When Brian Johnson began planning to sell the vacant lot he owns in Stinson Beach, he knew a septic upgrade was the first order of business. The property at 21 Calle del Onda had been in the family since the 1930s, but a fire destroyed the beachfront house in 1983 and the septic system hadn’t been used since.
In 2016, the Stinson Beach County Water District denied his application for a new wastewater system, arguing that it would pose a public health risk in the event of a flood. Mr. Johnson sued and won. After his settlement and another water district vote last year, he received a green light, and a mitigated negative declaration under the California Environmental Quality Act.
Now, Mr. Johnson is seeking a coastal permit to build a two-story house and garage on the lot, and he is running into environmental roadblocks again. Significantly, county planning staff are uncertain how to apply coastal protections while avoiding an unconstitutional seizure of private property. Last week, they took the matter to the Marin County Planning Commission.
“We have brought the item to your commission directly because of the substantial policy issues related to the takings analysis,” planning manager Jeremy Tejirian said. “There’s no appeal of this project, although there are certainly those in the public who oppose it.”
County staff had recommended the commissioners partially approve the project’s coastal permit, though the proposed septic system, situated in a floodplain, would violate the rules laid out in the county’s Local Coastal Program. Commissioners chose to postpone a vote on the matter, providing time to review concerns from both locals and the California Coastal Commission about sea-level rise, environmentally sensitive habitat and the CEQA review. The commission’s decision could set a precedent for how the county regulates beachfront development and considers flood risk.
Some commissioners appeared ready to deny the project, but Commissioner Chris Desser moved to continue the matter at a later hearing. She suggested that any decision the commission makes will likely be appealed to the Board of Supervisors and then to the coastal commission.
“On the one hand, I think there are lots of problems with this [project],” she said. “On the other hand, this is a developed area, and this is sort of like a missing tooth along the beach. So what’s an equitable result here?”
When Mr. Johnson sued the water district, the property was in escrow, but the deal fell through when the prospective buyer could not get his own septic project approved for the property. The latest plans involve a 1,488-square-foot home and a 288-square-foot garage, which are set further back from the beach than most of the neighboring houses and sit at a higher elevation.
Last week, county staff recommended denying the permit for the garage, which would be built in Easkoot Creek’s 100-year floodplain, and approving the remainder of the construction. The septic system would also be built within the floodplain, a violation of the Local Coastal Program, but staff recommended approving it to avoid a taking of the property.
The morning of the hearing, planners received a letter from the coastal commission raising concerns that the county had inadequately considered smaller or less impactful homes on the site. Coastal commission district manager Stephanie Rexing recommended that the county put more conditions on the permit, including requiring that Mr. Johnson assume all risks associated with hazards like flooding and notify future buyers of the risks.
Former county supervisor and coastal commissioner Steve Kinsey, who is working as Mr. Johnson’s project consultant, said his client would accept the denial of the garage, which he called a “significant loss.” But he urged commissioners to accept the remainder of the project, arguing that it would meet all the coastal requirements in what he referred to as “the most regulated part of the planet.”
He told the Light that the coastal commission is trying to be proactive about sea-level rise, but the restrictions its planners recommended for the project represent the “draconian and costly” barriers to development faced by Stinson Beach residents.
“We’re in a transition in the world, but we’re also in a transition in terms of how to balance these policies,” Mr. Kinsey said. “This is a tough situation for the owners, but I think it’s the growing pains of climate change.”
According to an analysis by the county’s Collaboration: Sea-level Marin Adaptation Response Team, C-SMART, up to 60 percent of the buildings in Stinson Beach could be exposed to rising seas in a long-term scenario of 80 inches of sea-level rise. The houses in the Calles and Patios areas are the most vulnerable.
Mr. Kinsey said the project anticipates sea-level rise by locating the home at a higher elevation than neighboring homes and by setting it further back from the shoreline. Still, neighbors who spoke at last week’s hearing expressed concern. Jim Zell, who said he had lived on Calle del Onda for 52 years, argued that the proposal was much too large for the lot and that it would remove a vital sand dune.
“It’s confusing to me, when the State of California and the County of Marin are endorsing dunes as the first level of protection against sea-level rise,” Mr. Zell said.
Mr. Zell wasn’t alone in his concern. Commissioner Desser invoked the county’s recent feasibility study that identified the preservation and creation of sand dunes as a viable short-term solution for buffering the rising seas.
Planning manager Jack Liebster, who helps lead C-SMART, said the Calle del Onda project would not affect any future dune creation. The feasibility study recommended adding foredunes and a buried cobble berm along the beach in the Calles, but Mr. Liebster said individual property plans will not be affected until the county implements its recommendations in the coming years.
“Anywhere that we have sand is important for us because we’re going to need a lot of sand,” Mr. Liebster said. “But how this relatively small-scale thing fits into the larger picture, we just haven’t looked at that yet.”
The stretch of beach adjacent to the nearby Patios has much more prominent dunes than the area around Calle del Onda, he added.
But Scott Tye, vice chair of the Surfrider Foundation’s Marin chapter, called the project a “bubbling cauldron” of environmental issues. He said the county should not rely on the CEQA review completed by the water district last year, which allowed for a single-family residence of around 1,400 feet. Last Monday, county staff agreed to investigate whether further CEQA review is needed for the project.
Mr. Tye said the L.C.P., which was finalized earlier this year without an updated environmental hazards chapter, should bar projects like the Calle del Onda house. “It’s on the beach. The seas are rising. Storms come in. There is flooding,” he said, adding: “This whole project is an environmental hazard.”
At the end of last week’s hearing, commissioners voted unanimously to continue the matter until they could better understand the environmental issues and the takings analysis.
Mr. Kinsey said he was confident that the commissioners would support the project in some form. “What you heard, almost to a commissioner, was that they all realize that this is an infill site set back far further than any of the other homes,” he said. “There is a project, they just can’t figure out whether it needs to be smaller, or further back.”
Mr. Tye had less confidence in the matter. “I think anything could happen,” he said. “I don’t think the planning commission will ignore taking, nor should they ignore the CEQA process, because those two processes are deal breakers. Coastal permits are ho-hum, but this one has got so many elements.”