has not adopted, and the Coastal Commission has not fully certified, Santa Monica's LCP by Jan. 1, 2028. The provision would sunset on Jan. 1, 2032.
To qualify, a housing project would need to meet several conditions: it must sit on an urbanized infill site surrounded by existing development and identified for residential or mixed-use development in city planning documents; meet state affordable housing law criteria; satisfy labor standards; achieve LEED gold certification or an equivalent green building standard; and stay clear of sensitive coastal areas, including land within 300 feet of a beach or the mean high tide line, or within 100 feet of a wetland or mapped environmentally sensitive habitat area.
The draft also contains a provision requiring any qualifying project to include a museum dedicated to the career of architect Frank Gehry, complete with his archives and models of his buildings, and to obtain written authorization from the Gehry Living Trust or his estate to include it.
The only project in Santa Monica meeting those rules would be the Ocean Avenue Project, a Frank Gehry-designed mixed-use development approved for the northeast corner of Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, that remains unbuilt despite developer Jeff Worthe's pledge of a 2025 groundbreaking.
Gehry, who died Dec. 5, 2025, according to Gehry Partners, designed the project for Worthe Real Estate Group and M. David Paul Associates on 11 lots totaling about 1.9 acres that the Worthe family has owned for more than 40 years. As approved, the development calls for a 120-room hotel, 100 apartments — including 25 affordable units and 11 to 19 subject to rent control — roughly 35,500 square feet of museum and cultural space incorporating the landmarked buildings at 1333 and 1337 Ocean Ave., about 36,100 square feet of retail, a rooftop deck and a maximum height of 130 feet. The museum component is designed to showcase Gehry's archives for at least 15 years. Construction costs are estimated at about $243 million, with total project costs near $350 million and roughly $53.3 million in community benefits, and the project is designed to LEED Platinum standards.
The project was first filed in 2013 as a 22-story, 244-foot tower before being scaled back to 12 stories and 130 feet in 2018, a reduction driven largely by objections over building height. The Santa Monica City Council approved the project in 2022 and the California Coastal Commission signed in 2023.
Worthe is a prominent local developer who has consistently donated to Newsom’s political campaigns over the years.
The new bill sets strict timelines for the Coastal Commission to process applications under the new pathway, including a 30-day window to specify what materials it needs, a 10-day period to determine whether an application is complete, and a requirement to hold a public hearing within 90 days of a completed submission. If the commission misses those deadlines, an application would be deemed complete, and ultimately deemed approved, by operation of law.
The presumption that a project complies with the Coastal Act could only be rebutted with evidence of a specific, unavoidable adverse impact to public access, wetlands, environmentally sensitive habitat, coastal hazards or water quality. The bill specifies that a project's inconsistency with the city's partially certified 1992 coastal land use plan could not be used to deny or condition a permit, nor could a developer's request for a state density bonus.
The bill states that a special statute is necessary, citing the potential for delayed LCP certification, the need to accelerate housing production, and "the desire to promote a museum in the city honoring the works and life of Mr. Frank O. Gehry."
Zbur, who authored a separate coastal accountability bill, AB 1740, that is advancing through the Legislature this year, issued a full statement Tuesday on the renewed effort:
"I am disappointed to share that an exemption to the Coastal Act, applying to certain multifamily development in Santa Monica, has again been proposed as an addition to a budget trailer bill. This was first proposed in late June, and I was strongly opposed to it then. I remain strongly opposed to it today. I worked hard to achieve an agreement with the Coastal Commission to move Santa Monica's LCP forward. This trailer bill undermines that work and our collaboration with the Commission. I am frustrated that, once again, I must devote time and energy to working to defeat this terrible proposal. I have already communicated my strongest opposition to the Governor and the leadership in the Legislature and both the Assembly and Senate Budget Committee chairs. This is not the right path forward and I am working strenuously to stop it."
The renewed proposal echoes a controversy that erupted in late June, when Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network, warned colleagues that Newsom's office had transmitted trailer bill language stripping the Coastal Commission's review authority over multi-unit housing across Santa Monica's coastal zone for an indefinite period. Jordan called the move "unprecedented" and said it could "create a hole in the Coastal Act" and set a template for exemptions in other coastal communities statewide. She identified three projects she said stood to benefit: the Worthe Real Estate Group's Ocean Avenue project, the Seritage "Sears" project and the Athens Group's Miramar project.
The June episode unfolded against the backdrop of negotiations over Zbur's AB 1740, which has been narrowed since its February introduction from broad coastal permitting exemptions across multiple cities to a Santa Monica-specific accountability framework requiring the city to submit a complete LCP to the Coastal Commission by Jan. 1, 2029.
Santa Monica has pursued a certified Local Coastal Program for decades. The city received Coastal Commission approval for part of the program in 1992 but did not complete the process. A complete LCP would bring permitting authority for coastal development under the City’s control rather than the statewide Coastal Commission.
Santa Monica formally resumed the update process in 2023, with a target of completing both plan components by June 2027 but the process stalled until Zbur’s bill prompted a new wave of negotiations.
Coastal advocate and city council candidate Ashley Oelsen said residents can call Sacramento to oppose the language.
"Governor Newsom has spent his career talking about climate leadership and protecting California's coast. He has the power to stop this trailer bill language before it goes further, and we're asking him to use it," she said. "The California Coastal Act has protected public access to our beaches and sensitive coastal habitat for fifty years. What's being proposed is a permitting carveout slipped into a budget bill for a single Santa Monica project, exactly the kind of change that should never move without public hearings and real legislative scrutiny. We stopped a similar proposal this summer when Californians spoke up, and we're asking them to do it again."
Residents can call Senator Monique Limón at (916) 651-4021 and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas at (916) 319-2029 and tell them to oppose this bill. Oelsen said residents can also thank Assemblymember Rick Zbur (916-319-2051) and Senator Ben Allen (916-651-4024) for already opposing it, and ask them to hold firm.