Coastal Panel Weathers Waves of Change

This private enclave at land’s end seems more picture postcard than historic battlefield. Scattered homes of wood and glass break the coastal breeze. Sculpted bluffs hug ocean coves. Tranquillity rules.

But this was an early front in California’s coastal revolution. Development of Sea Ranch blocked the public from 10 miles of spectacular Sonoma County coast, stoking a shoreline preservation movement that gave birth to the California Coastal Commission a quarter-century ago.

Armed with sweeping powers, the agency took on the delicate task of safeguarding the state’s meandering 1,100-mile shore, which has been immortalized in popular culture--from the Beach Boys to “Baywatch”--and feeds a $27-billion coastal economy dominated by tourism, shipping and agriculture.

After a tumultuous youth, the Coastal Commission nears middle age battered and bruised, a bureaucratic survivor with a mixed record and plenty of critics. Even boosters acknowledge room for improvement, saying that changes are needed to protect California’s magnificent shoreline--a sort of Coastal Act II.

They suggest that the Coastal Commission should be better insulated from political pressure. They also argue that it is time to go beyond the protections of the law, which is only as good as its human guardians, and begin buying strategic sections of coast before they are lost to development.

During its first 25 years, the commission has been plagued by perpetual hardship. Politically unpopular among conservatives, its staff has been cut nearly in half since the 1980s.

It has failed to force many cities and counties--including Los Angeles--to adopt required blueprints for shoreline development. And it does not routinely update plans as growth alters life along the coast.

The agency’s reputation for championing coastal access is marred by the reality that large swaths of California beachfront remain off limits to the public. Although developers say that the commission is stingy with building permits, the agency has approved 98% of the proposals that have come before it.

Dismayed by that record, passionate environmentalists say that the commission has too often tilted toward compromise, dishing up high-end resorts and swank subdivisions that voters never envisioned when they approved the landmark ballot initiative in 1972 that created the commission.

“Unfortunately, the debate at the commission is about how to develop the coast, not how to save the coast,” said Mark Massara, the Sierra Club’s state coastal program director. “Anyone who says the Coastal Commission is slowing growth doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Property rights advocates scoff, saying that the commission embraces Soviet-style central planning, with an environmentalist bent. It has been particularly difficult, they say, for the little guy trying to build a house by the beach.

“The commission essentially rules like a Romanian tribunal,” said Arnold Steinberg, a Republican pollster who battled the agency over a hillside home but later glimpsed its inner workings as a commissioner. “There’s no humanity there.”

More charitable observers say that the agency has overcome a historically anemic budget and overwhelming political pressure to give California the best-planned shoreline in the nation, a balanced mix of alluring development and preservation with abundant public access to the waves. Without the commission, they argue, the state’s oceanfront might well have become wall-to-wall condos, nuclear power plants and oil refineries.

“People treasure the coast. They’re attracted to it like a magnet,” said Ellen Stern Harris, a Beverly Hills environmentalist regarded as the mother of the Coastal Act. “Whether you’re a creationist or believe we rose up from the sea, there seems to be an irresistible attempt by us to reach the water--for peace of mind, for restoration, for recreation. We can’t lose that.”

A Politically Bloodied Past

Consider the times. Rachel Carson’s bestseller “Silent Spring” warned of an environment under assault. In places such as Malibu and Sea Ranch, housing construction had walled off coastal treasures. Then came the massive oil spill off Santa Barbara in 1969, with seabirds dying in the ooze and beaches smeared black.

Public fervor to protect California’s coast began to crest. After a few aborted attempts in the balky state Legislature to create a preservation commission, activists put Proposition 20 on the statewide ballot in 1972. The measure called for tough coastal protections and a commission to control seafront planning.

Voters’ approval marked the first time any state had embarked on such an expansive effort to safeguard its coast.

The commission oversees 1.6 million acres of land that ranges from a few hundred feet wide in some spots to five miles from the ocean in the Santa Monica Mountains. It issues building permits, regulates port expansion and works to prevent offshore oil spills.

The early years were characterized by an unabashed zeal to put the brakes on shoreline construction. From the biggest development to the smallest home remodeling, the coastal panel and its staff picked over projects, often to a maddening degree.

