Sea walls at center of fight between Half Moon Bay homeowners, California
As climate change causes sea levels to rise, cities and towns across the Bay Area are planning for its inevitable impacts. But in Half Moon Bay, the effort of one group of homeowners to protect their property from rising water was refused by the state.
And now, a court has made a ruling that could affect thousands of seaside properties from San Diego to the Oregon border.
In 2016, a storm collapsed about 20 feet of bluff along Mirada Road in Half Moon Bay. After the storm, the homeowners brought in large boulders to slow the erosion. And then, they applied to the California Coastal Commission to build a permanent 257-foot-long concrete seawall.
The 1977 Coastal Act requires the commission to grant permits for permanent seawalls to protect "existing structures." But Jeremy Talcott, a property rights attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, said the wording of that law is now being redefined.
"For decades, it was consistently interpreted that "existing structures" meant existing at the time of the application," he said. "And in recent years, the commission has flipped on that interpretation and changed it to mean existing as of Jan. 1, 1977, or the date when the Coastal Act went into effect. So, essentially that would strip this statutory protection from hundreds or perhaps thousands of homes along the coast."
The Mirada Road homes were built in the 1980s so the commission refused to grant the permit. The homeowners sued and won, but now an appeals court in San Francisco said it plans to overturn that ruling, siding with the commission and, in the opinion of Talcott, leaving thousands of people who built seaside homes in the past 47 years defenseless to the advancing ocean.
"Previously, those homeowners knew that they were entitled to take measures to protect that investment. Now, they may not be able to," he said.
The problem with seawalls is they stop the natural inland movement of the beach. With no place for the sand to go, the water simply overtakes and covers it. And Dr. Charles Lester at the UC Santa Barbara Ocean and Coastal Policy Center said there is a growing understanding that, as the oceans rise, beaches are disappearing in areas that have solid seawalls.
"We see this in a lot of places already where we've built seawalls," he said. "We've seen the reduction in beach space. Eventually, you'll see the loss of that beach in front of that seawall. So, cumulatively, if we end up building a long row of seawalls, eventually that beach will disappear."
Lester is helping create a statewide plan to save California's beaches. A U.S. Geological Survey study is predicting that as much as 2/3 of Southern California beaches could be lost as the sea approaches land that is already heavily developed.
"Most people recognize how important that is to California," said Lester. "It's really part of our culture, our way of life, the ability to go and enjoy the natural shoreline, the sandy beach. If the choice we make is to build seawalls everywhere then we stand to lose that."
It's a battle between public and private rights, and ironically, that's working in favor of the Half Moon Bay homeowners. Because there is a shoreline pedestrian trail between their houses and the beach, they will be allowed to build their seawall, after all, to protect that public infrastructure. But for those who are not so lucky, attorney Talcott said the tide may be turning against their right to protect their homes.
"It does reflect a policy of sacrificing of private landowners," he said.
So far, the court has only released a tentative opinion agreeing with commission. One more hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 11, after which a final ruling will be issued.
Talcott said, because of its wide-ranging impact on private property rights, it's a policy that will likely be challenged to the Supreme Court.
