2 Critics Take Seats on Coastal Panel

As environmentalists warned that the state’s scenic coastline is in jeopardy, two new members with a long history of battling the agency in the Santa Monica Mountains were sworn into office Wednesday, giving pro-development forces a majority.

Republican pollster Arnold Steinberg of Calabasas and longtime property rights activist Patricia Randa of Sonoma took their seats on the 12-member commission and immediately criticized the agency as being too powerful and abusive toward coastal landowners who want to build on their properties.

Their remarks drew criticism from a parade of environmental group representatives, who told the commissioners that the landmark California Coastal Act was intended to protect the state’s shoreline and was not intended to be a ticket to development.

Steinberg and Randa are the most controversial of four people appointed to the commission last month by Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove). His selections mark the first time in the agency’s 24-year history that it will be dominated by Republicans.

Environmentalists immediately demanded that Pringle withdraw the choices of Steinberg and Randa because of their histories of fighting the state’s coastal protection law when they built homes in the Santa Monica Mountains.

It is that same law that Randa and Steinberg swore to uphold on the panel that has far-reaching power over coastal land use, development and environmental issues. The act is also intended to protect sensitive wetlands, agricultural lands and scenic vistas, and preserve public access to the beach.

As the meeting began, Steinberg said the agency has “too much power and it’s been abused. . . . We are here to process [development] permits consistent with the law.”

The GOP pollster whose clients include Pringle and other prominent Republicans said the agency needs to “focus on major coastal issues, not the size of someone’s driveway.”

Steinberg, who had a running fight with the commission in the late 1980s, said it is necessary to bring the agency’s enforcement practices into the open. “We live in America, not Albania,” he said.

In an interview, he said that discussion of his own experiences with the commission “reopens old wounds.” After failing to abide by the commission’s repeated orders in 1989-90 to stop construction of a home in the Cold Creek Preserve area of the Santa Monica Mountains until he obtained a coastal development permit, Steinberg was sued by the state attorney general’s office on behalf of the commission.

To settle the protracted litigation after the home was virtually completed, Steinberg agreed to a series of conditions, including a requirement that he pay $165,000 to buy an adjoining 2.3-acre parcel for open space. He called the enforcement actions against him “a cruel game” and “an extreme approach.”

Randa, who fought a 12-year battle against the commission and other agencies over her plans to build a road across state park property to her Santa Monica Mountains home, also branded the agency as abusive and unfair. Ultimately, the home and a five-acre parcel were purchased by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for $1.65 million.

Randa said she will “never support the taking of property without just compensation.” And she sought to put the commission’s longtime executive director, Peter Douglas, on the spot by asking him whether he supports legislation to establish a California property rights act. He declined to take sides.

Douglas defended the agency, saying that “a lot has been done to ensure property rights are protected.” He said he welcomed examination of the commission’s operations.

A few environmental critics carried signs outside the meeting with the message: Save Our Coast--Obey the Law! Another sign alluded to former U.S. Interior Secretary James Watt and called for dumping Randa and Steinberg.

Inside, Natural Resources Defense Council representative Ann Notthoff told the new commissioners that they are legally required to protect the coast.

Notthoff said conflicts between development and the environment should be resolved in a manner which on balance is most protective of significant resources such as wetlands, agricultural lands, vistas, beach access and sensitive habitats. “The balance falls to nature,” she said.

Larry Fahn, chairman of the Sierra Club’s Marin County chapter, expressed concern about where the commission is headed. “Coastal protection does not seem to be at the top of the agenda,” he told the panel.

San Rafael real estate agent Gil Deane brought a campaign sign from the 1972 campaign to create the Coastal Commission to remind the new commissioners that the voters accepted controls on property rights through zoning and planning.

George Cattermole, a coastal property owner in San Mateo County, reminded the panel that “this is not the Private Property Commission,” he said. “Your job is to protect the coast.”

Sierra Club Coastal Program Director Mark Massara said the commission must recognize the tremendous economic importance of the California coast for tourism, recreation, fisheries and businesses.

Contrary to its critics, Massara said, the commission has approved more than 20,000 development permits in the last 20 years.

There was a lone voice backing Steinberg and Randa. Malibu real estate agent Tom Bates, head of Concerned Citizens for Property Rights, hailed the change to “eight fun-loving Republicans.”

Bates said coastal access requirements need to be relaxed, single-family homes exempted from the commission’s jurisdiction and the boundaries of the state’s coastal zone narrowed. “We’d like to see some fairness,” Bates said.