By Jorge Casuso
August 26, 2026 – Gov. Gavin Newsom's office on Tuesday sent a trailer bill proposal to State legislative leaders that would strip Santa Monica and Coastal Commission oversight of a major Downtown project, a leading California environmentalist said Tuesday.
The proposal benefits only the Ocean Avenue Project, the mixed-use hotel, residential, and cultural campus designed by Frank Gehry for the Worthe Real Estate Group, wrote Kim Delfino, president of the Earth Advocacy consulting firm in an email Tuesday.
"They are discussing this proposal right now in the budget discussions and any deal will need to be struck by Friday," wrote Delfino, a respected environmental attorney and consultant. "If a deal is struck on Friday, we have no way of changing it and little ability to kill it if it is part of a budget agreement."
The trailer bill – which Delfino called "a real and immediate threat" -- "preemptively declares the Ocean Avenue Project to be consistent with the Coastal Act" and "exempts the project from the Santa Monica Land Use Plan."
It also "constrains the Coastal Commission's ability to require project changes or additional mitigation" and "interferes with the Commission’s and City’s current effort to complete the Santa Monica Local Coastal Program (LCP)," which gives the City greater authority over projects in the coastal zone.
In addition, Delfino warns that the trailer bill "undermines" the amended version of AB 1740, a legislative bill that allows the California Coastal Commission to retain control over Santa Monica's coastal zone while the City hammers out that LCP.
Under the amended bill sponsored by Assemblymember Rick Zbur, which applies solely to Santa Monica, the City must submit a complete, proposed LCP to the Commission by December 31, 2027.
The trailer bill proposal -- sent by the Governor's Department of Finance to Senate and Assembly leadership and budget staff -- "creates a perverse incentive not to complete" the LCP, according to Delfino.
"The special permitting rules become available only if Santa Monica has not adopted and the Coastal Commission has not fully certified the LCP by January 1, 2028," she wrote. "Failure to meet that deadline therefore gives the Worthe project access to a substantially more favorable permitting process."
Although the proposed bill does not identify the project by name, the eligibility criteria narrows it down by requiring that it be "located in Santa Monica, qualify as urban infill, be designated for residential or mixed-use development (and) meet specified environmental and labor standards," Delfino said.
It must also include a “museum honoring Frank Gehry containing his archives, designs, renderings, or models,” with “authorization from the Gehry Living Trust or his estate.”
The bill as drafted "further restricts the Commission's ability to require reductions in height, density, parking or residential floor area, or require a project alternative," Delfino said. "It also exempts the project from all of Santa Monica’s existing coastal land use plan."
The Ocean Avenue Project was approved by the City Council in July 2022 and includes 120 hotel rooms and 100 apartments. It integrates two historic buildings, 25 affordable rental units and 19 rent-control apartments, and includes a museum and as many as 285 parking spaces.
According to Delfino, the Coastal Commission approved the project in 2023, but Worthe let the permit expire "because he didn’t want to provide the required mitigation to protect lower-cost hotel rooms in Santa Monica."