This article first appears at the Healthy City Local. In case you have lost the thread of these posts, let me reiterate that there are three factors that will affect the planning and construction of the park that will replace…
I suspect that many you reading this joined the 5,000 demonstrators who jammed Palisades Park on Saturday for the “No Kings” rally. Leaving aside the bigger issues like whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that…
The two posts I wrote last week about building a great park to replace Santa Monica Airport were gloomy, focusing as they did on problems with the planning process. Such issues, though, should not diminish the joy we should be…
This article first appeared at the Healthy City Local. As I discussed in my post on Monday, the process for planning the conversion of Santa Monica Airport into a park has produced three aspirational “scenarios.” While no one would expect or…
The following article first appeared on The Healthy City Local. Santa Monica Airport is set to close December 31, 2028, and the City’s process to reclaim the city-owned land at the airport and convert it to public use as a…
Editor’s note: I’m sure we’ll have a lot more to say, this is just our first look at the scenarios. This weekend, the Santa Monica Airport Conversion team (SMAC) held an event at the current airport property itself to unveil…
(The city will unveil the three draft scenarios for the future site this Saturday at the airport. Get the details here.) The airport planning process was always going to get contentious…it just didn’t have to get to that point this…
The following is a letter sent from the City of Santa Monica. The city would like to invite you to the Phase 3a Community Event for the Airport Conversion Project to be held at the Airport from noon until 5pm on May 17th. Come…
Airport to Park Survey Closes on Sunday The Santa Monica Airport Conversion Project (SMAC) has been collecting information on an online survey for the past several weeks. The survey closes this Sunday, April 27, and can be accessed here. For…
All images from the staff presentation to City Council. After over an hour of public testimony and a presentation by city staff, the City Council quickly passed a resolution affirming the “guiding principles” for the airport conversion project. A list…
City Says It Doesn’t Need Another Vote to Close the Airport Ever since a federal judge approved a consent decree between the city and the Federal Aviation Administration that allows the city to close the airport on January 1, 2029,…
The following is a press release from the City of Santa Monica. To read our past coverage of the city’s attempt to devise an outreach plan, click here. The City Council at its meeting on Tuesday, will consider an important…
Via Urbanize comes the news that design architecture firm Rios Clemente Hale Studios have released renderings and a plan for the expanded Airport Park on unused land at Santa Monica Airport. In March of 2016, the city removed airplane parking on…
Via Press Release: SANTA MONICA, Calif. – In a judgment handed down on June 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected a challenge to an historic Consent Decree that allowed Santa Monica to shorten the runway…
Late last week, the Santa Monica Airport (SMO) announced that the runway shortening project completed last December is working. Comparing air traffic from March of 2016 to March of 2017, the airport saw a drop in jet traffic of 86%.…
