Broad Beach debate continues

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Some Broad Beach homeowners say Coastal Commission staff has no authority to ban their ‘Private Property’ signs.

By Susan Reines/Special to The Malibu Times

The California Coastal Commission staff recently issued letters to eight Broad Beach homeowners instructing them to remove “Private Property” signs and security patrols from areas the staff says are public beach property. The Coastal Commission voting body itself has taken no action against the homeowners. The staff’s action comes just months after the Malibu Riviera One Homeowners Association lost a hearing in front of the Coastal Commission and was forced to remove a “No Trespassing” sign on a stretch of beach it owns.

The public versus private land battle at Broad Beach is complicated. All agree that the area from the mean high tide line to the water is public, but things become questionable inland of the tide line, where some homeowners have submitted portions of their land to be public easements and others have not, creating a confusing checkerboard of public and private beach.

Chuck Damm, senior deputy director of the Coastal Commission’s Ventura office, said the commission staff sent warning letters to the homeowners after concluding they placed “Private Property” signs and security patrols on public land without the necessary coastal development permits. But Broad Beach homeowner and former Coastal Commissioner Marshall Grossman says the signs and patrols pre-date, and are thus exempt from, regulations of the Coastal Commission, which were established in 1972 to monitor the state’s coastline. Grossman, a lawyer, has used 1971 state documents as proof. Damm rejected Grossman’s statements, saying the staff believes the signs and patrols do not pre-date the Coastal Commission.

Broad Beach homeowners have also questioned the legality of the public easements they say they were forced to turn over to the state.

“The word ‘extortion’ was used by the U.S. Supreme Court to describe the Coastal Commission’s actions,” said Grossman, referring to a 1980s legal battle in which the Supreme Court ruled that the commission was coercing landowners into turning over land for public use. Grossman said the commission hasn’t changed since the Supreme Court’s admonishment. “I think they are extorting in different ways.”

Damm tells a different story. “From a permitting standpoint, from a staff perspective, there was not coercion,” he said. “There absolutely was not.” Damm said Broad Beach homeowners have voluntarily granted public easements when it was “required for the need for a seawall to protect septic systems” and when they wanted to remodel and did not want to wait for staff to determine the mean high tide lines. The tide line must be calculated for each property individually, Damm said, and the process slows the issuance of building permits, so owners often “just think it’s easier” to grant public access than to determine exactly which portions of their property are private.

Four homeowners of Broad Beach’s Trancas Property Owners Association currently have lawsuits against the Coastal Commission pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. Coastal Commission Supervising Staff Counsel Chris Pederson said two of the suits are from landowners who previously agreed to donate portions of their property for pubic use in exchange for permits to remodel their homes but now want the land back. The other two, he said, are property owners who plan to develop in the future and fear they will be forced to donate land.

With Grossman calling the staff’s demands for the removal of signs and patrols “erroneous” and Damm standing firm on the other side, more litigation could be on the horizon. Damm said the Coastal Commission staff has the power to file lawsuits even if the commissioners themselves don’t order litigation-and he said he does not believe they have plans to get involved. Damm expressed hope that a compromise, such as moving the signs closer to the houses, can be reached outside of court. Grossman said he was unsure how the homeowners would proceed.

An aerial map of Broad Beach delineating the public and private portions of each property was recently posted on the Coastal Commission’s Web site, but Damm said the map is simply “intended to help the public and private property owners as well as anyone that’s involved with law enforcement” and has nothing to do with the letters.

The issue of public versus private beach land has swept up and down Malibu’s coast. “I don’t like to go out on the beach during the weekends anymore because of the [public’s] attitude of entitlement,” said Point Dume homeowner Mari Stanley. “It’s going to break Malibu open.”

John Mazza, president of the Malibu Riviera One Homeowners Association, which fought and lost to the Coastal Commission in January, said that when he and his neighbors went before the commission, “They basically told us to stuff it. That’s what’s going to happen to them [the residents of Broad Beach] and they’re going to have to sue them.”