June 12, 2026

The California Coastal Commission is our State’s premier agency tasked with protecting our shoreline - a shoreline that voters declared 50 years ago should belong to us all.  

The Coastal Commission, the Santa Monica Democratic Club, Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights, and leading environmental organizations are against Assembly Bill 1740 because they know it’s a backdoor attempt to enable high-end condominium development in Santa Monica’s coastal zones.  

In its current form, AB1740 (which only applies to Santa Monica!) will hold our beach areas hostage to future negotiations between the Coastal Commission and our City Council. If, within a prescribed period, those two entities cannot agree on how much control the City should have over our coastal zone, the power to make that decision will be given exclusively to the City Council.  

In other words, if developers and their elected advocates can slow the process to prevent an agreement from being from being finalized, Coastal Commission jurisdiction will be eliminated, and local politicians will be able to build whatever they choose.   

The current version of this bill is now before the State Senate Natural Resources Committee (NRC) with a hearing set for June 23 at 9 am.  

Here is SMCLC’s submission letter to the NRC listing multiple reasons that we oppose the bill and support continuing Coastal Commission oversight of our coastal zone instead of ceding control to the city and developers. https://www.smclc.net/PDF/SenNatResLtr06-11-26.pdf

Please contact the Committee now and tell them you’re opposed AB 1740:
Senate.Natural.Resources@senate.ca.gov

Please include the individual NRC Committee members at:

Josh Becker (Chair) josh.becker@sen.ca.gov

Kelly Seyarto (Vice Chair) kelly.seyarto@sen.ca.gov

Benjamin Allen benjamin.allen@sen.ca.gov

Christopher Cabaldon christopher.cabaldon@sen.ca.gov

Shannon Grove shannon.grove@sen.ca.gov

John Laird john.laird@sen.ca.gov

Henry Stern henry.stern@sen.ca.gov

And cc the bill’s author, Rick Zbur, at Assemblymember.zbur@assembly.ca.gov
In your email subject line put “Oppose AB 1740.” Tell them you’re a Santa Monica resident (how long), why you oppose AB 1740, and urge them to protect our coastline by voting it down.   

We appreciate your support and will continue to provide updates on the bill.

 

SMCLC