Guiding Principles

In the future, we anticipate that life in Santa Monica will be hotter and drier, and with a more dense built environment. The Great Park Coalition (GPC) believes that restoration of Santa Monica’s original Great Park will be a balance to this reality and a reinvestment by our community in local, regional, and planetary health, equitable access, and sustainability across a myriad of measures, which will pay incalculable dividends both in the present and in the future. Restoring the Great Park will reclaim public parkland, recreational amenities, and passive open space forfeited when the federal government took over the land during World War II. In front of us now is a once-in-a-lifetime legacy opportunity to benefit people and the planet, both now and for many, many generations to come.

To that end, consistent with the GPC’s Mission, the GPC brings together a wide range of organizations and individuals that, despite differences in specific focus, share the common goal of seeing the Great Park realized.  Participants in the GPC also share a set of common guiding principles. These principles define the broad coalition “tent” within which we collaborate to realize our common goal. The purpose of this section is to enumerate those guiding principles. 

The language of Measure LC itself sets the essential scope when it states that new development on the airport land is prohibited: “except for the development of parks, public open spaces, and public recreational facilities; and the maintenance and replacement of existing cultural, arts and education uses.” In short, the GPC seeks an LC-compliant Great Park.

The GPC’s guiding principles are as follows:

• We seek to create a park that will improve the quality of life not only for our generation, but for future generations. Decisions should be made from a multi-generational perspective, not just based on short-term priorities and considerations. This will be a park for the ages. Our planning must anticipate the needs of those future generations, not just our own.
• We believe in the critical importance of addressing the following broad issues that should play significant roles in driving Great Park design and features: access to parkland and open space, equity of access, climate change, sustainability, land conservation, biodiversity and nature, quality of life, and health and exercise. (See notes below for details).
• We recognize and support the following uses set forth in Measure LC: playing fields and sports facilities, trails, the arts, cultural facilities, education as it pertains to nature, and other “quality of life” uses.
• We consider airport closure at the end of 2028 to be a resolved issue. Continuation of aviation use on the site past 2028 is unacceptable and a violation of all other principles listed including: equity of access, the will of the voters as expressed by LC, and all natural and quality of life considerations. The GPC advocates exclusively on behalf of the Great Park. However, should any attempt be made to prevent airport closure, the GPC and its supporters may transition to an active opposition role. The same may apply should any attempt be made to substantially override the Measure LC City Charter Amendment.
• We seek to collaborate closely with the City and staff to bring about the Great Park. Our role is not only to organize and advocate, but to help wherever and however we can to bring about the Great Park (a goal which we believe all parties involved in the planning process share). Only through such close collaboration between the City and the community will we create a park for the ages. We reject the politics of “distrust.”
• We understand that the creation of a Great Park may happen over time and at a rate that is set by available funding. We seek a park plan that is incremental, if necessary, with an initial affordable shovel-ready stage to begin January 1, 2029. The park plan should design for an unconstrained “Great Park for the ages.” Incremental funding and implementation of that plan over time is a separate matter.
• The GPC itself shall not favor any particular LC-compliant use over any other. Our role is to aid in park creation, not in its design. The design of the park and the various features within it will be determined by the City’s on-going public outreach process. Individual GPC allied organizations may advocate for specific LC-compliant features, but should refrain from actively advocating against others.
• We acknowledge that Santa Monica and neighboring communities will become more densely populated, and we believe transitioning the airport site in its entirety into a Great Park is the best and highest use of that land to maintain quality of life for future generations. No other such large parcel of city-owned land exists within Santa Monica.  We consider creating the Great Park to be our generation’s moral obligation to future generations.

Notes

Public Parks and Open Space

When for the World War II war effort the federal government took over the land Santa Monica had purchased with the park bond, Santa Monica’s park acreage plummeted by nearly 50%, resulting today in only 1.4 acres per 1,000 residents. By all measures (county, state, and national), Santa Monica is strikingly park-poor now, as are the surrounding Los Angeles neighborhoods. These 192 acres were purchased by Santa Monicans almost 100 years ago with a public bond, for the purpose of creating a large public park. The GPC believes this public land should remain public land and be reopened for public use and for the benefit of all.  

