California Coastal Commission


The California Coastal Commission is a state agency in the U.S. state of California with quasi-judicial regulatory oversight over land use and public access in the California coastal zone.
The California Coastal Commission's mission is "To protect, conserve, restore, and enhance the environment of the California coastline". The Commission's current agenda can be found on their website.

History

The California Coastal Commission was established in 1972 by voter initiative via Proposition 20. This was partially in response to the controversy surrounding the development of Sea Ranch, a planned coastal community in Sonoma County. Al Boeke, Sea Ranch's developer-architect, initially envisioned a community that would preserve the area's natural beauty. But the plan for Sea Ranch eventually grew to encompass of the Sonoma County coastline that would have been reserved for private use. This and other similar coastal projects prompted opponents, wanting more public access along the coast, to form activist groups. Their efforts eventually led to putting Proposition 20 on the ballot.
Proposition 20 gave the Coastal Commission permit authority for four years. The of 1976 extended the Coastal Commission's authority indefinitely. The agency is tasked with protection of coastal resources, including shoreline public access and recreation, lower cost visitor accommodations, terrestrial and marine habitat protection, visual resources, landform alteration, agricultural lands, commercial fisheries, industrial uses, water quality, offshore oil and gas development, transportation, development design, power plants, ports, and public works. The Commission's responsibilities are described in the California Coastal Act, especially the Chapter 3 policies.
The state authority controls construction along the state's of shoreline. The Commission is composed of 12 voting members, 6 chosen from the general public, and 6 appointed elected officials. The panelists are not paid salary nor stipend for their work, however being on the Commission can carry responsibilities which are highly politicized.
Accounting for 164 percent inflation, the commission's total funding declined 26 percent from $22.1 million in 1980 to
$16.3 million in 2010. The commission's full-time staff fell from 212 in 1980 to 125 in 2010. There are 11 enforcement officers to investigate violations along the of coastline.

Development

Development activities are broadly defined by the Coastal Act to include construction of buildings, divisions of land, and activities that change the intensity of use of land or public access to coastal waters. Development usually requires a Coastal Development Permit from either the Coastal Commission or the local government if such development would occur within the Coastal Zone. The Coastal Zone is specifically defined by law as an area that extends from the State's seaward boundary of jurisdiction, and inland for a distance from the Mean High Tide Line of between a couple of hundred feet in urban areas, to up to five miles in rural areas.
State Route 1 is prohibited from being widened beyond one lane in each direction within rural areas inside the Coastal Zone, per Public Resources Code section 30254.

Local coastal programs

The Commission is the primary agency which issues Coastal Development Permits. However, once a local agency has a Local Coastal Program which has been certified by the Commission, that agency takes over the responsibility for issuing Coastal Development Permits. For areas with Certified LCP's, the Commission does not issue Coastal Development permits, and is instead responsible for reviewing amendments to a local agency's LCP, or reviewing Coastal Development Permits issued by local agencies which have been appealed to the Commission.
A Local Coastal Program is composed of a Land Use Plan and an Implementation Plan. A Land Use Plan details the Land Uses which are permissible in each part of the local government's area, and specifies the general policies which apply to each Land Use. The Land Use can be a part of a local government's general plan. The Implementation Plan is responsible for implementing the policies contained in the Land Use Plan. The Implementation Plan is generally a part of the City's Zoning code.

Enforcement Authority

The agency has sought enforcement through the courts as it originally did not have the power to issue fines on its own to alleged violators. A bill in the California legislature to grant the commission a broad power to issue fines was defeated in September 2013. However legislation attached to the state budget in the summer of 2014 finally granted the authority to impose fines on violators of public-access which could apply to about a third of the backlog of over 2,000 unresolved enforcement cases. The first notable fines were issued in December 2016 against Malibu property owners Dr. Warren M. Lent and his wife, for 4.2 million dollars, and Simon and Daniel Mani, owners of the Malibu Beach Inn, who settled amicably for $925,000. The difference in severity of the fines were attributed to the "egregious" nature of the Lent case.

Legal issues

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the 1987 case of Nollan v. California Coastal Commission that a requirement by the agency was a taking in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Coastal Commission had required that a lateral public easement along the Nollans' beachfront lot be dedicated to facilitate pedestrian access to public beaches as a condition of approval of a permit to demolish an existing bungalow and replace it with a three-bedroom house. The Coastal Commission had asserted that the public-easement condition was imposed to promote the legitimate state interest of diminishing the "blockage of the view of the ocean" caused by construction of the larger house. The court, in a narrow decision, ruled that an "essential nexus" must exist between the legitimate state interest and the permit condition imposed by government.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay was ordered to pay $1.6 million in penalties for failing to provide public access to its nearby beaches in 2019.