Cursed by many since its birth, the commission has survived despite fiscal straits, political power plays and an occasional scandal.

During the 1980s, Gov. George Deukmejian slashed the agency’s ever-declining budget by a quarter in an effort to bleed it to death. The effects can still be seen.

Staff was reduced from 212 to about 125 today. The agency lacks a geologist, marine biologist and hydrologist. It still keeps some key planning records on index cards; its computer system remains largely antiquated. The latest hit: Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed a 9% budget cut next year.

Scandal came in the early 1990s, when commission member Mark Nathanson, a Beverly Hills real estate broker, pleaded guilty to soliciting almost $1 million from Hollywood entertainment barons seeking coastal building permits.

Politics has regularly stalked the commission. State legislators appoint the agency’s 12 commissioners--and thus control the political dynamics of coastal preservation. On the eve of key votes, statehouse leaders have fired recalcitrant commissioners. Lobbyists have been known to approach commissioners in the heat of a meeting and hand them a cellular phone with Willie Brown or another leader on the line.

Nor has the Wilson administration been shy about applying pressure.

During the pivotal 1996 approval of a housing subdivision astride the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in Huntington Beach, Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler shuttled between the developer’s representatives and the commission dais to hammer out a deal. Critics say Wheeler inappropriately acted as an advocate for the developer, who has contributed more than $60,000 to the governor’s campaign war chest since 1990.

Wilson’s commission appointees were also behind an effort to dump Peter Douglas, the agency’s longtime executive director, a few months after he recommended against the project. Environmentalists flooded the meeting to support Douglas. His foes backed off.

That attempted coup, coupled with the appointment of several Republican property rights champions to the commission, prompted a backlash from preservationists. They launched a “Vote the Coast” campaign to back coastal Democrats in key political races, helping the party recapture the Assembly in November 1996.

One of the first acts of the new Democratic leadership was to fire the conservative commissioners.

Defeat in Supreme Court

James Nollan considers himself a regular kind of Southern California guy, a denizen of the beachfront, still sort of a kid at heart. But get him talking about the California Coastal Commission and he turns bearish.

“The only difference between the commission and Jessie James,” Nollan says, “is that Jessie had a gun.”

When Nollan tried to transform a Ventura County beach shack into a 2,300-square-foot family home, the commission demanded public access along his stretch of shoreline. Nollan fought.

After years of litigation, he made history in 1987. Nollan won at the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first homeowner to beat the Coastal Commission. Justice Antonin Scalia compared the commission’s tactics to “an out-and-out plan of extortion.”

Along with subsequent cases, Nollan’s lawsuit capsized the commission’s dogged efforts to open the shoreline. No longer can coastal planners routinely require access to a chunk of beachfront property in exchange for a new home. Instead, a development must be of grander scale to merit public access.

“Up until Nollan, the Coastal Commission had an attitude that they could pretty much do whatever they wanted,” said Fred Gaines, a Woodland Hills attorney who often deals with the agency. “But it was at the expense of individual property rights.”

Before the game changed, the commission amassed nearly 1,300 easements along beachfronts or across private property to tidelands. Only one in five is open, mostly because strapped state and local governments have had other priorities. But deadlines loom: The easements typically expire if not opened within 20 years.

The commission has vowed to open the access ways. They have begun mapping potential trails. Legislation last year earmarked all fees from coastal permits--more than $500,000 a year--to open and maintain access ways. Democratic legislators talk of providing additional money to open them and fight lawsuits brought by recalcitrant homeowners.

A fresh round of anger and litigation seems inevitable in places such as Malibu, where some easements run across the padlocked property of the rich and famous.

Just look what’s happening in Mendocino. In the summer of 1996, the nonprofit Mendocino Land Trust opened bluff-top access across the bay from the historic town. The group was immediately sued by the millionaire owner of an adjacent house. So far, the courts have backed the trust.

Down the coast in Gualala, a tiny community of shops and restaurants straddling California 1, the Redwood Coast Land Conservancy plans a seaside promenade with slate path and sweeping views. The proposal has drawn opposition from an inn owner who fears that pedestrians will spoil the privacy of oceanfront rooms.