Further, with the reality of increased densification in our City, concurrently increasing our City’s park space, open space, tree canopy, and recreational resources is critical for an increasing population’s physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being, both now and in the decades to come.  

Equity

Public spaces and public lands have been subject to privatization pressures both in California and across the nation for many years. The Santa Monica Airport is an example of this – public money was used to buy the land, but for 75 years or so the land has been used by private aviation interests. Voters passed Measure LC in 2014 because they want to bring back a publicly-owned Great Park to what is a notably park-poor region of Los Angeles County.

Public parks and recreational spaces provide everyone with free or low-cost recreational amenities and access to nature. Restoration of the Great Park is an equitable endeavor with far-reaching local and regional impacts, including adding a new set of green “lungs” for the L.A. basin.

The GPC recognizes that the negative effects of Climate Change do not always impact people equally. The demonstrated benefits of park space, green open space, native landscape, trees and small forests, and the minimization of concrete are well-known. Concrete environments create heat islands where temperatures can rise as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit above the norm, with heavy impacts on human mental and physical health, including increased mortality. Trees, in contrast, help cool our urban concrete jungles. With Santa Monica and the rest of the L.A. basin densifying, restoration of a Great Park is essential to combat the known negative impacts for everyone of Climate Change while providing the benefits of a park.

Climate Change

The Great Park Coalition (GPC) embraces all efforts, both public and private, to combat Climate Change. Increasing planetary temperatures have caused devastating changes to Earth’s climate, resulting in catastrophic fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, and blizzards. In January 2021, the Biden administration issued an Executive Order on tackling the climate crisis at home and abroad and committed the United States, through its “America the Beautiful” initiative, to a national goal of conserving 30% of United States lands and 30% of coastal waters by 2030 – known as “30×30.”

Sustainability

The GPC believes that restoration of the Great Park affirmatively furthers the Santa Monica City Council’s Sustainability Priority, established in 2023, which is to “ensure that City policies and programs enhance our resources, prevent and remedy harm to the natural environment and human health, and benefit the social and economic wellbeing of the community for the sake of current and future generations.”

The GPC shares the City’s assessment that availability of water in Santa Monica will be at future risk due to Climate Change, increased demand, and from human-generated pollution that contaminates groundwater. The City continues to work towards its water self-sufficiency goal by encouraging conservation measures, and by increasing the available local water supply through storm water recapture and use of other alternative sources of water.

Restoration of the Great Park may further the City of Santa Monica’s Water Self-Sufficiency goals once the airport tarmac is removed and replaced with permeable surfaces, allowing water during rain storms to percolate into the ground.  

Land Conservation

The GPC applauds efforts, both public and private, to conserve wild lands and restore previously-developed or contaminated lands to their natural habitat. Climate Change negatively impacts every living thing that is part of the complex web of life on our planet – and land conservation, restoration of open space, and the creation or re-creation of natural public open spaces is a significant tool to combat the harms.  Restoring the Great Park is directly in line with Executive Order N-82-20 issued by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2020, which echoes the national 30×30 goal (see Climate Change note above). The 30×30 goal is intended to help accelerate conservation of our lands and coastal waters through voluntary, collaborative action with partners across the state to meet three objectives: conserve and restore biodiversity, expand access to nature, and mitigate and build resilience to climate change. California’s 30×30 commitment is part of a global effort to increase biodiversity conservation. 

Biodiversity

The GPC supports efforts, both public and private, to combat loss of biodiversity and the effects of human-caused air, soils, and water pollution, including but not limited to the proliferation of plastics, pesticides, and wastes and contaminants from relentless industrialization, global trade, and development. The air in Los Angeles County and Santa Monica remains some of the most toxic and unhealthful in the United States.  Our seas and fresh waters are littered with plastics, chemical pollutants, and other detritus.  Plastic particles, construction and industrial emissions and wastes, pesticides, and other chemicals have poisoned our air, soils, oceans, groundwater, and the fish, crops, and animals we consume or seek to protect because they are endangered.  

Biodiversity underpins the health of the planet and has a direct impact on all our lives. Put simply, reduced biodiversity means millions of people face a future where food supplies will be more vulnerable to pests and disease, and where freshwater will be in irregular or short supply. Reclaiming natural habitat in the Great Park may help renew local and regional biodiversity.