Latest news with #SantaMonicaAirport
Hindustan Times
07-08-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Sorry, Billionaires—There's No Escape
For many years I flew airplanes out of the Santa Monica Airport, 2 miles from my home. I told a fellow pilot that one benefit of the license and the plane was the ability to extract my family from a societal breakdown. He agreed but noted that the difficulty would be the last hundred yards before the airport. Now comes news that American billionaires have prepared compounds in New Zealand in case of apocalypse. Thoughtfully stocked with all that the group would require—air, water, food, entertainment—they stand ready to receive the ultraprivileged. Well and good, but their fantasy, like mine, is flawed. For what is the size of the group for which they foresee transportation, protection and perpetual care? The Ottoman Turks raised enslaved Mamelukes to the status first of guards and then of administrators, and all was well until the 'Lukes did the math and realized they didn't need the Turks. Some of the pilots of the billionaires' getaway planes would surely have families. Happily married pilots would logically insist the families come along for the ride rather than stay and die. The billionaires' wealth would avail them nothing, for they couldn't escape without the pilots or pay a man enough to forfeit his family's life. Yes, the wealthy would have armed guards to ensure their own family got safely on board. Wouldn't the guards insist they and their loved ones go along too? Of course they would. The ground crews servicing the planes would, by this logic, act similarly. If staying behind meant death, what would they risk by demanding their inclusion? What's the rich guy going to do, stop their paycheck? His plane offers the sole escape. There would be a limitation: The plane can only carry so much weight. If overloaded, it won't fly. At some point those on the plane would have to use arms to keep the latecomer hordes off. The guards, then, would realize themselves to be the enlightened Mamelukes. If they are the only ones capable of keeping order, and if money is now useless, they have no need of their employer. On the plane he would be dead weight—and in the New Zealand bunker, just a useless mouth to feed. The caretakers, builders, security guards, and so on, of the compound, would insist on being accommodated—if they hadn't already barricaded themselves in and locked the plutocrats out. The World After Society for which the billionaires are preparing is a world without money. I recall a West Side Manhattan woman, working as a maid. On the way to work her husband called to report they'd just won $100 million in the lottery. She said she'd see him that night after going to work for one last day. In the elevator, however, I'm sure she realized: 'Uh . . .' Is cryptocurrency a scam? Probably, but one wouldn't know unless and until the chain letter runs out. Which is, of course, true of all fiat currency. Of gold, at least, one can say, 'It's right there, you can see it. It's in Fort Knox.' You can't say of crypto: 'It's right there—the 'nothing' is right there.' When the escape plane has reached its weight limit, and at the Dawn of Reason like that of the ex-maid, the first ones thrown out the door would be the billionaire, its former owner, now revealed as ballast. We see a similar devolution of power in an unhealthy family. If the parents are weak—that is, if they don't use parental authority or influence to ensure the happy growth, prosperity, and integrity of the group—their leadership may be usurped by the anxious dependents: the demanding or belligerent child, the hypochondriac aunt, the radical adolescent and so on. The Bible cautions about the oppression of 'a servant when he reigneth.' We see the same capacity for coercion, often, in the family member whose name, in conversation, is prefaced by 'poor.' We all know the stories of adults who went on vacation, leaving the adolescent kids to 'watch the house.' The old British lords of the manor, like today's rich, were exploited not only by their lackeys and suppliers, but by those empowered to guard against such deprivations. The butler got a kickback from the butcher's overcharges, the billionaire's personal shoppers from the merchants of luxury rubbish. Absentee ownership engenders defalcation. James Gordon Bennett Jr. (1841-1918) was wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, alcoholic and eccentric. Although he was seldom on the premises, his Paris home was staffed and run as if he were. The servants were ordered to place a cup of hot milk and a biscuit by his bed, each evening at 11. They did so through years of his absence, in which the milk cooled and no one came for his cookie. We might think they eventually skipped a night or two of pointless waste; but they must have thought otherwise. For to neglect the milk and cookie opened them to betrayal by their fellow servants—as, in fact, did even a poor-willed performance or a facetious expression. That the charade be performed without rolled eyes required suppression even of disloyal thoughts. For the thoughts themselves might be intuited by one's co-workers, and so lead to denunciation. If, however, word came from New York that Bennett was in a coma from which he wouldn't recover, or were sufficiently injured to insure against his return, the Paris staff would instantly devolve into conspiracy. If the master wasn't returning but the money still flowed, the resources devoted to the bedtime snack could be put to the staff's personal use. Two related questions would arise, at their first kitchen conclave—how much they could steal without discovery, and how the thefts would be regulated and apportioned. The kitchen, thus, becomes the Revolutionaries' Jeu de Paume, the loyal Staff forms a Committee of Public Safety, and their Constitution is a thieves' compact. See also the four years of the Biden administration. Mr. Mamet is a playwright, film director and screenwriter.