“To me it’s a public trust issue,” said Bill Wiemeyer, a Redwood Coast Land Conservancy director. “There are certain things that enhance our quality of life. One of those is access to the ocean, something we all own.”

A Wide Range of Philosophies

It is a cast of characters sprawling and schizophrenic, a panel whose philosophy and makeup have waxed and waned with the political tides. In the 25 years since the Coastal Commission opened for business, 75 people have served on the board, from unapologetic ecologists to zealous conservatives to a crook, jailed commissioner Nathanson.

The commission’s latest lineup, loaded with Democrats, is panned by property rights advocates. But it is a hit with many environmentalists, particularly since a Jan. 15 decision blocking Hearst Corp. plans for a massive resort at San Simeon on the unspoiled Central Coast.

At other times the commission has resembled a buddy to free enterprise. This, after all, is the agency that in 1995 blessed 22-story office towers on publicly owned land in Marina del Rey, the commission that two years ago gave an Orange County developer the go-ahead to build 900 homes in a wetland until the courts stepped in to stop it.

The commission has processed more than 100,000 coastal development permits, approving nearly all of them. Rankings by preservationists over the past 15 years suggest that the commission voted the strict environmental line half the time.

But property rights advocates say that the agency throws unreasonable requirements in the way of development.

On the ethereal Big Sur coast, only homes that blend with the terrain are allowed. A few builders won approval by putting green sod roofs on houses. There and elsewhere, the commission habitually insists on strict height limits to preserve views of the water.

The agency’s stodgy reputation has often worked in its favor, leading to numerous coastal park acquisitions as landowners decided it was better to sell than face commission rejection of their projects.

If developers resent the philosophy of today’s commission, they need only wait until tomorrow. In the era of legislative term limits, commission membership is a revolving-door assignment. Of the current dozen commissioners, only four have been members longer than two years.

With the turnover, the real battles are left to the commission’s longtime staff and an armada of lobbyists.

Property rights advocates say the staff jealously controls the pace of business and the outcome of most commission decisions. “Their agenda is to prevent development on the coast at all costs,” said Jim Burling of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative nonprofit group. “They treat it like a mission from God.”

If so, the environmental evangelism is countered by lobbyists.

“It’s the lobbyists for development interests that take over and occupy the inside politics,” said state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), a longtime commission watcher. “The commission has become more a status quo agency brokering [development] deals than one advocating for the restoration of the coastal environment.”

And there are plenty of deals to be brokered, in part because the commission is serving an unintended role as surrogate local planning agency.

Under the Coastal Act, by 1981 local governments were to draft shoreline blueprints--dubbed Local Coastal Programs--and take over the job of meting out coastal building permits. The commission would serve as an appeals board, a court of last resort.

But today, more than 15 years after the deadline, many coastal boomtowns have yet to approve such programs. Scofflaws include the city and county of Los Angeles, Malibu and San Diego County. From Malibu south, less than 40% of the coast’s acreage is covered by the programs.

The byproduct is project gridlock at commission meetings.

As it deals with issues as minuscule as home remodeling jobs in Malibu, the agency has been robbed of time to focus on regional issues that were supposed to be its prime mandate--polluted runoff that closes California beaches 1,000 times in a typical year, the cumulative effect of development, problems with coastal erosion and siltation of wetlands by upland construction.

In addition, the commission has failed to conduct required five-year reviews of cumulative development in each region. Of 88 ratified local coastal plans, only two have been revisited in 15 years.

The result is a planning process oddly locked in the past, one that fails to keep abreast of the latest thinking on the environment and land use. Even if the commission does perform the reviews, it has no power to force local governments to make changes.

“To me, this is the biggest weakness of the Coastal Act,” said commission chief Douglas. “It locks in place obsolete, inadequate coastal protection policies.”

Some legislators in Sacramento have proposed giving the commission more money to do reviews and power to prod local governments to make needed changes to their coastal plans.

Trying to Divine the Future

So whither now the Coastal Commission?

Property rights advocates have a direct approach: Get rid of the agency and return full control of the coast to local governments. They say the commission wouldn’t be missed.

