If some key California Coastal Commission staff and commissioners continue to have their way, terms like Environmental Sensitive Habitat Area (ESHA) and public Scenic Resource Areas (SRA) will become very significant words commonly used by state planners to take away many common activities like gardening, horseback riding, second-story remodels and agriculture through out California.
Current practices by Commission staff are to call any property that they see fit as ESHA or public scenic resources according to their personal interpretations of general Chapter 3 policies of the Coastal Act. They have stretched their personal authority so much that your home or lot does not have to be on any official map or have had any site inspection for them to arbitrarily subject you to ESHA and/or scenic resource policies.
In Point Dume neighborhoods, there are now numerous examples of staff deciding that in gullies and yards there should only have native coastal sage scrub present; this means no eucalyptus trees (commonly used for monarch butterfly habitat), fruit trees, flowerings bushes, gardens, fences, horse facilities, etc. They appear to want the Point to look like it did 50 years ago when it was covered with only windswept brush.
There have been no maps to warn you of their intent or hearings with scientific testimony or zoning changes or General Plan changes or neighborhood association rulemaking to justify CCC opinions and actions. If you have been to a CCC hearing meeting then you know how often it is impossible to reverse staff opinions and recommendations and even to present your other views in the few minutes allowed.
All of these experiences again re-enforce the need to have our country’s reliance on democracy and law starting at the local grassroots levels. Unelected, unaccountable state staff and appointees should not be micromanaging any California community at the level of what kinds of plants and animals that we should have in our yards; or what color our house needs to be or whether our house or garden can be seen from a public road.
Find out more by watching upcoming local TV programs of CCC staff and commissioners in action during the recent Huntington Beach CCC hearings and during a community forum of the Las Virgenes Homeowner Associations.
Request your copies of CCC plans and rules for you. Find out how you can help restore common sense, democracy and scientific analysis to coastal and local planning in your community and state at californiacoastplanning.org or by calling 310.317.8487.
Jeff Harris