A last-minute attempt to create a special exemption from California’s Coastal Act for a major Santa Monica development appears to be dead, after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration backed away from including the controversial provision in a state budget trailer bill.
That’s good news for California’s coastal protections and for the principle that major projects should go through the public review process rather than receiving special treatment through obscure legislation negotiated behind closed doors.
But it’s important to separate the questionable legislative maneuver from the project itself.
The proposed Ocean Avenue Project is not some new development seeking to avoid scrutiny. It has been in the works for more than a decade, underwent extensive environmental and public review, and was approved by both the Santa Monica City Council and the California Coastal Commission. The problem is that those approvals eventually expired before construction began.
The last-minute trailer bill would have created a special pathway for the project to move forward without going through the normal Coastal Commission process again.
That provision was not included in the final trailer bill, according to the Times’ Steve Lopez. Environmental groups and local residents who had mobilized against the carveout celebrated the decision as a victory for coastal protections and transparency.
The fight, however, comes at a particularly important moment for Santa Monica and California’s coast. The city is already working with the Coastal Commission on a long-delayed Local Coastal Program, while Assemblymember Rick Zbur has been pursuing legislation to establish a clearer timeline for completing it. At the same time, the Trump administration is challenging California’s authority to regulate its coastline.
A Project More Than a Decade in the Making
The Ocean Avenue Project, proposed by Worthe Real Estate Group and designed by the late architect Frank Gehry, would transform an approximately 82,500-square-foot site at the southeast corner of Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.
The currently approved project includes a 120-room hotel, 100 apartments, approximately 36,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and a roughly 34,000- to 35,500-square-foot cultural campus incorporating two existing city-designated historic landmarks. It would also include a publicly accessible rooftop observation deck, open space and subterranean parking for approximately 285 vehicles.
The residential component includes 25 deed-restricted affordable units and rent-controlled replacement units. The project would rise as high as 130 feet, with multiple buildings surrounding the hotel and cultural campus.
The project has been through an extensive approval process.
The City Council approved its development agreement in 2022, following years of environmental review and public discussion. The Coastal Commission subsequently approved the project’s development agreement in December 2023. The city has described the project as “providing a number of community benefits, including affordable housing, historic preservation, public open space and the cultural campus.”
But the project never broke ground.
The approvals eventually expired, leaving Worthe with the prospect of going back through the permitting process. According to CalMatters, the developer had previously committed to beginning construction in early 2025, but that did not happen.
“This isn’t about the project,” Assemblymember Rick Zbur told CalMatters. “It’s about the precedent of exempting a project” and undermining the agreement he had worked to reach between Santa Monica and the Coastal Commission.
Zbur wasn’t alone. Sen. Ben Allen, who also represents Santa Monica, opposed the proposal as well. Allen said he supported Zbur’s legislation and was “not interested in unwinding that work.”
Santa Monica’s Bigger Coastal Fight
The trailer bill was also just one piece of a much larger fight over how Santa Monica’s Coastal Zone should be governed.
Santa Monica has never completed a comprehensive Local Coastal Program, which would give the city greater authority to process many coastal development permits while keeping the Coastal Commission’s oversight role for significant coastal issues. In June, the city and Coastal Commission agreed to work together on completing the program, with the city targeting certification by the end of 2027.
Zbur’s AB 1740 has since been amended to establish a deadline for Santa Monica to submit its Local Coastal Program and create accountability measures around getting it completed. The bill has passed both houses of the Legislature and was enrolled this week.
That’s a far more sensible way to address the city’s longstanding frustrations with coastal permitting.
And Santa Monica isn’t the only place where California’s coastal protections are under pressure.
The Trump administration has launched a formal review of California’s federally approved Coastal Management Program, raising concerns that the federal government could weaken the state’s ability to challenge projects such as offshore oil drilling, pipelines and other development that affects the coast. California officials and environmental groups have called the review an unprecedented threat to the state’s coastal authority.
While Newsom has loudly criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine California’s coastal protections, his administration was simultaneously pushing a narrowly tailored exemption from those protections for a project involving a longtime Newsom donor. CalMatters reported that Jeff and Kristin Worthe donated more than $274,000 to Newsom’s campaigns and inaugural fund between 2018 and 2022.
It’s also how coastal planning is supposed to work.
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