New City Survey About Santa Monica’s Great Park

The City of Santa Monica just announced the start of Phase 3a--the next step in the planning and outreach process for a Great Park when the Santa Monica Airport closes. It includes a critical public survey that SMMPTA urges you to take before the window on the survey closes April 27.

As you know, the City has been conducting a planning process for the conversion of the airport into a Great Park, consistent with Measure LC, which SMMPTA endorsed in 2014. The Executive Board of Santa Monica-Malibu PTA Council has unanimously voted to reaffirm both our 2014 endorsement of Measure LC and our commitment to its goal of transforming all of the airport land into a Great Park when it closes.

Phase 2 of that process culminated in the Jan. 28 City Council meeting where the Council adopted the five Guiding Principles for the process. City Council directed staff and Sasaki, the City’s consultants, to begin the next stage, Phase 3, which will result in staff and Sasaki devising three alternative scenarios, centered on a Great Park, for the future of the site. These scenarios will be presented to City Council on July 8.

City staff and Sasaki are asking for critical input from the public. Specifically, the City’s team has released a survey to have the public give feedback on six dimensions of the Great Park planning process. For each dimension you are allowed to rank four different alternatives.

SMMPTA is a committed supporting association of the Great Park Coalition. We are asking you to prioritize taking the survey. There is less than two weeks available before this survey closes (April 27th) so it is critical you take it quickly!

In the survey, the City’s team asks you to "think big about what the full build-out of your ideal future site would be." Accompanying the survey is an excellent video explaining this survey’s rather sophisticated methodology, terminology, and goals. The video is around 45 minutes long, and we highly recommend that you watch it before you take the survey (and keep in on your screen, because you may want to check back to video while taking the survey). The survey can be found here and should take about 20 minutes, but can take longer if you add comments (which we encourage you to do). (After each section you can add comments about each of the alternatives included in the survey; for instance, you can say what you like and don’t like about each alternative.)

Most of the survey involves sorting out competing ideas for park uses and design. SMMPTA has not taken a position about what will go into the Great Park (other than it be Measure LC-compliant, not triggering a ballot measure). This survey is your opportunity to give your own feedback about a Great Park and how it will best serve our residents, and especially children and youth. (Go for it and have fun!)

One note: You might know that City Council directed the team to come back with one scenario (of the three requested) that is not compliant with Measure LC, to investigate means of financing the park by using land at the airport, including by means of housing or other development. Please note that the Great Park Coalition opposes any ballot measure to override LC, particularly prior to airport closure, because the aim is to maximize the size of a Great Park, and because a ballot measure would delay the Great Park planning progress. However, we don’t think that you should ignore the parts of the survey that deal with housing and financing. The survey is set up so that you can both prioritize (“vote for”) LC-compliant scenarios that do not require a ballot measure and still comment on housing and financing issues which may nonetheless be relevant in the future.

We know that watching the video and taking the survey can take well over an hour of your time. But this is a critical step in the Great Park planning process, and we believe that time spent  on this video and survey is valuable advocacy for children and youth in our community! The survey closes April 27th!​

Please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any questions. Our Council President Nicole Faries, our Council EVP Erika Bell, and our VP of Community Concerns Patti Braun at  pattibraun@aol.com are all available to address them. Thank you for your participation, community engagement, and advocacy for our community’s children and families!