ERODING BEACH BLUFFS ARE DEADLY. WE NEED TO STOP BUILDING THERE.
Silent, fast and furious landslides ambush on San Diego County's coastal bluffs every year. They can be deadly. The YouTube video that went viral Jan. 20 shows a tsunami of dirt on Black's Beach in La Jolla. In Encinitas at the Grandview steps, people sitting too close to the bluff were buried under a ton of sand and rocks on Aug. 2, 2019.
Beach bluffs are supposed to disintegrate and replenish our beaches. It's a natural process. It's also potentially fatal if you happen to be on the wrong beach close to the wrong bluff at the wrong time.
So why do developers continuously assault these fragile coastal beach bluffs with massive projects that defy common sense? In 2020, city of Del Mar voters wisely turned down a time-share condo/hotel project on North Dog Beach Bluff, with nearly 59 percent of the electorate voting “no.” Voters objected to environmental concerns including traffic snarls and increased geological instability that might threaten public safety, since North Dog Beach Bluff looms over a beach popular with dog owners, volleyball players, beachgoers and surfers.
The Surfrider Foundation, the Sierra Club and the San Dieguito River Park Conservancy all objected to the 2020 bluff project, citing various environmental concerns, especially bluff erosion and destabilization. In a 2020 letter to the city of Del Mar citing deficiencies in the project's draft environmental impact report, the Surfrider Foudation said it was compelled to comment “because the study committed serious errors in its evaluation of geologic erosion rates in the area.” Its letter stated, “These rates are then used as a basis for determining how far development should be ‘set back' from the blufftop. Surfrider is strongly committed to advocating for safe setbacks that acknowledge the impact of sea level rise on increased bluff erosion.”
Yet here we are again, with another developer trying to build on North Dog Beach Bluff. This time, the owner's lawyer wrote a letter to the city of Del Mar asking the city to approve a project with 200 luxury apartments and 59 “affordable” units, all squeezed onto less than 5 buildable acres, because the city was not yet in compliance with the state-mandated housing element. The city disagreed.
The owners already lost once in 2020 when all the zoning, traffic snarls and geological risks were exposed for the condo and hotel project and Del Mar voters rejected it. This time they are attempting to brand the project as “affordable housing” to increase building density, even though 200 units would be oceanfront, for-profit rentals comparable to One Paseo in Carmel Valley, where rents start at $3,190 a month and go up to $8,000 a month.
The developer is relying on untested state of California laws to enforce building affordable housing, but for an oceanfront luxury apartment complex on disintegrating land.
There's hope. The California Coastal Commission recently won a California Court of Appeal decision to increase bluff-edge setbacks in Encinitas from 40 feet to 79 feet, based on public safety in a geologically hazardous zone, and eliminated a basement as too destabilizing. Imagine how destabilizing underground parking and foundations for a 259-plus unit apartment complex would be for an eroding bluff.
The state “affordable housing” requirements are not intended to destabilize coastal bluffs or threaten public safety. The city of Del Mar is working on other more suitable locations without environmental issues to fulfill its affordable housing obligations for the state of California, but such locations are scarce, especially given that one-third of city land is located on the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
If the state of California genuinely cared about “affordable housing” that's safe for building in coastal zone small cities, the California Department of Housing and Community Development would consider counting “naturally occurring affordable housing” units toward state requirements. In some apartment complexes, landlords prefer tenant stability over increasing rents. The state might consider supporting those landlords who do not raise rents in well-maintained buildings, resulting in de facto affordable housing on the coast.
There's a reason that the fragile North Dog Beach Bluff remains open land. It's eroding rapidly with recent dirt and rock slides on the east, west and south sides. It's honeycombed with sea caves that collapse frequently; has several more fissures than other coastal bluff systems according to geological studies done since the 1980s; and sand sluffs onto the beach daily.
Disintegrating beach bluffs known to slide — silently, deadly and without warning — are unsafe for any large project involving massive excavation. Multiunit buildings belong on stable land, not on shifting sand or bluffs collapsing silently into the ocean.
Why do developers seek to assault fragile coastal beach bluffs with massive projects that defy common sense?
Echols-Hayes is a consultant specializing in risk analysis communications for the finance industry and lives in Solana Beach.