State regulators approved two Seadrift home projects in recent months while adding exactly the kind of strict bans on seawalls and other so-called armoring that local homeowners are discouraging Marin County from adopting in its unfinished guidelines for coastal
development.
Since April, the California Coastal Commission has approved the construction of a new home and a home rebuild on the Seadrift Lagoon, while conditioning the permits on a ban of any future construction of seawalls, retaining walls or groins that would alter the natural shoreline.
Yet local property owners say armoring could save their coastal homes from sea-level rise, and that the county must be more lenient than the coastal commission in its updated Local Coastal Program.
“There’s a right in the Coastal Act to be able to protect existing homes,” said Jeff Loomans, a former Seadrift Association board president who represents Stinson Beach on the Alliance of Coastal Marin Villages. “We want to see our villages survive.”
Last week, coastal commissioners approved a new 2,185-square-foot home with a garage, patio, terrace and new septic system on a vacant lot on the shore of the Seadrift Lagoon. But the green light came with a set of conditions.
Since the entire gated community of Seadrift is at risk of flooding and inundation that will worsen with sea-level rise, homeowners Jenny Lefcourt and Craig Jacoby would have to agree not to build any future armoring, to assume any risks posed by sea-level rise and to disclose those risks to potential future buyers. Seawalls and similar structures are prohibited by the Coastal Act in all but a few cases, and they are discouraged by Marin County because they can interfere with “natural shoreline processes,” block coastal access and hamper visual enjoyment.
The commission’s decision echoed a similar approval last month of homeowners Matthew and A.K. L’Heureux’s plan to demolish a house just down the street and build a slightly larger home on the property. That approval came with a nearly identical set of requirements.
Though the commission is the statewide agency that has the final say on coastal development, cities and counties in California also have their own L.C.P.s to guide the coastal permits they issue. Marin has been writing an update to its L.C.P. for more than a decade, and gave the document final approval last year, except for the chapter concerning environmental hazards. That chapter, stalled by conflicting public input and negotiations with the commission, is still under review by the county, and armoring has become its most important sticking point.
As part of the county’s strategy to more directly involve the state agency, commission staff members were present at Marin’s first L.C.P. “listening session” in March.
At that meeting, West Marin residents reminded the county and commission that, besides protecting natural coastlines, the Coastal Act also requires the preservation of visitor-serving coastal villages. They argued that coastal permit requirements for shoreline protection projects are so stringent and cost-prohibitive that they threaten homes in these communities as sea levels rise.
Marshall resident George Clyde said rising seas are expected to overtake Highway 1 and his home by the end of the century.
“Those will be 75 wonderful years for us and the next generations of our family, if we can remain in Marshall,” he told the county and commission staff. But that depends on his family’s ability to replace the pilings and foundation that support his bayside house, and to reinforce the bulkhead along the bay. He estimated the mitigation fees associated with a coastal permit for this work at $100,000.
“It will be a terrible loss for our modest coastal community if harsh permitting requirements mean that only the very rich will be able to enjoy the coastal homes in our area,” he said.
Jennifer Blackman, the general manager of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District and chair of the Alliance of Coastal Marin Villages, said the commission and county should weigh the delicate coastal communities with the same priority they afford sensitive coastal habitat and scenic areas.
The Coastal Act, Ms. Blackman said, strikes a “balance whereby coastal communities and other coastal resources can coexist and prosper, maintained as special places for the public to visit and residents to inhabit as long as reasonably possible given the potential implications of climate change.”
County planning manager Jack Liebster said Marin’s discussions with the commission “have not reached the stage of addressing what conditions might be applied to coastal permits.”
But in L.C.P. discussions, the county has generally been open to the interests of homeowners who want to see more flexibility on issues like armoring to protect their properties. In a document created last year, the Alliance of Coastal Marin Villages outlined several critical issues for coastal development, encouraging the county to diverge from the strictest coastal commission guidelines in its L.C.P. hazards chapter and allow for the protection of existing development. Mitigation work, the alliance wrote, should not be required for armoring projects that are necessary to protect an endangered home unless they would cause a major loss of sandy shoreline.
“Coastal Act rights to protect existing development through the use of shoreline protective devices…must not be abrogated,” the alliance wrote.