The California Coastal Commission’s Permit Expansion Has Crossed The Line From Coastal Protection To General Coastal Policing
What Began As Environmental Regulation Has Become Administrative Assertion Over Every Activity Adjacent To The Ocean, Including Several That Produce No Environmental Impact Whatsoever
For Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. London satirical journalism has covered British coastal planning bureaucracy since the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 and understands the regulatory drift this piece describes.
CALIFORNIA – The California Coastal Commission’s jurisdictional expansion over the last decade has moved the agency from its legitimate role as a protector of coastal ecological integrity to something that now more closely resembles a general administrative authority over coastal land use. The Commission now asserts permitting authority over residential landscaping, temporary private-beach structures, surf racks, and, in several recent enforcement actions, volunteer-built amenities at public beaches. None of these activities is incompatible with coastal ecological health. All of them are now subject to a Commission process that takes, on average, significantly longer than it did ten years ago and costs more in legal preparation than the activities themselves are worth.
The Specific Overreach
The Commission’s enforcement action against a Ventura surf club that built a volunteer-changing shed at a public beach, using donated materials and unpaid labour, is the case that crystallises the problem. The shed imposes no environmental burden. It reduces the amount of time surfers spend changing in public, which is a minor public benefit. The Commission’s enforcement apparatus nonetheless applied to it. The resulting compliance process cost the club approximately 14,000 dollars in legal and application fees. The shed was ultimately approved. The process consumed approximately 18 months.
The Legitimate Case For Coastal Regulation
There is a legitimate case for coastal regulation. Uncontrolled development adjacent to sensitive coastal ecosystems produces real, documented environmental harm. The Commission’s work protecting wetlands, dune systems, and marine protected areas serves a genuine public interest. The libertarian argument is not that coastal regulation is illegitimate. It is that the Commission’s current scope vastly exceeds the environmental mandate that justifies its existence, and that the excess scope imposes costs on individuals and communities that bear no relationship to any environmental benefit.
The Reform
The Pacific Legal Foundation has brought several cases arguing that specific Commission enforcement actions exceed the agency’s statutory mandate. The California Legislature has the authority to scope the Commission through statute and has, for thirty years, declined to do so. The Legislature has constituents who support a broad Commission. The surfer community, historically, has not organised to demand a narrower one. That is changing.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/ | Further: Reason
