By Adam Kaye
North County Times
December 14, 2005
SOLANA
BEACH ---- The state Coastal Commission has no authority to
charge a $248,000 "loss of recreational benefits
fee" as a condition of approving a sea wall, members of
Las Brisas Condominium Association and their consultants said
Tuesday.
The association filed a lawsuit in Superior Court this week
asking that the court overturn the fee, which opponents say is
based on data riddled with errors.
At
a press conference Tuesday, some residents of the 36-unit
complex just south of Fletcher Cove assembled with their
advisers at the base of the 80-foot-tall bluff.
The lawsuit and the fee carry statewide implications, said Las
Brisas consultant Bob Trettin.
"This is going to impact Encinitas, La Jolla, Point Loma
---- anywhere that people want to protect their
property," he said.
Las Brisas received the commission's approval in October to
build a 120-foot-long, 35-foot-tall sea wall beneath the
complex on South Sierra Avenue.
San Francisco economist Phillip King recommended the $248,000
fee to compensate the public for the strip of beach that would
be lost to the sea wall. That translates as nearly $7,000 per
household for the 36-unit complex.
The commission also ordered Las Brisas homeowners to pay a
$22,000 sand mitigation fee to compensate the public for sand
that would have eroded onto the beach if the sea wall were
never built.
The lawsuit claims that King's report "is riddled with
numerous factual and methodological errors."
The report lacked site-specific analysis, did not consider
safety risks if the wall were never built and relied upon
inaccurate measurements of the beach's width and square
footage, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also claims that the report's estimates of
beach-users are inflated and that the report itself was not
made available to the public in time for adequate review.
In a related case, condominium owners in Monterey are suing
the commission over a $5.3 million fee the panel is imposing
for construction of a sea wall to protect the 172-unit Ocean
Harbor House complex, according to the Monterey Herald. The
loss of beachfront in that case is estimated at 1 acre.
The loss in Solana Beach from the Las Brisas wall would total
1,200 square feet, Trettin said.
"The fee is intended to make up for the damage that the
sea wall will cause on the public beach," said Teresa
Schilling, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's
office, which represents the Coastal Commission.
The commission regulates development and protects public
access along the state's 1,100-mile coastline.
Sea walls in Solana Beach are a source of perennial debate and
have prompted numerous lawsuits.
In one of them, which is pending, the Surfrider Foundation
sued the city for allegedly violating environmental laws when
it granted an emergency construction permit for the Las Brisas
sea wall, said Todd Cardiff, an attorney and chairman of the
environmental group's San Diego chapter.
Contacted Tuesday, Cardiff defended the Coastal Commission's
fee and the economic analysis from which it was derived.
"This is mitigation for loss of the beach," Cardiff
said. "King never claimed this is a perfect beach. He
said it is well below a perfect beach and discounted his
analysis significantly."
At Tuesday's press conference, the president of the
neighboring SurfSong homeowners association, Mark Haines,
blasted the proposed fee.
"It's an abomination what the Coastal Commission has done
... when all we're doing is making the beach safer," he
said.
Jim Jaffee, a member of the Solana Beach-based CalBeach
Advocates environmental group, said in an interview Tuesday
that the fee is a small price to pay. He said "248,000 is
nothing when compared to the value of the beach that's lost
and the potential impact on waves and coastal views."
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