At a Santa Monica teach-in organized last month by Cloverfield Commons, hotel worker Valerie Martin told the crowd gathered in the pews of the Unitarian Church that she grew up in Santa Monica, works at a hotel in Santa Monica, but has to commute an hour in each direction every day because she can’t afford to live in Santa Monica. Preceding her, former LA City Councilmember Mike Bonin gave an impassioned speech in support of the Cloverfield Commons vision for building housing at Santa Monica Airport after it closes at the end of 2028. “Housing is not a political issue,” he said. “It’s a moral issue.”

This month, Cloverfield Commons took a big step toward fulfilling their vision by filing a ballot measure for the city’s November 2026 election. The initiative, backed by the powerful Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights and UNITE HERE Local 11, the union that represents hotel workers like Martin, would allow 3,000 income-restricted homes to be built on a quarter of the airport’s land.

The idea of building some housing in a vacant area more than twice the size of Disneyland in one of the best places to live on Earth might sound like common sense, but it’s proved to be hugely controversial. The original ballot measure that authorized the city to close the airport specified that the land could only be used for recreation, and initial studies focused on creating a giant park. But after the November 2024 election brought a prohousing majority to City Council, momentum seemed to build for adding housing to the vision. Council directed city staff to come up with three potential design scenarios for the park, only one of which didn’t include housing. I wrote a piece on the three scenarios shortly after the city released them. I wrote another piece on the crazy NIMBY backlash the scenarios generated. Unfortunately, when time came to pick a scenario last summer, the backlash prevailed, and Council picked the park-only option.

Why would a prohousing City Council cave to NIMBYs? The most common thread I heard is that Councilmembers are worried proposing housing at the airport would torpedo closing the airport. The aviation industry is likely to run a last-ditch ballot measure to keep the airport open past 2028, and if housing is planned there the NIMBYs’ could get their panties in such a twist that they would vote in droves to keep it open (something some folks have actually said they prefer).

Faced with a lack of political support from the top, the Cloverfield Commons folks felt they had no choice but to forge their own path and go directly to the voters, putting housing at the airport on the ballot.

What’s in the ballot measure

• 3,000 homes at Santa Monica Airport, all income-restricted:

  • 1,200 low-income homes, for folks making up to 80% of LA County “area median income” (AMI).

  • 1,200 workforce homes, for folks making up to 120% of AMI.

  • 600 “middle-income” homes, for folks making to 175% of AMI.

• The measure has been characterized as requiring half low-income homes and half workforce, but a clause allows the City Council to add the middle-income piece, which they almost certainly will.

• 75% of the airport land will be a park, which leaves 48 acres for housing - a neighborhood-wide density of about 60 homes per acre, which can realistically be achieved with 3-6 story buildings. This won’t be townhomes.

• Union labor is required to construct buildings with 40 or more homes.

• Commercial and public uses that serve the neighborhood are allowed - a grocery store, a library, preschools, restaurants, etc.

• Housing preference will be given to people who live and work in Santa Monica, plus those displaced by “past government action” and their descendants.

• All parking will be in shared structures.

How will this work?

All this income-restricted housing is going to be expensive to build, especially with union labor, which adds around 30% to construction costs. Many buildings won’t be profitable and will require subsidy both to build and operate. The park itself is also going to be expensive to build. Prohousing activists in Santa Monica have expressed skepticism to me that this plan will lead to much getting built at all. How will it work?

I had the chance to sit down with Joan Ling, one of the main organizers of Cloverfield Commons. For two decades, Ling was the head of Community Corporation of Santa Monica, the city’s most prolific builder of affordable housing. Among her many roles at Cloverfield Commons, she is the creator of the pro forma, the detailed spreadsheet every developer puts together to calculate whether a building “pencils”, or is financially feasible to build. Ling walked me through the pro forma to help me understand how she believes the Cloverfield Commons vision can pencil.

First, a few assumptions Ling makes in the pro forma:

• Land will be given to developers for free (with a caveat that I’ll get to).

• There will be a mix of unit sizes, from studios to four-bedroom homes, but all homes will be modest-sized.

• Parking will be relatively minimal and in shared structures, paid for by the developers.

Here’s a mix of homes that could work under the ballot measure’s provisions:

1,200 low-income homes - In a way, this piece is the most straightforward to build, because it’s Affordable Housing with a capital A that qualifies for all the public funding sources Ling is such an expert at securing. Ling believes it’s realistic to expect around 100-120 units per year to be built at the low-income level, which would make it a 10-15 year project. She estimates she built 2,000 low-income units in 20 years at Community Corp. - quite a legacy!

1,200 workforce homes - This is the trickiest piece. It’s not eligible for traditional funding sources, and most apartment buildings with tenants at this income level don’t generate enough rent to be feasible without additional funding. But there is one model that could pencil without any subsidy - co-living. Most co-living buildings in LA are double duplexes, which I wrote about last summer, but this model can be scaled to bigger buildings. These are apartment buildings with large, 4- or 5-bedroom units, where each bedroom has an ensuite bathroom. They are often marketed to college students or other young single people.

