Waking Up About Beach Access : After long delay, coastal agencies seem to be responding to rising problem

It is good news indeed that the state has begun to act on long-delayed plans to open public access paths to an exclusive Malibu beach. The state Coastal Conservancy unanimously voted Wednesday to open to the public two stairways from Pacific Coast Highway to Escondido Beach near Malibu’s Paradise Cove.

The move comes after years of delay by the conservancy, an agency that can take title to these properties on behalf of the public, and particularly by the Coastal Commission, responsible for securing and preserving public access to the state’s beaches. That delay could cost Californians dearly.

In 1972 voters approved Proposition 20, which created the California Coastal Commission and charged it with protecting, maintaining and enhancing the quality of the coastal environment and the public’s right to use it. For the last two decades, the commission has required hundreds of property owners to dedicate strips of land for public access as a condition for building on or near the beach.

The commission has accumulated 1,269 offers of land for walkways, trails and viewpoints along the California coast. But its lack of sustained interest has left most of those offers to languish; only one in five has been secured. A 21-year deadline is in effect, and unless the commission transfers to the public the titles of the properties, and provides for their improvement and maintenance, the dedications will expire at an accelerating rate starting in the year 2000.

Escondido Beach is a good example. The stairways there were built several years ago; one was intended for public use. However, they have been gated to outsiders, and local residents have raised a series of objections to permitting public access.

That the Coastal Commission and its sister agency, the Coastal Conservancy, are finally moving to open the gates, apportion potential liability and arrange stairway maintenance may indicate they now take their responsibility for coastal access more seriously than in recent years.

The Escondido Beach plans also indicate that funding may not be as formidable an obstacle to securing these access ways as some think; the conservancy has set aside about $8,000 annually to maintain each of the two stairways for the next five years. Considering the thousands of people who will now be able to use these beaches, that’s a great bargain.