Fast Company
03-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
The Santa Monica airport is set to close—but some residents would rather keep the noise and pollution than build new housing
In the neighborhoods surrounding the Santa Monica Airport, homeowners know little peace. Every few minutes, the whine of a jet engine intrudes on the suburban soundscape. But relief is coming. In 2017, locals won a more than seven-decade fight to close the airport. It's scheduled to shutter once and for all on Dec. 31, 2028. Santa Monica residents voted in 2014 to build a park on the site of the airport. But as the 2028 closure date approaches, some residents, councilmembers, and pro-housing groups are calling for the construction of affordable housing on the site in addition to a park. With an organized contingent of development opponents determined to stop them, the airport site is shaping up as the latest flashpoint in Southern California's battles over housing construction. Neighbors of the airport say living beneath the jets is maddening and dangerous—many of the smaller planes that land there burn leaded fuel, spraying toxins on the homes and schools below. But some of the airport's neighbors are so opposed to housing construction that they would consider keeping the airport open until the threat of development is quashed. 'A lot of the risk could be reduced simply by delaying closing,' said Marc Verville, who lives near the airport. 'To protect ourselves, we should keep the airport open until we can address the political landscape and correct it,' said Tricia Crane, chair of Northeast Neighbors of Santa Monica, a neighborhood association. The closure of an airport presents a rare opportunity in any urban environment. Spanning more than 200 acres—and comprising around 4% of the city's land—the Santa Monica Airport is poised to become available for redevelopment all at once. Centrally located and publicly owned, it offers a rare chance to address the city's acute affordable housing shortage. In Santa Monica, where average rent is nearly $4,000 a month, such a moment may never come again. Building housing 'would be a win for everybody,' said Rev. Joanne Leslie, a Santa Monica resident and a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Leslie is part of a group advocating for a 3,000-unit affordable housing development on the airport site called Cloverfield Commons. Leslie's group imagines their development amidst the larger park, with buildings arranged around smaller, so-called pocket parks, connected by winding paths. Building a large amount of housing on the site would likely require voter approval through another ballot measure, according to City Councilmember Jesse Zwick, who supports building 'some form of mixed use, mixed income housing' on the site alongside a park. But he says the housing crisis in Santa Monica is so great that another referendum—even if it means a difficult fight—would be worth having. For every four or five new jobs created in Santa Monica over the past 45 years, the city added just one home, he said. The city's failure to build housing has led its population to stagnate during that time period, he added, while California's population has nearly doubled. 'Will it be a fight? Sure,' he said. 'But is it one that I think can be won? Definitely.' Since the 1970s, anti-development groups have largely blocked the construction of new housing across the state—and especially in Santa Monica, where the city has permitted roughly 4,500 units of new housing in the last 20 years. Given the statewide housing shortage, state officials are asking cities to build more housing than they used to. Every eight years, cities are required to submit a plan to the state showing how they intend to meet its increasingly ambitious housing development targets. If they don't adequately plan to meet those targets, they could face penalties including the notorious 'builder's remedy,' in which developers are allowed to build whatever they want, regardless of zoning, as long as 20% of the units are affordable. Verville and Crane are worried Santa Monica will designate the airport site for housing in its next state-mandated housing plan, due in 2029. That's why they are floating the idea of pushing to delay the closure of the airport until after that deadline as a way to keep the airport out of conversations about meeting state housing targets. 'The residents want to stop the airport conversion process until this kind of risk is addressed and mitigated,' said Crane, 'and we can fulfill our vision of a park.' * * * Leslie was drawn to the fight to build affordable housing on the airport site because of her work as a deacon in the Episcopal Church advocating for workers and immigrant rights. Leslie is a member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), which recently participated in the Home Is Sacred rally in support of affordable housing development on the airport site. 'In a place like Santa Monica, so much of the homelessness is directly related to the high cost of housing and rents,' she said. 'We put people in a situation where they can't help themselves, and then we blame them for it.' Crane and Verville say they're not opposed to affordable housing, but that the city, facing a budget deficit, cannot afford to build any and that no subsidies exist to support buildings with lower rents. 'My kids want a lot of things too,' said Crane. 'If I don't have the money for it, they don't get it.' Leslie's group contends that subsidies do exist to build affordable housing on the site, including funds raised by Measure A, the county's new half-cent sales tax, approved by voters in November and aimed at funding homelessness solutions and affordable housing. Verville and Crane think that's not realistic, and that the development at the site will be exclusively luxury apartments, which they say will make the city more expensive, not less. They arrived for their interviews at the airport armed with more than 90 pages of readings, including an academic working paper they said debunks the idea that building market-rate housing lowers rents and home prices. (The National Bureau of Economic Research study finds that higher housing costs are tied to a region's income growth, not to how tightly its housing supply is regulated.) 'It's becoming a city of rich people,' Crane sighed. Santa Monica City Councilmember Zwick says that building housing, including luxury housing, does lead to lower rents and housing prices in the surrounding community. About 80% of the time, new apartments are filled by people already living nearby, he said. 'And when those people move into those new housing units, they open up housing in the spaces where they used to live, creating more available supply and creating downward pressure on prices.' 'Every credible study I've read indicates that that's how it works,' he said, speaking with Capital & Main in an empty office at UCLA, where he is studying for a master's in urban planning. Besides, Zwick argued, parks and housing belong together. Apartments lacking backyards need open, public space. And parks need those who live nearby to use them. 'A lot of people like to say we need our Central Park,' he said. 'But if Central Park in Manhattan had a perimeter entirely of single family homes, it wouldn't function and be as great as it is.'
