Barring the Bulldozer : Coastal bills call for new powers to halt harmful projects

In Malibu, a developer, working with permission from the California Coastal Commission to move 40,000 cubic yards of hillside to make a flat place for homes, bulldozed 15 times that much.

In Big Sur, a crew with no permit at all bulldozed an eight-mile road through a breathtaking reach of rugged cliffs, dense forest and redwoods on the central coast.

In La Jolla, commission staff members waited for a court restraining order as most of a cluster of historic turn-of-the-century cottages were demolished.

These are among the most blatant recent examples of violations of a 1976 law designed to manage growth along California’s coastline. But they all have one thing in common with lesser insults to coastal beaches, marshes and mountains: Even when the commission’s thin line of enforcement officers knows that someone is flouting the law, it takes as long as a week to get a court to order the work stopped. By then, in too many cases, some part of the coastal scene is damaged beyond repair.

Now there are two bills--SB 283, sponsored by Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), and SB 317, by Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita)--that between them would give the commission power to stop violations on the spot. Gov. Pete Wilson should sign both into law.

During the last several years, the coastal law has been violated once a day, on average. Half of all violations occur in Los Angeles or Orange counties.

Still, the commission reports that most Californians who want to build or rebuild in the coastal zone do it right. They not only apply for a permit, they follow whatever terms come with the permit.

But in a letter to Wilson urging him to sign the bills, Peter Douglas, executive director of the coastal commission, notes that violations have become a chronic problem along the coast in the last five or six years.

That’s because some developers, he said, watched the commission enforcement branch dwindle in those years and decided that there was nobody to enforce the law.

The Davis bill would give the commission staff the power to issue a cease-and-desist order if work was being done, or planned, in the coastal zone without a permit or in violation of a permit. Such orders would take effect at once to guard against irreparable damage to the coast or to other property owners if work were allowed to continue. Contractors could appeal the order to the commission and take it to court if the appeal failed.

If a builder decided to proceed despite such an order, he could be fined up to $6,000 a day.

The Rosenthal bill would raise the limit on fines for willful violations from the present $10,000. The commission itself could fine violators up to $25,000 and courts could impose fines of up to $50,000.

Realtors and civil engineers, among others, oppose the bill, arguing that it would deprive developers and homeowners of due process.

The California Assn. of Realtors maintains that no executive agency should have “blanket authority to shut down projects that ‘may’ be inconsistent with the existing permitting process.”

That is a reasonable position, but with California court calenders crowded beyond capacity, particularly in civil cases, it is not persuasive in the real world.

Besides, a violation can result in irreparable environmental damage. Clearly existing law is not deterring violators in the coastal zone. A resource as precious as California’s coast demands something stronger.