Living on the sand includes risks
Building any structure on the active beach is asking for problems, but this is precisely what has happened at several locations along the northern Monterey Bay shoreline as well as elsewhere in coastal California.
While the state (the public) owns the beach seaward of the mean high tide line, there are many homes as well as infrastructure that have been built directly on the back beach and which periodically suffer the consequences of encroaching on this active environment.
In addition to the obvious question of why would anyone build a house on the sand, an equally logical question is how did this public land ever become private? I am going to work on the first question in this story and not try to tackle the ownership question yet.
My last two columns were both about Seacliff State Beach and the challenges of trying to maintain a parking lot, RV campground as well as restrooms and picnic facilities on the beach. Just a short 200 yards downcoast from Seacliff, across Aptos Creek and past the Esplanade parking lot, a development of homes on the beach begins that extends a little over a mile along the shoreline. The homes are reached by Beach Drive, which, you probably guessed it, are all built on the beach sand.
The developers or builders of the first row of houses must have been feeling particularly bold as they built on the ocean side of Beach Drive back in the 1930s. This small group of homes is known as The Island, and literally ten feet from their back doors is the sand.
There are some big rocks stacked on it in a somewhat futile attempt to stop the waves as they get close, but it's the beach. And under each of those homes is more beach sand. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that sand here was deposited by waves during past storms.
In the absence of these homes, very large waves at times of very high tides would cross the entire beach and wash up to the base of the bluff. But the homes are there, and during storms and high tides like we experienced in early January, as well as in January 1983 and a number of other stormy years, the waves wash up to the front doors of these homes, bringing
The developers or builders of the first row of houses must have been feeling particularly bold as they built on the ocean side of Beach Drive back in the 1930s. This small group of homes is known as The Island, and literally ten feet from their back doors is the sand.
logs and other floating debris. Many of these Island houses have storm shutters or slots for boards or plywood across their exposed beach frontage in an effort to reduce the damage caused by wave borne-logs and other debris.
For the next half-mile downcoast from The Island, homes were built on the inland side of Beach Drive. While they are about 40 feet farther landward and separated from the ocean by a low seawall and the road, under high tide and large wave conditions, the waves overtop the seawall, wash across Beach Drive and into carports and sometimes, first floors of these homes.
These homes are backed up against the steep 150-foot-high bluffs, which presents additional risks of mud and debris flowing downhill after heavy rainfall, which just took place in January and also in January 1982. Several weeks ago in mid-January, wheelbarrows full of mud from the rear of the homes and sand from the carports were being wheeled across the road, and using makeshift ramps were being dumped onto the beach.
Beyond this row of homes is Platforms, a parking area and a restroom, historically protected by the same type of timber wall as at Seacliff. Beyond this and extending another third of a mile downcoast are two rows of homes, one on the sand and one directly up against the steep bluff but separated by a locked gate.
While residents and visitors alike can enjoy a nice sandy beach 200250 feet wide in the summer months, beach width changes seasonally. During winter months when very large waves arrive coincident with high tides, as happened in early January this year, waves will wash across the entire
beach and have damaged homes on The Island, those up against the bluff, and also those out on the sand beyond the locked gate. Several of these out on the beach here were completely destroyed in the 1983 winter. One older home was washed completely off its pier block foundation in early January.
Ninety years ago, plans were developed for a Rio Del Mar Beach Club that was to be built where Platforms
sits today, out on the sand. That story will have to wait two weeks, however. It's no longer there which may give you an idea of what's coming.