In 1972, concerned about increasing coastal development interfering with public access to the ocean, causing the erosion of sandy beaches, and destroying environmentally significant habitat, Californians overwhelmingly passed Proposition 20, a citizens’ initiative that created the California Coastal Commission. Thanks to this visionary moment, Californians today have a powerful ally in the Coastal Commission whose mandate is to “protect, conserve, restore, and enhance environmental and human-based resources of the California coast and ocean for environmentally sustainable and prudent use by current and future generations.”
Proposition 90, on California’s Nov. 7 ballot, under the guise of eminent domain reform, now threatens to eviscerate the Coastal Commission’s power to fulfill its mandate. If Proposition 90 passes access to the California Coast will no longer be required and offshore drilling is likely to resume. The safeguards in place to protect sensitive habitat areas and endangered species are unlikely to be enforced.
The coast of California is a magnificent gift of nature. It stretches for 1,100 miles from the sandy beaches of Imperial Beach near the Mexican border, north to Del Norte County where California meets the rocky promontories of Oregon. The California Coastal Zone encompasses an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. Its land component varies in width from several hundred feet in highly urbanized areas, to five miles in some rural areas; offshore, it extends for three miles into the Pacific and includes the Channel Islands.
From 1999 through 2004, I served as one of twelve commissioners on the California Coastal Commission. In a state with a population of nearly 36 million people, it was my responsibility to protect every Californian’s right to — by my calculation — an undifferentiated two inches of the coast. But, of course, there were competing interests represented by far fewer people seeking to control much larger pieces of the coast for their own purposes.
At every Commission meeting it was our job to issue, condition or deny permits for these proposed projects. With huge swaths of coast already made inaccessible by development, and other large segments increasingly threatened by new residential and commercial interests, the Coastal Commission faced then, and still does, a conceptual crisis about how to parse the ownership of this incalculably valuable natural resource. This is the issue I grappled with at every hearing during my five-year tenure on the Commission.
Time after time, development permit by development permit, the Commission and its dedicated and smart staff increasingly wrest sanity from the jaws of selfishness by crafting creative balances among competing interests: local economic needs, private property rights, public access, preservation for future generations.
Here are four examples:
Preserving Farmland
One of the mandates of the Coastal Commission is the preservation of prime agricultural land in the Coastal Zone. This has become more difficult over the years as wealthy people buy ag land with the intention of building – in the words of Peter Douglas, Executive Director of the Coastal Commission – “starter castles.” San Mateo County is especially vulnerable.
In 2004, a couple sought permission to build a 5,000 square foot house, swimming pool and garden on an 18-acre parcel in the beach town of Pescadero, in San Mateo County. Their land, however, comprised prime agricultural soil. It had been farmed for more than 100 years and was specifically protected under state law and local zoning regulations. The Commission granted the applicants’ permit on the condition that an agricultural easement be imposed on the undeveloped portion of the property. The easement would ensure that the land would continue to be farmed.
The Monterrey County Agricultural and Historical Land Conservancy holds the easement. The land may be farmed by the property owners or rented to other farmers. In the past, the land was used to grow Brussels sprouts; in the future, it is likely to be used to grow organic vegetables. A similar agreement has been reached with landowners in Marin County; in that case the County holds the easement. This model will be used in other parts of the state where ag land competes with residential (usually second home) development.
Protecting Beaches and Coastal Access
In California, the public has a right to use the beach everywhere up to the mean high water line. But without a dry sandy beach, or a way to get to these public lands at the water’s edge, this right is meaningless. The very existence of many public beaches in California is threatened by sea walls designed to halt bluff erosion or safeguard private property behind them.
In lieu of replacing sand in front of the project – sand that would, in any event, need continual replenishment due to the seawall, the Commission designed the Beach Sand Mitigation Program. The program requires the developer to pay a fee to cover the loss of beach sand that would have been available but for the seawall. The fee is intended to provide for beach replenishment. This mechanism protects private property while yielding a significant public benefit.
