We are a deliberative city. We think carefully about everything we do. Every decision has got to meet the highest standards of environmental impact and societal benefit before anything moves forward. And it can seem almost comical the lengths we go to be all together progressive.
Take for example one trip I had to the new city hall where there appeared to be no air conditioning and the meeting room had fans. For a hot summer day, it was not comfortable. The deliberation and ideological forwardness had gone too far.
There’s an honesty and relief in accepting oneself and as a city, that is who we are. We should not deceive ourselves that we will act in any other way with the once in a lifetime opportunity that the closure of the Santa Monica Airport provides our city.
The visions for future uses (and combinations of uses) of the airport’s nearly 200 acres vary wildly. Many want more housing. A loud group wants to turn it into a large park space. Others see a future innovation and technology incubation district.
This is huge decision and it will require master plans and lots and lots of funding. I’m sure you’re aware, but Santa Monica is basically broke. Yes, our wealthy little utopia by the sea has legal and general fund obligations that preclude billion-dollar projects anytime soon. So, funding this transformation will take planning and clarity of mind.
Well, let’s just issue bonds, right?!
This is where I step in to be a sadly righteous—this is why you don’t approve bonds for SMC’s foreign student housing or SMMUSD’s adventure in rebuilding every school with new luxury buildings that often don’t work—or in some cases leak for 20 years and have to be closed down due to mold. More bonds equal more risk and higher interest rates—eventually there is a maximum you can borrow.
So, bonds are of little help here.
Who’s going to pay for the environmental remediation? There was an aircraft factory that operated during periods before current environmental regulations existed, where heavy metals and other contaminants we’re lost to the soil. Whoever decides to develop this land will have to spend some serious money. If it’s not the city itself, there will have to be big financial incentives to outside developers… If it is the city, there will have to be big funds waiting for the terrifying surprises locked in these pre-war leaded crypts.
If we decide to go with outside developers, are we going to lease the land or sell it? How are we going to determine the specific uses? We’ll need a master plan. We will need design committees and impact committees.
These things take time and money—a lot of time and a lot of money.
Who is going to patrol the fenced emptiness while we as a city go back and forth for years or decades? The buildings and streets will decay without use. SMPD, who is already quite busy, will have an added responsibility to keep squatters from setting up shop. One could imagine whole encampments as we saw in Oakland, where a similar abandoned industrial area gave rise to a village of squatters. More money. More time.
So, let’s leave the airport open until we have an agreed upon plan. Let’s have the people who currently spend their time and money to keep the airport operational keep doing that. We have the ‘ok’ from the FAA to shut it down, so let’s form an official task force and really do the difficult work of pricing in the environmental and financial impact of different ideas. Once we’ve come up with what we want to do, let’s outline how we’re going to do and then, THEN set a time table to close the airport.
Because what is not being talked about here enough, is the technological evolution that is just around the corner. There is a world of electric airplanes that are quiet and safe that might transform how we operate as a society. We might be very glad that we still have the infrastructure in place to board a small electric flying machine and whisp off to San Diego or San Francisco.
When we have funding, when we have a plan in place, then we act. Until then, we wait and let the airport operate as it has for nearly 100 years. For much of our city’s early periods, the airport and the ocean were our economic drivers. There is such an opportunity here—let’s be smart. Let’s take our time and get it right.
Let’s keep the airport open until we have an agreed upon plan.
Miles Warner