“The notion that the Coastal Commission is the only thing standing between us and environmental Armageddon is nonsense,” said Burling of the Pacific Legal Foundation. “It has served its purpose and should be put into the dustbin of history.”

Environmentalists say that the commission needs a surgeon, not an undertaker.

Harris, a commissioner during the agency’s early years but now a critic, wants fixed terms, which would shield members from Sacramento’s political shenanigans and the transiency created by term limits. She also suggests a ban on private discussions between commission members and developers.

Other preservationists say that the only certain way to save the soul of the shoreline is by buying the most endangered stretches.

Pressure, they say, is building on all fronts. Technological advances are opening up the possibility of enclaves on now-isolated stretches of coast. In a decade or so, telecommuters might flock to low-density housing projects hooked into solar power and new water desalination technology.

Meanwhile, California voters haven’t approved money for the coast in a decade; the last bond act that provided revenue for purchases was Proposition 70 in 1988. A serious move is afoot in Sacramento to put a bond on the ballot this year. Wilson is proposing $150 million; Democrats want more than four times that.

Even if such lofty sums were approved, it would be only a beginning. Studies say that $835 million is needed for the next 10 years just to secure areas threatened by overdevelopment. Some advocates want to see a state program of public purchases stretching for decades.

“We need to invest in coastal land for the benefit of coming generations,” said Michael L. Fischer, former executive director of the commission. “If we wait, the land will be too expensive and quite possibly be lost forever.”

Yet even in happy economic times, there are limits. State treasury officials warn that California is overburdened with bond debt. Regular purchases are unlikely.

Instead, some preservationists say, the goal should be more strategic. They suggest buying development rights on agricultural land, thus preventing a bumper crop of homes.

They also argue that the domino effect of high-density development can be stopped with the purchase of key properties. An example: Preservation of a large ranch south of Half Moon Bay by a nonprofit foundation virtually halted the spread of development beyond the city. Now builders have to leapfrog the ranch, a dubious prospect given the high cost of laying extra sewage and water lines.

“We should find key opportunities,” said Assemblyman Fred Keeley, a Santa Cruz County Democrat championing efforts to preserve the coast. “The state isn’t going to have enough money to buy it all. It’s only one tool in the toolbox.”

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COASTAL HOT SPOTS

In the 25 years since it was formed, the California Coastal Commission has tackled development fights up and down the coast. Some of the hot spots.

NORTH COAST: Protected Arcata marsh. But off-road vehicles assault dunes and inland timber cutting damages coastal streams and wetlands.

MENDOCINO COUNTY: Helped preserve historic town of Mendocino and set urban limit line. But many public access ways still unopened. Parcels being subdivided and growth increasing.

SONOMA COUNTY: Reduced Sea Ranch from 5,200 to 2,300 homes and pushed for five public access points, opening up 10 miles of scenic shore.

MARIN COUNTY: Zoned large parcels as open space or agriculture to limit development. Failed to get full public access at exclusive Sea Drift development.

SAN MATEO COUNTY: Blocked highway bypass at Devil’s Slide that would have opened back country to development. Hundreds of acres of farmland purchased and preserved down to Santa Cruz. Urban limit established for Half Moon Bay after building boom.

MONTEREY COUNTY: Kept Pebble Beach a public course and got rave reviews for Cannery Row redevelopment. National Marine Sanctuary established. Allowed upscale Spanish Bay development. Another golf course being pushed.

BIG SUR: View protection policy doesn’t allow construction if it can be seen from California 1, limiting development on 75 miles of world-class coastline. Federal lease sales for oil exploration to the Oregon border scuttled.

SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY: Rejected Hearst Ranch resort project in January, but future of Central Coast property remains uncertain.

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY: Oil operations consolidated onshore. Commission demands that oil be transported through pipelines, reducing risk of tanker spills. But development in Goleta and Gaviota causes protest. No public access to spectacular Hollister Ranch coast.

