Broad Beach Homeowners Win Court Battle with Ventura County

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This 2015 map shows the location where the sand replenishment project is set to take place.

Broad Beach property owners won a victory on June 12 when a state appeals court ruled their sand relocation project, aimed at reversing massive beach erosion along a one-mile portion of Broad Beach in Malibu, was not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). 

The Broad Beach group had been taken to court by the City of Fillmore and Ventura County over a proposed sand truck hauling route that will go through Fillmore en route between the sand quarries and Broad Beach. The project is estimated to generate 44,000 one-way truck trips over the course of three to five months, once every five years for 20 years. 

“We’re thrilled with the court victory, and the language that gives us extra truck rights latitude,” said attorney Ken Ehrlich, who represents the Broad Beach Geologic Hazardous Abatement District (GHAD). “However, we’re still tied up with our own court issues with a couple of GHAD property owners [over assessment amounts]. The trial date is set for Jan. 18, 2019, which was the first date available.” He indicated the sand project would not begin until those lawsuits were settled.

The restoration project, now estimated to cost up to $50 million every 10 years, is being funded by the owners of 131 Broad Beach parcels. The project calls for 300,000 cubic yards of sand to be dumped on the beach every five years for 20 years, with periodic supplemental deposits of up to 75,000 cubic yards on an as-needed basis. The beachfront homeowners hope to create a 100-foot-wide beach and 60-foot-wide sand dune system to serve as a buffer between the ocean and the houses.

The sand will be transported to Malibu by trucks from Grimes Canyon and CEMEX quarries (and a limited amount of sand from the P.W. Gillibrand quarry), all located about 20 miles inland from Broad Beach. The two main quarries are along State Highway 23 between Fillmore and Moorpark.

Grimes Canyon Road goes through the towns of Fillmore and Moorpark in Ventura County. Moorpark and the GHAD made a contractual settlement last October that no sand-hauling trucks from this project would go through Moorpark, or even be staged or parked near the town, because Moorpark didn’t want thousands of heavily loaded sand trucks driving on their streets. They objected due to environmental and public safety reasons.

That meant the sand trucks would all be routed through the town of Fillmore, and Fillmore didn’t want thousands of trucks hauling sand going through their town, either. Ventura County and Fillmore opposed the truck route in court.

Affirming a lower court’s decision, a three-judge panel from California’s Second Appellate District ruled on June 12 that the GHAD deal with the City of Moorpark to bring in hundreds of thousands of tons of sand by truck to replenish over a mile of eroded beach was exempt from CEQA review.

“The settlement agreement between Moorpark and [Broad Beach Geologic Abatement District] is part of the whole of the action of the beach restoration project,” Justice Martin Tangeman wrote for the panel in a 22-page ruling.

The County of Ventura and City of Fillmore argued that the deal between Moorpark and the homeowners that established routes for the thousands of truckloads of sand was separate from the restoration project itself and warranted a separate environmental review. They also argued that it violated parts of California’s vehicle code.

The panel of judges disagreed, finding the settlement “is one piece of a single, coordinated endeavor to address erosion at Broad Beach, and is thus part of the whole of the action.” In addition, “The settlement agreement is a contract, not an ordinance or resolution,” Tangeman wrote.

The California Coastal Commission approved a coastal development permit for the beach restoration project, including its incorporation of Respondents’ settlement agreement, in October 2015. The State Lands Commission approved a lease for the project the following year. The California Coastal Commission narrowly approved the beach restoration project in a 7-5 vote in October.

In a Courthouse News Service article about the case, author Matthew Renda noted that Moorpark and Malibu are both “extremely wealthy communities,” whereas “Fillmore is not,” citing median home prices and incomes in the first two communities that are more than double the amount of Fillmore’s.