Resident accuses Torosis and Chi of clearing the way for city land deals; sale rules dropped, airport limits weaker than voters were told

A Santa Monica resident is accusing Mayor Caroline Torosis and City Manager Oliver Chi of assembling a closed process for city land, including the airport after it closes. The accusation is not that a new agency already controls every sale. It is that several public actions, taken together, remove the old checks and point the city toward a much larger role as landowner, landlord, and developer.

In a letter to the Santa Monica Observer, resident Harriet Epstein wrote that Torosis and Chi “are setting up a mechanism for Santa Monica to sell off its valuable land holdings without any residents’ knowledge or participation.” She named Bergamot Station, several parking garages, and the airport, and said a longstanding rule on public hearings and comment for land sales had been replaced by an arrangement that could move property and debt out of public view. She said the change was placed on the consent calendar and urged voters not to re-elect Torosis.

The council has not created an entity with power to buy and sell city land or incur debt behind closed doors. The February and March actions that did pass already removed the codified sale process that used to stand in the way.

Ordinance 2849, introduced February 24 as consent item 4.H and adopted March 10 as consent item 4.E, replaced Municipal Code Chapter 2.24. Former §2.24.230 required five affirmative votes for a final sale of city real property, public findings that the property was no longer needed for a public purpose, published notice, and a competitive-sale process. The agenda titles called the ordinance a modernization of procurement policy and did not identify that repeal. The new chapter still covers disposition of property and authorizes leases, licenses, and rentals within procurement thresholds. It does not restate those sale safeguards, and it does not add a comparable public check on what the city pays when it buys land. Critics say that leaves no codified brake on an overpayment, including on deals that move public property to housing nonprofits.

Bergamot station, city land Santa Monica wants to intensively develop.

The proposed nonprofit is a separate piece, and its point is not to conduct secret sales. On March 24, as regular item 11.C of the Realignment Plan update, the council directed staff to study a city-aligned nonprofit that could secure land, finance and build housing, and own and operate it. Staff described an entity that would not be limited to Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects and could develop mixed-income housing, with the city retaining direct control of the pipeline. That is a plan to keep and develop land, and to expand the city into the role of landlord, not a plan that has already chartered the organization. The item was not on the consent calendar.

A September 8 consent item awarded as-needed real estate and design consulting services, described by critics as about $15 million in pre-approved fees. It is a contract authorization, not the repeal and not the nonprofit. Taken with the gutted sale section and the study of a city development entity, it is part of the same shift: more staff capacity to deal in real estate, fewer written limits on how sales are made, and a proposed vehicle for the city to hold and develop land itself.

Closed-session records are narrower than a sale of the airport, but they are not empty.

On February 25, 2025, the council declared Bergamot Station Arts Center, the 4th/5th and Arizona sites, and Parking Structure 1 surplus land under the state Surplus Land Act and authorized the city manager to issue notices of availability tied to the housing element. The motion, made by then-Mayor Pro Tem Torosis, called for artist housing, a right of return, and relocation help at Bergamot. On September 8, 2026, the council met in closed session with developers over the roughly 5.6-acre Bergamot site. Afterward, City Attorney Heidi von Tongeln said the city was negotiating a long-term lease, not a sale, and that the session continued the 2025 surplus-land process. The Los Angeles Times reported the city has sought proposals that could include more than 700 affordable homes, with gallery space and a right of return for existing tenants.

A September 22, 2026, special agenda listed a closed-session conference with a real estate negotiator under Government Code section 54956.8 for 2900 and 3000 Airport Avenue, 3011 Airport Avenue, and 3021 Airport Avenue. Oliver Chi was named city negotiator; the other parties were Larry Serota of Transwestern and Tim Katt of Gradient Holdings. The subject was “price and terms of payment of lease.”

The airport is scheduled to close at midnight on December 31, 2028, under a 2017 consent decree with the Federal Aviation Administration and City Council Resolution 11026. The city attorney has said no further council vote is required to authorize that closure. The site is about 192 acres. Measure LC, approved in 2014, says that if airport land is permanently closed to aviation, no new development is allowed until voters approve limits on use, except parks, public open space, public recreation, and maintenance or replacement of existing cultural, arts, and education uses.

That is not a ban on selling the land. In a January 28, 2025, memo to the council, the City Attorney’s Office wrote that Measure LC is silent on sales, and that the Surplus Land Act treats residential use as an acceptable use for surplus land. The memo says the agency “is prohibited from disallowing residential use of the site as a condition of the disposition of surplus land,” and then: “As a practical matter, this means that the City may not be able to limit residential use of the Airport land post-closure if it desires to sell or lease the land to a third party, regardless of the limitations imposed by Measure LC.” The same memo says that if land inside Santa Monica is sold, Measure LC still applies, subject to the Surplus Land Act. State housing law can also override a local ballot limit if the city cannot show enough sites for its housing allocation. Added to the repeal of the local sale rules, a sale or long lease of airport land is the path around the park restriction voters thought they had locked in.

Chi has described that land in public as the opportunity it is. He has said that redevelopment of the airport is a rare chance at about 200 acres on the Westside, that there is no community consensus on what should be built, and that the city has only until the end of 2028 to get the plan right and should not waste those years.

Chi’s October 2025 realignment plan, approved unanimously, also identified possible development of four downtown city properties — the Kiss-and-Ride lot, Parking Structure 1, old Fire Station 1, and 4th/5th/Arizona — as a source of an estimated $100 million to $200 million. That plan was a regular item, not a consent-calendar sale of the airport.

Santa Monica’s municipal election is November 3, 2026. Torosis is mayor; Chi has been city manager since July 14, 2025.