By Sara Lin
Los Angeles Times
January 22, 2006
Totuava
Bay might be one of Laguna Beach's most popular beaches — if
one could only get there.
Backed by green hills, the picturesque cove with its broad,
sandy shore is a public beach. But while a dozen private
stairwells zigzag down the slope from bluff-top homes, the
public's only access is at low tide over a rocky outcropping
from the beach next door.
Beaches such as Totuava remain virtually off limits to the
public up and down the state despite the California Coastal
Commission's decades-long effort to help people reach the
shore. Nearly 30 years after the commission began requiring
oceanfront homeowners to provide public access, only 20% or
25 paths that lead from street to sand are open because
local governments have been slow to take financial
responsibility for them.
Confronted with this lack of progress, the commission plans
to seek state funds to provide a long-term source of money
for upkeep.
"We need maintenance money — carrots to give local
governments — so that we can say: 'Hey, if you take this
on, we'll pay for five to 10 years of maintenance,' "
said Linda Locklin, manager of the commission's
public-access program for the last 15 years.
Locklin estimated that relatively little money — at a
minimum $500,000 annually — was needed to maintain as many
as 25 more gates on a daily basis. The commission deserves
those funds, she said, because "it's our mandate to
provide and protect public access; we're saving the
coast."
As an added enticement for cities and counties to open up
access, the state Coastal Conservancy, the funding arm of
the commission, often offers to pay to build the easements.
But up and down the coast, not even an outright grant of
several hundred thousand dollars proves to be enough, as
local officials say they can't afford the luxury of
providing beach access when money is needed for police,
libraries, parks and other essential services.
The commission, which oversees development along
California's 1,100-mile coastline, requires oceanfront
property owners to provide access as a condition of building
or remodeling. While most have surrendered land along the
seaward edge of their property, some have been asked to
provide paths across their property to enable the public to
walk from the street to the shore. These paths are often the
only means of access to public beaches behind wall-to-wall
development — and are often the focus of disputes.
The high-profile and long-running case of media mogul David
Geffen — who spent years in litigation with the commission
over his promise to open the path next to his Malibu
compound — brought the issue into focus. Last spring he
handed over the keys to his wooden gate to give people a way
to reach Carbon Beach.
But the Geffen path opening is the exception. Most of these
vertical easements throughout California have only been
envisioned on paper, and many agreements have languished for
more than two decades.
"I thought there'd be a queue at my door, with people
saying, 'I want these easements,' when in fact I have time
to be on the phone talking to you," said Locklin.
"You're seeing monster houses, a wall of houses and
fences going up. Where's the public access?"
The commission is not allowed to operate an easement.
Instead, a local government agency, or, as a last resort, a
nonprofit group, must agree to operate the path. Costs
greatly fluctuate, depending on the geography.
Opening an access way can range from $10,000 to install
fencing, signs and a gate, to $1.5 million to construct a
stairway down a steep bluff. Maintenance costs can be as
little a few hundred dollars annually to replace trash bags
and pay someone to open and close the gate, to $350,000 to
replace a stairway, such as the one in Pacifica, south of
San Francisco, that was damaged when a bluff collapsed.
Oceanfront homes that were built before the commission was
formed in 1976 are not required to provide public access.
But commissioners said that most property owners will
someday remodel their homes, and private sand will become a
thing of the past.
Public beach includes everything seaward of the mean
high-tide line, which changes throughout the year. This area
typically is all of the wet sand and a few feet of dry
shoreline.
Statewide, 125 vertical access ways have been set aside,
cutting through housing that otherwise would have blocked
the way to the beach. Originally, the pathways had to be
opened within 21 years after being designated for public
use, and dozens were in danger of expiring in 2002.
That year the state required the conservancy to take over
liability for the paths. The conservancy, however, relies
mainly on local governments to operate the paths because
their trucks, rangers and public works departments do the
work.
In Mendocino County, where split-rail fencing around rural
developments often blocks access, supervisors said they
don't have enough money to resurrect the county's parks
district, let alone open and maintain access ways. Operating
an easement means answering complaints about noise and
trash, replacing signs, unlocking gates each morning and
ensuring that people aren't on the paths after dark.
"Everything gets compared to something else: Is it
library books or sheriff's [deputies]? Is it sheriff's
[deputies] or animal control?" said Mendocino County
Supervisor Kendall Smith. "The county would like to do
many things it's just not in a financial position to
do."
In 1996, the nonprofit Mendocino Land Trust stepped in and
opened three vertical paths over the next eight years. The
conservancy gave the trust a $240,000 grant in September to
open about a dozen more, but the trust must shoulder the
long-term maintenance costs.
In the early 1990s, Orange County began the application
process for a $200,000 conservancy grant to design a
stairway to Totuava Bay. But the county never followed
through, said Harry Huggins, acquisition coordinator for the
county Harbors, Beaches and Parks Division. After the
county's 1994 bankruptcy, opening the access became a low
priority, he said.
Yet, a few people manage to find a way to the scenic cove.
One recent afternoon, Ralitsa Georgieva, 31, and Nikolai
Atanassov, 37, of San Francisco walked along the water,
watching pelicans dive for fish. Georgieva said they had
decided to visit after hearing a friend describe the cove as
"the most beautiful beach in the whole world."
But to get there they had to wait for low tide and crawl
over a mound of jagged, algae-covered rocks.
A stairway, one resident said, would undoubtedly bring more
people to the beach.
"It would take away some of the magic of this
place," Georgieva said. "More people means more
pollution, more everything. Even if it's a little unfair,
the beach doesn't just belong to the people who own these
houses. I think it's a tricky thing."
Wes Roberts, 48, whose home overlooks Thousand Steps County
Beach just south of Totuava Bay, said he wouldn't mind if
the county waited to build a staircase. "But I'm just
being greedy," Roberts said. "I totally agree that
people have every right to the beach, no doubt about
it."
In Malibu, Locklin recently stood in front of a chain-link
fence and pointed toward a deserted beach a quarter mile to
the south. That site is among the secluded coves that the
public could enjoy if Los Angeles County or Malibu would
open one of a dozen dedicated paths.
One Los Angeles County official said the county already
operates three vertical easements across private property in
Malibu and can't handle even one more.
"It's much more complicated than opening a passageway
between a couple of houses," said Dusty Crane, a
spokeswoman for Los Angeles County's department of Beaches
and Harbors. "Just having personnel open them in
morning and close them at night is costly. We're just trying
to deal with the ones we have."
Malibu doesn't have the money to maintain new access ways
either, said Mayor Andy Stern. Only four out of 16 dedicated
access ways between homes are open in the city.
"The city of Malibu welcomes the public to come,"
said Stern. "If the state wants to fund opening up
access ways, we don't have a problem with that."
He said that the city of 13,000 residents plays host to
roughly 14 million visitors a year to its shore, which
features some of the region's most popular beaches,
including Zuma and Surfrider, both county-operated beaches.
At newly accessible Carbon Beach in front of Geffen's house,
Locklin shuffled her feet in the sand.
"This belongs to all of us," she said. Pointing to
the houses she asked, "Do you see any curtains on the
windows? When you see places where there are no curtains …
you know privacy was not an issue because nobody came
here."
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