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Plane makes emergency landing at Riviera Country Club, golf site of 2028 Olympics
The Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles had an unexpected visitor Friday. Video posted to social media Friday afternoon shows a small aircraft made an emergency landing on the historic club's golf course in Pacific Palisades. While the landing was bumpy, the plane and its occupants appeared to be unharmed. This happened at Riv today. I pray I'm never this late for a tee time, but I do pray for the means to pull up this way if I was 😂 — Roger Steele (@RogerSteeleJr) May 2, 2025 Per Golfweek, the plane was scheduled to land at Santa Monica Airport, a few miles southeast from Riviera. First responders from both the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Santa Monica Fire Department reportedly arrived on the scene soon after. Golf course landings are not uncommon with planes that need to make emergency landings in urban areas, due to their open terrain and relative lack of people. One of the most famous instances of that was when actor Harrison Ford made a much rougher landing at Penmar Golf Course, right next to the same Santa Monica Airport. Friday's landing also wasn't even the worst airplane mishap of the day in the L.A. area, as a different plane crashed into fencing after overshooting the runway at the Fullerton Airport. Riviera Country Club is the annual site of the Tiger Woods Foundation's Genesis Invitational and has hosted three majors with the 1948 U.S. Open, the 1983 PGA Championship and the 1995 PGA Championship, as well as the 2017 U.S. Amateur. The club is set to be one of the most high-profile in the world over the next few years, as the golf site for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, as well as the 2031 U.S. Open and 2026 U.S. Women's Open. Hopefully, planes won't be an issue for those.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Plane makes emergency landing at Riviera Country Club, golf site of 2028 Olympics
The Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles had an unexpected visitor Friday. Video posted to social media Friday afternoon shows a small aircraft made an emergency landing on the historic club's golf course in Pacific Palisades. While the landing was bumpy, the plane and its occupants appeared to be unharmed. This happened at Riv today. I pray I'm never this late for a tee time, but I do pray for the means to pull up this way if I was 😂 — Roger Steele (@RogerSteeleJr) May 2, 2025 Per Golfweek, the plane was scheduled to land at Santa Monica Airport, a few miles southeast from Riviera. First responders from both the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Santa Monica Fire Department reportedly arrived on the scene soon after. Golf course landings are not uncommon with planes that need to make emergency landings in urban areas, due to their open terrain and relative lack of people. One of the most famous instances of that was when actor Harrison Ford made a much rougher landing at Penmar Golf Course, right next to the same Santa Monica Airport. Friday's landing also wasn't even the worst airplane mishap of the day in the L.A. area, as a different plane crashed into fencing after overshooting the runway at the Fullerton Airport. Riviera Country Club is the annual site of the Tiger Woods Foundation's Genesis Invitational and has hosted three majors with the 1948 U.S. Open, the 1983 PGA Championship and the 1995 PGA Championship, as well as the 2017 U.S. Amateur. The club is set to be one of the most high-profile in the world over the next few years, as the golf site for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, as well as the 2031 U.S. Open and 2026 U.S. Women's Open. Hopefully, planes won't be an issue for those.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Wild Footage Captures Plane's Emergency Landing on Golf Course
Flying objects aren't an unusual sight on the golf course, though they're typically of the golf ball-sized and shape variety. Which made the sight of a small aircraft using the green as an emergency tarmac all the more shocking. On Friday afternoon, golfers putting around the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California got the shock of a lifetime when a Cessna 172 aircraft overshot its landing at nearby Santa Monica Airport and ended up making a crash landing at the golf club instead. Whoops!Some intrepid golfers who didn't seem in all that much of a hurry to pause their game and run for cover—despite the fact that the plane appeared to be coming right for them—captured some wild video of the incident, with a couple of perfect reactions to the chaos that was happening around them. 'Holy Schnikes,' said one of the men, who is presumably a major Tommy Boy fan. Another guy in their group was a bit more direct and dared to utter the words that most people watching the video were probably thinking: 'Holy f**k!' According to People, things got bumpy when the plane originally attempted its landing at Santa Monica Airport, which is located approximately six miles south of the country club. The plane touched down on the green at approximately 12:45 p.m. local time, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The pilot had reported that he was having engine issues. There were three passengers onboard the plane. Amazingly, and thankfully, they emerged from the aircraft uninjured.
