SOLANA BEACH: City hopes to keep coastal plan alive

Proposed program heads to commission Thursday

By RUTH MARVIN WEBSTER - Staff Writer | Tuesday, November 11, 2008 6:50 PM PST ∞

SOLANA BEACH ---- In an effort to avoid the Coastal Commission's outright denial of their coastal management plan Thursday, Solana Beach city leaders and staff plan to meet with commission staff Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to keep their plan alive.

The state Coastal Commission is set to decide Thursday whether to approve the city's coastal program, a land-use policy document that, if approved, would give the city more control of land-use issues, including bluff management.

Solana Beach is the only coastal city in San Diego County and one of a handful in the state without a coastal program.

Mayor Dave Roberts said that a denial of the 200-plus page document, which has been recommended by commission staff, would put the process back to the beginning.

"We have spent four years and hundreds of thousand of dollars on this," Roberts said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "We believe we are closer together than their (the Coastal Commission) initial staff report. We just want an OK, with direction, so we continue to keep the clock running."

Roberts said he and a delegation of city leaders who plan to attend the commission meeting Thursday are hoping to convince the commission to send the plan back for revision, rather than to simply deny without direction.

According to a commission staff report, the city's plan lacked the detail and comprehensiveness necessary in such a coastline plan. Staffers noted there are no policies addressing the use of invasive plants, wetland setbacks or buffers, impacts or beach grooming, or protection of grunion. Also missing from the plan, noted the report, were protection policies for the San Elijo Lagoon.

At the city level, one of the major hurdles to hammering together a plan has been the contentious issue of sea walls.

Nearly all of Solana Beach's 1.4-mile coastline is edged with fragile sandstone bluffs, and, with the exception of one parcel, it is all developed.

Environmental activist groups, such as the Surfrider Foundation and CalBeach Advocates have opposed sea walls, saying sea walls halt natural erosion and contribute to the eventual loss of usable beach.

"The natural process of beach creation includes the erosion of the bluffs," said Marco Gonzalez, an attorney with the Coast Law Group in Encinitas, which represents the Surfrider Foundation. "And after all, at the end of the day, a lot of this discussion is meaningless. With global warming and sea levels rising, we are going to have to readdress these issues on a statewide basis over the next couple of decades."

The Surfrider Foundation has endorsed the city's plan as part of a settlement agreement reached last December. The group had brought a lawsuit against the city in order to block the building of several emergency sea walls in Solana Beach.

But many bluff-top homeowners believe that without sea walls, they may be putting not only their safety and property at risk, but that of the public.

"We maintain that we are providing safety not only for our houses but that we are making another 20 to 30 feet of beach safe," said Ron Lucker, president of the Beach and Bluff Conservancy. The conservancy represents 2,000 homes and condominiums on the bluff in Solana Beach.

Lucker said that, while not perfect, the city's plan represents a good compromise between competing interests, adding that under the plan, the city will look to take out all of the sea walls in about 75 years and buy back bluff property where feasible. As it stands now, Lucker said he and the conservancy supports the plan.

In the meantime, though, homeowners would be charged a mitigation fee to build sea walls under the plan.

"First and foremost, the bluffs are a public safety issue," said Roberts. "Whether you like development on our bluffs or not, it is there so now what do you do? ... I am an environmentalist, but you can't just have homes falling on our beach and killing tourists. You have to find a compromise and find something that is the best for our community."

Contact staff writer Ruth Marvin Webster at (760) 901-4074 or rwebster@nctimes.com.