California law may not allow property owners and others to construct sea walls to protect their homes and other structures from erosion, if those structures were built after 1977, a state appeals court has ruled.
In that ruling, the appeals court backed the Commission's determination that the Casa Mira Condominium Association could not build a seawall to "armor" their buildings and other infrastructure at their condominium complex from the encroaching ocean.
California First District Appellate Justice Victor Rodriguez
| Courts.ca.gov/
Casa Mira filed suit in 2019 in San Mateo County Superior Court, asking the court to order the Coastal Commission to award Casa Mira a permit they needed to construct a seawall to protect a large portion of their neighborhood.
In that complaint, the association accused the Commission of violating their rights under the law to protect their property when it mostly denied permission to build a 257-foot long seawall. They said the seawall was needed to protect an apartment complex, 10 townhomes, a sewer line and a portion of the Coastal Trail.
According to court documents, a few years prior, a 20-foot section of the bluff collapsed amid heavy rains, requiring the placement of 4,000 tons of "riprap" rock to protect against further erosion and destruction at the Casa Mira community.
The development now also has no direct access from the condo complex on the top of the bluff to the sand beach below.
Without the seawall, Casa Mira said many of those structures and infrastructure would "be quickly and forever destroyed by ocean wave action, erosion and bluff collapse."
In their decision mostly denying the seawall, the Commission asserted state law should be interpreted to forbid construction of new coastal seawalls in the name of environmental protection, unless they are intended to protect structures and infrastructure constructed prior to the Jan. 1, 1977 effective date of the California Coastal Act.
So, the Commission granted permission to build a 50-foot-long seawall, ostensibly to protect a four-unit apartment building constructed in 1972, but not the rest of the condo community, including a four-building condo complex and sewer line built in 1984.
Casa Mira called the Commission's decision "nonsensical," noting the 50-foot wall would provide no meaningful protection and the Commission would still require the condo association to construct other improvements included in the plan, such as a $500,000 stairway to the beach, which the association said would be washed away by the ocean along with the rest of Casa Mira's development, without the protection of the seawall.
In court, a San Mateo County judge sided with the condo association, finding the state law should be interpreted to allow the construction of seawalls to protect "existing structures" from eroding into the ocean.
On appeal, however, the First District court sided with the interpretation of the law backed by the Coastal Commission.
While the law allows for the construction of seawalls to protect "existing structures," the court of appeals said that should be interpreted only to apply to structures "existing" at the time the law was enacted.
Thus, the court said, the state can force the owners of any building built on the coast after 1977 to be subject to the whims of the sea.
They said two different provisions in the law should be read to both protect the property rights of owners of structure built prior to the enactment of the law, while also encouraging the state's goals of environmental protection along the coast by requiring all structures to be built far enough inland to no longer require "armoring" against the ocean.
To find otherwise, the court said, would produce a regulatory environment under which "the Commission would be required to grant an applicant a coastal development permit to construct a seawall for any built structure in those circumstances, regardless of when the structure was built."
The justices say they believe this interpretation of the law would also contradict the intent of lawmakers at the time the law was enacted.
The interpretation of the law, however, may not be the final word in the Casa Mira case.
In the ruling, the court said the Commission may not have been entirely correct in its determination, as justices said the Commission may yet need to consider approving shoreline protection measures to shield the Coastal Trail against erosion.
While the buildings may not be allowed "armoring" against the sea, the court said the Coastal Trail may be a different subject.
Leaving the trail unprotected, the court noted, could potentially result in portions of the trail being washed into the ocean amid future storms.
The justices said the Commission did not present enough evidence to show that it was "entirely feasible" to simply reroute the trail inland, around the condo complex, without diminishing its value as a coastal recreational resource.
So, they said, the Commission may need to reevaluate the need for measures to protect the Coastal Trail within the Casa Mira community.
The decision was authored by Justice Victor Rodriguez. Justices Carin Fujisaki and Ioana Petrou concurred.
Casa Mira was represented by attorney Thomas D. Roth, of San Mateo.
The Coastal Commission was represented by attorneys with the office California Attorney General Rob Bonta.