By Jorge Casuso

April 27, 2026 -- Reigniting a heated debate, Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR) last week called on the City Council to study the impacts of including affordable housing on Airport land.

In a letter to Councilmembers Wednesday, the powerful political organization said the City's plan should not reserve 30-plus acres of land at the "urban edge" of the sprawling site for farmers markets, brew gardens, branch libraries and senior centers.

Instead, the site should be used for the 3,000-unit affordable housing development SMRR and other pro-housing advocates have been pushing for on the 192-acre site that will become available when the Airport closes at the end of 2028.

SMRR's Co-chairs Michael Soloff and Denny Zane note the proposed uses "already have a strong presence in our community and do not rise to the same level of need as below market-rate housing."

"Given the great need for affordable housing in our community as well as regionally, SMRR does not believe we should reserve" the site "for the uses enumerated in the Draft Framework Diagram for the Urban Edge," the letter said.

"SMRR agrees that every neighborhood needs uses that make life convenient and enjoyable for residents, such as neighborhood markets, cafes, even restaurants. Such uses can and should be provided within a multifamily housing development."

The letter proposes that the City Council direct staff and consultants to include the proposed housing development on the urban edge as part of their Environmental Impact Report (EIR) Alternatives Analysis for the future use.

SMRR's request was immediately opposed by the boards of the Santa Monica Airport2Park Foundation and the Santa Monica Great Park Coalition that are spearheading efforts to build the park local voters approved in 2014 that did not include housing.

"We urge the City Council and our fellow Santa Monicans to ignore the SMRR letter, which is intended to upend the city's Airport Conversion Project," the groups wrote in a joint statement.

"Under standard planning procedures decisions about alternatives in an EIR don’t come until a preferred project plan has been developed. This is not going to happen with the Airport Conversion Project until after its Phase 5, sometime next year."

The statement called SMRR's request to study housing on 30 acres of airport land "disingenuous," noting that it is "still gathering signatures for a ballot measure that would require that 25 percent of the airport land, nearly 50 acres, be used for housing."

The proposed ballot measure -- backed by SMRR and the hospitality workers union UNITE HERE Local 11 -- would allow developers to build 3,000 "permanently affordable" housing units.

In their letter to the Council, SMRR's leaders said the group's "hope is that with such an analysis the community divisions about future use of the Santa Monica Airport land can heal and we can ultimately move forward together."

"We know that park-only advocates have expressed worries that aviation interests will seek some strategy to prevent closure of the Santa Monica Airport. Clearly having parks and affordable housing advocates united is the best way to repel any such effort," the letter concluded.

SMRR's letter comes more than 9 months after the City Council, where the tenant's group was instrumental in electing a 6 to 1 supermajority, moved ahead with a plan that excludes, and does not immediately study, housing on the Airport land ("Council Approves Airport Park Without Housing," July 10, 2025).