Oppose Shoreline Armoring at Casa Mira in Half Moon Bay

An important case in the California court system will interpret key provisions of the California Coastal Act that dramatically affect California’s shoreline. The case concerns seawalls and whether they must be allowed to protect any structure on the beach or only those structures built before the Coastal Act was enacted in 1976.

Background of the Case

In 2016 and 2017, owners of a townhome complex in northern Half Moon Bay (adjacent to Miramar Beach) obtained two emergency permits from the California Coastal Commission to put riprap on the beachfront side of the development due to concern of severe storms and continued bluff collapse. In 2019, the property owners then sought a permit to make this armoring more permanent by constructing a 250-foot tied-back concrete seawall to replace the rip rap in 2019. The seawall they proposed to the Coastal Commission would front the townhome complex, as well as a smaller property at 2 Mirada, a portion of the California Coastal Trail, and a sewer line.

In a decision that Surfrider strongly supported, the Coastal Commission denied the large proposed seawall, and determined that only a 50-foot seawall was allowable in front of a single property at 2 Mirada. The Coastal Commission’s rationale, which Surfrider continues to strongly agree with, is that the townhome complex was built after 1976 and is therefore not entitled to shoreline armoring under the Coastal Act, while the home at 2 Mirada was built before that date and is legally entitled to a seawall. Surfrider also testified at the July 2019 Coastal Commission hearing to add that the state should not be using coastal trails to justify armoring for private property that otherwise would not be eligible for it — the coastal trail at issue could be moved slightly inland.

While the Coastal Commission’s decision to deny a large portion of the Casa Mira seawall proposal was final from a regulatory perspective, property owners sued the Coastal Commission in Casa Mira Homeowners Association v. California Coastal Commission.

Surfrider Supports the Coastal Commission’s Rationale for Denying the Proposed Seawall

The legal issue in this case is one of statutory interpretation – the appellate court will consider the meaning of “existing” in the Coastal Act (specifically section 30235 of the Public Resources Code), which states that seawalls “shall be permitted when required to…protect existing structures ….”

Surfrider believes that the term “existing structures” applies to pre-Coastal Act existing structures or those that were erected before the date of Coastal Act implementation: January 1, 1977. The Coastal Commission also expressed this view in its 2019 Casa Mira permit decision, and has generally hewed to this interpretation of the definition of “existing” – especially since publishing its Sea Level Rise Guidance document in 2015.

The Commission has been clear interpretation of existing development. For example, in a  December 2023 staff report, the Commission said:

“Since 2000, as the issue has become increasingly contentious, with a few exceptions, the Commission has not found that a structure built after 1977 qualifies as an ‘existing structure’ for purposes of Section 30235.  Rather, it has been increasingly consistent in finding that ‘existing structures’ as the phrase is used in Section 30235 refers to structures that were legally in existence as of January 1, 1977, the effective date of the Coastal Act.”  (December 2023 Coastal Commission Staff Report)

In the Casa Mira lawsuit, property owners are challenging the Coastal Commission’s decision-making by arguing that the term existing is not timestamped — that it simply means a structure that exists. This interpretation of the Coastal Act, however, is unsupported by the history of the Act.

The Coastal Act was Designed to Reduce Shoreline Armoring

The Coastal Act was designed to protect against the destruction of coastal recreational resources and to preserve accessibility and ecosystems that are integral to the California coast. Among the harms brought about by seawalls are the reduction of beach access to and along California beaches, degradation of natural shoreline, potential to produce rubble (making swimming and ocean recreation more dangerous), and creation of a false sense of security that promotes increased development in fragile coastal areas.

In the early 1970s, California voters saw a grave threat to the California coastline, with large coastal developments popping up and closing off swaths of beautiful coastline to the public, in addition to harming coastal resources. Californians acted in 1972 to pass the precursor to the Coastal Act, Proposition 20, to ensure the protection of the California coast as a public resource for this and future generations.  Four years later, the California Coastal Act was passed by the state legislature and codified the state’s coastal management program, which put a heavy emphasis on protecting against shoreline armoring.

We see seawalls on beaches, and some seawalls are allowed in limited circumstances, largely due to bad planning. At the time that much of the California coast was being subdivided and developed, planning was not sophisticated. The shoreline was seen as static; developers and purchasers were simply users dropped into a fixed tableau. Aware that seawalls did alter the natural shoreline and impact the public’s enjoyment of it,  the Legislature saw it as fair, and consistent with Constitutional principles, that those who had invested in this shoreline development should be allowed to protect it, and thus included section 30235.

However, every other pertinent Coastal Act policy militates against armoring the coast because seawalls reduce, and in most cases eventually will eliminate public access. They also constrain and will eventually eliminate most forms of public recreation; have significant impacts upon marine resources; degrade the scenic and visual qualities of the coastal area; and cause permanent alteration of the natural land forms of the area.

The Coastal Act was established to have the opposite effect on California’s coastline: seawalls negatively impact resources that are otherwise intended to be protected by Coastal Act Sections 30210 (Public Access), 30220 (Recreation), 30230 (Sensitive Habitat), and 30251 (Scenic and Visual). In light of these provisions, it is understandable that the Legislature in section 30253 (c) required that new development not “require the construction of protective devices that would substantially alter natural landforms along bluffs and cliffs”, i.e., seawalls.

In short, it is very difficult to imagine how a sweeping act intended to protect our coastline would undermine itself by broadly facilitating destructive coastal armoring.

Stay Tuned

Surfrider is staunchly opposed to hardened armoring of our natural coastline and our legal and policy teams are active in our defense of the intended language of the Coastal Act. Seawalls and other hardened coastal armoring fix the back of the beach in one place, rather than allow for dynamic shoreline processes and natural erosion. As sea levels rise, this creates narrower beaches and eventually destroys the sandy beaches enjoyed by public beachgoers. While seawalls provide privatized benefits to property owners, they wreck the geophysical, biological and human resources of the natural coastline and are essentially a hidden tax on the beach. Seawalls kill beaches, and Surfrider sees a great need to prohibit rapid shoreline armoring of the California coast in the face of sea level rise.