MALIBU: Large swaths of Santa Monica Mountains preserved. Public access at Zuma Beach and Nicholas Canyon secured, although numerous easements across private property still closed. Development in precarious hillsides allowed.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Limited filling of ocean for expansion and funneled mitigation funds to wetland restoration projects. But still no local coastal plan for much of city and county. Commission allowed denser development in Marina del Rey. Sued over Ballona wetlands project; settled and restoration planned, but Playa Vista project being challenged by new foes. Water quality problems bedevil Santa Monica Bay.

ORANGE COUNTY: Environmentalists sued Commission over construction of more than 900 homes in Bolsa Chica, but wetlands now set for purchase; ecologists challenging commission OK of homes above wetlands. Irvine Co. development blocked by 1980s lawsuit, but settlement slashed density. Laguna gated communities keep public from scenic coves. Approved swank Ritz Carlton, but provided adjacent beach parks. Commission to consider state plan this year for resort in ramshackle cottages of Crystal Cove.

SAN DIEGO COUNTY: Rejected mid-1970s expansion of San Onofre nuclear plant, but reversed decision under pressure from power companies. In 1996 rebuffed power company pleas to avoid costly environmental restoration work. Protected string of coastal marshes, but not North County flower fields. Angered bluff-top homeowners by requiring offsetting fee before permitting sea-walls.

California Coastal Commission Profile

Reviled by many beachfront home builders, applauded by shoreline preservationists, the Coastal Commission has vast powers to control life at the ocean’s edge.

Established: 1973, after voters approved ballot measure creating California Coastal Zone Conservation Commission, forerunner to current panel.

Board: 12 voting members. Half the commissioners are elected officials from coastal cities and counties. Governor, Assembly Speaker and Senate Rules Committe appoint four each.

Coastal Zone: Ranges from a few hundred feet to five miles inland. Eight of 10 California residents live within an hour’s drive of the 1,100-mile coast.

Executive Directors: In a quarter century, there have been only three--Joe Bodovitz (1973-78), Michael Fischer (1978-85) and Peter Douglas (1985-present).

Staff: 125 (peak of 212 in early 1980s). Lacks a geologist, hydrologist, marine biologist currently on staff.

Budget: $10.4 million in 1998-99 ($7.4 million from state, $3 million federal).

Responsibilities: Review building proposals for everything from homes to hotels to power plants. Discourage leapfrog growth. Preserve views, encourage coastal access. Promote visitor uses such as hotels, parks, harbors. Regulate oil drilling, refining, tankers and pipelines. Review seawalls, jetties, dredging. Oversee port expansions. Protect wetlands and other sensitive areas. Preserve agricultural lands and promote aquaculture. Help resolve polluted run-off problems. Boost public education.

Sister Agencies: California Coastal Conservancy coordinates public purchase of land and sponsors restoration projects. San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, formed in the 1960s, oversees the Bay Area.

Shrinking Budget

The Coastal Commission budget steadily eroded through the mid-’90s. During the 1980s, the Deukmejian Administration slashed funding 24%.

* All figures in 96/97 dollars and do not include federal portion.

Source: California Coastal Commission

Parks Purchases

Passage of the Coastal Act of 1972 sparked a flurry of public park acquisitions. In the past quarter century, more coastal acreage was purchased for parks than in the preceeding 84 years.

1889 to Oct. 1972: 61,697 acres (7% of all state park purchases in period)

Nov. 1972 to present: 68,058 acres (15% of all state park purchases in period)

TOTAL: 129,755 acres (9.5% of all state park purchases)

Source: California Department of Parks and Recreation

Buying the Coast

Some preservationists say the only way to protect California’s coast forever is for the public to buy stretches of shoreline targeted for development. Here are a few strategies:

Tax Relief: Legislation has been proposed to give landowners tax write-offs for selling coastal land for preservation.

Bond Acts: Provide money to purchase parkland or open space. California last approved a bond act for coastal protection in 1988.

Development Easements: For farmlands, nonprofit groups can buy up development rights, preventing growth but allowing the continued use for agriculture.

Oil Offshore

In the mid-1970s, state energy officials predicted a five-fold increase in offshore oil production. But under the Coastal Commission production has not increased.

* Production from state tidelands and federal waters, in millions of barrels.

Source: California Coastal Commission