(The Commission?s California Coastal Access Guide – available at http://www.coastal.ca.gov/access/accessguide.html – contains information on more than 850 public access coastal areas.)
Conserving Habitat
In the 1920s, the historical salt marsh inland from Bolsa Chica State Beach was an oil field populated by little more than hundreds of bobbing wells. Today, thanks to a nearly 30-year battle waged by local citizens and environmental activists against commercial developers, more than 1,200 acres of coastal wetlands – one of the largest in California – are being restored. On the nearby Bolsa Chica mesa, seasonal wetlands, grasslands, coastal sage scrub, and tall trees will continue to host a diversity of wildlife from brine shrimp to coyotes and white-tailed kites. Nearby Bolsa Chica State Beach offers myriad recreational opportunities for Huntington Beach residents and visitors.
The Bolsa Chica case, which was litigated in California’s courts, established the primacy of environmentally significant habitat areas (ESHA). Bolstered by this appellate court decision, the California Coastal Act contains the strongest prohibition against development in ESHA in the country. There are no mitigation provisions; if an area is determined to be ESHA, no development is allowed. The Coastal Act has similarly strong provisions for the protection of wetlands. The standards established by the Bolsa Chica decision have been of particular importance in managing development and preserving habitat around Los Angeles, Malibu, and the Santa Monica Mountains, urban and suburban areas where development pressure is unrelenting.
Maintaining the Integrity of International Ecosystems
While the legal jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission is limited to the Coastal Zone of California, the Commission operates with an understanding that California’s ecosystems do not end at the state border. A healthy habitat depends on the health of an entire ecosystem. For many years the Mitsubishi Corporation, in a joint venture with the Mexican government, planned to develop the world’s largest salt evaporation facility in Baja California’s Laguna San Ignacio. Laguna San Ignacio provides critical habitat for the California gray whale that migrates along the Pacific Coast from Baja California to Alaska. It is one of the few remaining undeveloped breeding and calving grounds for the species. In 2000, the Natural Resources Defense Council asked the Coastal Commission to oppose the industrial development of Laguna San Ignacio, and to urge Mitsubishi to withdraw its proposal. After recognizing the role of the California gray whale in both California’s economy and the state’s diverse marine ecosystem, the Commission acknowledged the system-wide effects of local insults and passed a resolution opposing the project. The independence of the Commission was a crucial factor, as the governor (unbelievably) was adamantly opposed to the resolution. The project was withdrawn and the ecological integrity of Laguna San Ignacio remains intact today. During my years on the Commission, I watched repeated attempts by politicians, developers and property rights activists to neutralize the Commission and its decisions. Prop 90 is the latest and most drastic attempt. Two factors frustrated those efforts: the activism of environmentally informed and politically engaged citizens, and the (intelligent) design of the Commission as an independent, non-preemptable legal authority.Sitting on the Commission I learned the meaning of the old political adage “don’t send nobody nobody sent.” In other words, the case made by people coming before the Commission to speak for or against a project was inestimably strengthened (and so was the ability of a commissioner to advocate for that perspective) when the advocate could say (and prove) that she spoke not merely for herself, but on behalf of an organization or community that represented the position of the commons. At every hearing, every month I was reminded that the forces of development have deep pockets and lots of time to achieve their goals. Unless we promote meaningful public participation and maintain wisely designed structures of governance, they will eventually prevail.
The commission has the duty (and the privilege) of weighing short-term interests against long-term sustainability, and private property rights against the public interest in how to manage a public resource. To the Commission’s credit, it continues to develop innovative means to balance these concerns while preserving the working landscapes, pristine coastline, livable residential communities and recreational opportunities that characterize the California Coast.
If Prop. 90 is passed by voters, the power to craft an open and mixed-use strategy, in which the health of the coast is never compromised by the powerful economic enticements of the moment, will no longer matter. The entire coast of California will change irrevocably. Which is why California voters should reject Prop. 90 on November 7.