I couldn’t find any co-living buildings in Santa Monica, but there are a couple in West LA where rooms currently go for $1500-2000. Multiply that times four or five for each apartment, and you have buildings that can be built profitably, especially since they will be almost certainly smaller than 40 units, avoiding the union labor threshold. The broader problem for Cloverfield Commons is that co-living is a relatively new model whose long-term profitability hasn’t been tested, and it remains to be seen whether it can work at the airport.

600 middle-income homes - Ling envisions this piece as condos built with no subsidy. They could sell for $700,000-$1 million, a significant discount from comparable homes in the area. Folks who buy them could only sell at a similarly limited price - the value of the home would only be allowed to rise as much as area incomes rise. That means these homeowners couldn’t build equity in the same way that other homeowners do when home values go up. The gamble is that homebuyers will take the trade-off, especially since they will reap all the other benefits of homeownership - a monthly payment that never goes up (and goes away if they stay for 30 years), the ability to renovate, and a stronger sense of rootedness.

Or…

There are many ways to build 3,000 homes at these various income levels, and none of the models Ling games out in her pro forma are mandated in the ballot measure. One way to make it easier to build some low-income homes without subsidy would be to “cross-subsidize” them - combine low-income and higher-income homes in the same building so that some of the losses from the low-income apartments are offset by the higher rents in the other apartments.

Cross-subsidizing could be especially fruitful in smaller buildings that don’t have to be built with union labor. And it just so happens that Santa Monica recently legalized building small apartment buildings with only one staircase, which not only makes more smaller buildings pencil but makes it possible to build them with larger, family-sized apartments. Small apartment buildings full of families from varied economic backgrounds - I’d vote for that.

In fact, for the 600 middle-income homes, allowed rents are pretty much market-rate in Santa Monica. At the 175% income level, the state allows a 1-bedroom apartment to be rented at almost $5000/month, and a 2-bed at almost $6000, which can get you an apartment in a new building in Santa Monica. That means some of the middle-income housing could be built as regular market-rate rental buildings that include some cross-subsidized lower-income units.

And why not mix in a few small ED 1-style buildings? These are privately funded apartment buildings that are 4/5 low-income and 1/5 workforce homes - another way to get the low-income piece without needing public funds. ED 1 buildings only work if the apartments are mostly studios, so like co-living buildings they would probably cater to young singles.

What about the park?

One of the biggest unknowns for the airport’s future is the cost of the park. Environmental remediation, park construction, and ongoing maintenance will all cost a lot of money. Prohousing activists have argued that selling or leasing some of the airport land to developers would be a great way to fund the park. The city agrees - in its analysis of the three proposed park scenarios, the scenario with the most housing allowed the park to be built the fastest.

But if all the housing is income-restricted, and the land is given away for free, the housing isn’t going to fund the park. Ling’s pro forma includes a $50-100k park fee paid by developers for each home they build - that’s the caveat to developers getting the land free that I mentioned above. But that fee is likely the first bagel topping to go when the rubber hits the road, since it’s not explicitly written into the ballot measure.

The city will probably have to turn to external funding mechanisms with eye-glazing names like Enhanced Infrastructure Financing Districts and Mello-Roos. In other words, in the Cloverfield Common vision, the value of the airport land will be used to fund homes for low-income people, not the park. Building the park will be left up to Santa Monica.

Vienna at the airport?

If you squint, you can see in Cloverfield Commons the spirit of Vienna’s famous social housing, where people of varied income levels live together in both publicly- and privately-owned buildings. An entire new neighborhood of mixed-income housing, some for families and some for singles, next to a 150-acre park, in a wonderful city by the beach - sign me up!

But that’s not the only possible outcome. What if the ballot measure ties the city’s hands too tightly? What if all these income-restricted homes can’t be built? What if it’s too hard to build a huge park without funds generated by housing? The airport could close and remain mostly empty for decades as funding is slowly cobbled together.

A more generous, flexible ballot measure would have helped tip the scales in favor of success. Why was it written so restrictively? The political forces shepherding Cloverfield Commons’ vision - SMRR and Local 11 - are uninterested in market-rate housing. They want income-restricted homes for the people they represent. Some prohousing activists were involved in Cloverfield Commons’ early organizing efforts, but they were left out of drafting the ballot measure. Perhaps if city leadership had supported housing at the airport, there would have been space for the measure to move in a more expansive direction.

Cloverfield Commons is fundamentally a small-“c”-conservative vision. Not too many homes. Not too tall. Nothing market-rate. Nothing that might offend anyone. Perhaps that conservatism makes it easier to pass a ballot measure in Santa Monica. But it makes it harder to build the inclusive and equitable city that Cloverfield Commons has been working so hard to bring about.