If California's coast is a multi-trillion-dollar state asset — and it is — why is a state agency that has successfully protected that asset for 50 years under attack? The answer – “allowing unnecessary delays” – is unfounded. However, California's exceptional history of coastal protection is at greater risk today in the halls of our state Capitol than it has been in generations.
Like the waters flowing down, California's unparalleled coastline has always been a magnet for development. In 1972, with that in mind, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 20, the ballot initiative that triggered the California Coastal Act of 1976. Unlike South Florida, the Jersey Shore, or other coastal areas gobbled up by privatization, it was The California coast enjoys by law special protection: the coastal area will be developed not as an enclave for the wealthy but for the use of all, with provisions to protect its natural resources. And her breathtaking beauty.
The California Coastal Commission was created to enforce the law at a cost to balance ecosystem needs with the need for public access and economic development, including affordable housing. It works like this: Local jurisdictions come up with coastal plans that must be approved by the commission. Once a plan is in place, development permits are handled by the city, town or county, although these decisions can be appealed to and by the commission.
Over the years, the Coastal Commission has successfully advocated for public beach access in Malibu, Half Moon Bay, Carlsbad and other cities. It has helped preserve state parks, open spaces along the coast and the beach itself — denying oil drilling permits, more than one luxury resort, an LNG port (in Oxnard), and a toll road (in San Onofre Beach). In 2019, it fined a developer nearly $15.6 million for replacing, without a permit, two low-cost hotels along Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica with a boutique hotel.
As might be expected, this process has often been at the center of attention for critics of the Coastal Act, and although the rationale may vary over time, their goal remains the same: to weaken oversight by the Commission and return control of land use entirely to local governments. .
Today, the declining supply of affordable housing along the coast is the basis for the attack. In legislation introduced in January, aiming to “resolve unnecessary delays in issuing permits in the disproportionately low-housing coastal zone,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) proposed an unprecedented carve-out of 23.5% of the coastal zone in San Francisco. Specifically, Senate Bill 951 would remove from committee residential areas on the western edge of the city, as well as a piece of Golden Gate Park. As the first major reduction of the coastal zone in more than 40 years, this attack on the commission could set a dangerous precedent that would call for similar cuts from San Diego to Santa Monica to the Crescent City.
Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted overwhelmingly to oppose SB 951, and a day later, the Coastal Commission unanimously did the same.
The existential threat this legislation poses to coastal law and the entire California coast is undeniable. Among the many committee responsibilities affected, SB 951 ignores the agency's essential role in planning for adaptation to sea level rise along San Francisco's increasingly vulnerable coast. The excluded area includes land proposed for a controversial 50-story apartment complex and commercial project in the Outer Sunset neighborhood apartments north of the San Francisco Zoo.
The claim that the Coastal Commission is to blame for housing inequality in the coastal region, though long-winded rhetoric, is belied by the historical record. In fact, when it became law in 1976, the Coastal Act required the protection, encouragement and provision of housing for low- and moderate-income persons, wherever possible. The commission actively complied, approving or protecting from demolition more than 7,100 affordable housing units between 1977 and 1981 and collecting an estimated $2 million in “lieu” fees to support affordable housing.
But in 1981, the state Legislature amended the Coastal Zones Act to remove the commission's affordable housing authority. Contrary to the claim of “unnecessary permit delays” underlying SB 951 — only two San Francisco coastal development permits have been appealed before the commission in 38 years — this amendment, and the fact that developers prefer to build in high-rise areas — final projects, Which has led to the current deficit in affordable housing in the coastal region. As then-Coastal Commission Chairman Leonard Grote warned in 1981, “Passage of this bill would ensure that the ability to live near the coast is reserved for the wealthy.” And so it happened.
If increasing the supply of affordable housing near the California coast is indeed the goal of SB 951, restoring, not reducing, the Commission's authority is essential. It was a mistake in 1981 to eliminate the commission's authority to require projects it approved to include affordable housing, and it is a mistake in 2024 to expect that reducing the coastal zone will correct that mistake.
The California Coastal Commission has an exceptional record of success in protecting California's most valuable environmental and economic resources, and its regulatory role is as important today as ever. SB 951 would weaken, not enhance, equal access to this resource, and threatens to erode, perhaps irreversibly, the nation's most successful coastal management program.
Joel Reynolds is the Western Director and Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Santa Monica. Tom Soto is a former alternate member of the California Coastal Commission and a board member of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
