By Jorge Casuso
July 1, 2026 -- A last-minute bill to add mixed-use housing projects along Santa Monica's coast didn't make it into the State's new budget but could return in August, a State environmental leader warned Tuesday.
Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network, said Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to include a trailer bill in the budget he signed into law Monday was rejected by the legislature.
In an email Tuesday, Jordan thanked her colleagues for their "rapid opposition" that thwarted the Governor’s attempts "to ram a developer-driven Coastal Act Exemption" into a budget trailer bill.
"We have confirmation from multiple sources and reviews that his efforts were rejected by the Senate and the Assembly," she wrote. "We have prevailed for now.
"However, this is at best a reprieve as we are told that the Governor will try to ram this Coastal Act Exemption through again in (the) first two weeks in August when legislators return from their July summer recess."
Jordan sent the email one day after Newsom signed a $351.7 billion State budget with a series of trailer bills and a budget package that did not include a bill that addressed development along Santa Monica's coast.
The proposed trailer bill, which would have taken effect on January 1, applied solely to Santa Monica and covered the entire Coastal zone, which stretches inland to Fourth Street north of Pico Boulevard and to Lincoln Avenue south of Pico.
The trailer bill publicly surfaced after AB 1740 -- which exempted multi-family development along Santa Monica's coast from Coastal Commission review -- was radically amended on June 15 after stiff opposition from local organizations and statewide environmental groups.
The bill the Senate Committee on Local Government will take up at a meeting this morning allows the California Coastal Commission to retain control while the City hammers out a Coastal Plan that gives it greater authority over projects in its coastal zone.
Under the amended bill, the City must submit "a complete, proposed local coastal program" to the Commission by December 31, 2027.
The Commission would have 45 days to provide feedback and suggest modifications. The two parties then have six months to agree on the modifications, unless the City asks for an extension.
Once an agreement is reached, the Commission would certify the plan.
Unlike the amended version of AB 1740, the trailer bill Jordan expects will be resubmitted in August streamlines the review process and sets no deadline for the City and Coastal Commission to negotiate a Coastal Plan.
Under the bill, a preliminary application for a housing or mixed-use project filed before a Coastal Plan is certified would be exempt from the Coastal Act if it meets the bill's requirements.
In her email, Jordan thanked Assembley member Rick Zbur, who authored AB 1740 "for both removing all Coastal Act exemptions" from the bill and "for the strenuous effort he made last week to stop the Governor’s Coastal Act exemption from moving forward in a budget trailer bill."
Jordan also urged opponents of the trailer bill to "keep up those state and local organizing efforts and let your friends and colleagues know that this fight is not over. Far from it."