Santa Monica kept raising what it charges. Its downtown economy shrank by a third.
A cited look at the City's taxes, spending and votes, a four-year budget forecast, a plan to bring the city back, and a 3D model of every building and lot in Santa Monica.
−32.8%Real taxable sales, 2015 to 2025
2.9×Water rates in July 2026 against February 2020
15% · 18%Hotel tax and private parking tax, the highest of the cities RAND compared
−$41MProjected general fund gap in FY 2030-31 on the current course
Santa Monica: taxes, spending and the way back. Every City tax rate change since 1989, the fee and utility rate record, spending and results, the named council votes, a forecast to FY 2030-31 and ten recommendations. Thirty-nine numbered sources.
Santa Monica in 3D. Every building at its measured height, every lot with its assessor record, and four property signals: vacant land, surface parking, low building share and pre-1960 commercial buildings.
203 of 204 lots the City listed as available for housing in its June 2022 Housing Element inventory show the same use on the 2025 assessor roll.
56.9 of 79.1 acres of commercial surface parking lie within a half mile of an E Line rail station.
464 lots outside single-family, school and government use are built at under a quarter of their zone's median density, counting parking lots and vacant land.
54.5% of residential land holds single-family homes.
27,807 of 42,647 multifamily and condominium units sit in buildings built before 1979, the rent-control era.
28.5% of lots carry a land value base year before 1990 under Proposition 13.
$1.27 billion of assessed value on 311 lots is exempt from property tax: churches, schools, nonprofit housing and others.
958 parcels carry a Santa Monica ZIP code but sit in the City of Los Angeles, most of them in Santa Monica Canyon.
Each figure is on the 3D map, lot by lot. Sources: the City of Santa Monica GIS (parcels with the Los Angeles County Assessor roll, the Housing Element sites inventory, Metro E Line, zoning) and LA County building outlines.
Where the numbers come from
The City's adopted budgets, annual financial reports, council minutes and staff reports; RAND's October 2026 case study of Santa Monica; the Los Angeles County Assessor roll; state tax rate schedules; and CalPERS valuations. The report links each one.