Airport Complex : Santa Monica Seeks Clarity on Land Use

Members of the Santa Monica City Council want a detailed explanation of the argument their staff is using to rebut claims that a $280-million office complex planned for Santa Monica Airport is illegal.

Opponents of the project last week cited official documents to claim that the land was designated as a park more than 60 years ago and cannot be used for anything else unless the city’s voters say so.

The opponents, headed by Mar Vista homeowner Gregory Thomas, demanded in a letter to all seven City Council members that Santa Monica voters be allowed to decide what is done with the land.

Consulting Attorney

City Atty. Robert M. Myers and other staff officials said that the claims were bogus and that the land-use issue had been resolved years ago.

Nevertheless, several council members said this week that they wanted to see it in writing.

“I want to make sure we’ve crossed our t’s and dotted our i’s,” Councilman Herb Katz said.

In response to the council members’ concerns, a formal legal opinion from an outside consulting attorney will be delivered to the council within 10 days, Katz said.

The airport land was purchased for use as a park when voters approved an $860,000 bond issue in 1926. The state Legislature expanded the definition of park the next year to include an airport, and the land has been the site of an airport and open space ever since.

Thomas and his attorney, J. Peter Fiske, argue that promises made in a voter-approved bond issue--in this case, that the land will be a park--are forever binding unless the voters say differently.

This week Fiske offered what he said was further backing of his position: an article of the California Government Code, called the Municipal Park Abandonment Law of 1939, that states the same principle.

But the city contends that once the bonds were paid off in 1965, the promises were null and void.

Council members Judy Abdo, Ken Genser and David Finkel also said they planned to meet with City Manager John Jalili or city attorneys to discuss the questions raised over the airport land.

Genser, one of the newest members of the council and a leading proponent of slow growth, said there appeared to be some merit to the arguments.

“In some sense, a part of me hopes it’s true so that the airport project doesn’t go forward as proposed,” Genser said. “However, this might tie the city’s hands more than I would want.”

Bowing to demands from area homeowners and others who oppose the project, the city has already agreed to scale back the complex from an originally proposed 1.4 million square feet to about 1 million square feet.

The city owns the land and stands to receive millions of dollars from the project, which, if finally approved, will be built by the Reliance Development Group.