In a case that could affect thousands of property owners and beaches visited by millions of people along California’s 1,100-mile coastline, a state appeals court has indicated it will uphold rules limiting the construction of sea walls along the coast.

The case, centered on the California Coastal Commission’s decision to deny a sea wall for 10 vulnerable townhouses near Half Moon Bay, is playing out at the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco. It has been closely watched by environmental groups, builders and oceanfront cities across the state as sea levels continue to rise due to climate change, putting billions of dollars of property at risk.

“It’s a big deal,” said Charles Lester, director of the Ocean and Coastal Policy Center at UC Santa Barbara. “This will potentially resolve a question that’s been under debate for years now.”

In late October, the appeals court issued a tentative opinion agreeing with the Coastal Commission that buildings constructed after Jan. 1, 1977, are not entitled to obtain permits to build sea walls.

The state’s landmark Coastal Act took effect on that date. It says the commission “shall” issue permits for sea walls and other types of armoring to protect “existing structures” against erosion from battering waves.

But state lawmakers never clearly defined the term. Property owners have argued “existing structures” means any building present at the time the permit application is filed. But the Coastal Commission’s attorneys have argued in recent years that “existing structures” only means those built before 1977.

They cite a growing body of scientific evidence that shows that construction of concrete walls along the coast stops bluffs from eroding, depriving public beaches of sand. Such armoring also stops beaches from naturally migrating inland, resulting in them becoming submerged over time.

“Sea level rise is a new game in town,” said Lester, the former executive director of the Coastal Commission from 2011 to 2016. “The shoreline is moving landward. We’re looking at projections of losing a significant amount of California’s beaches due to sea level rise. And most of that is in places that have a lot of sea walls.”

The court scheduled a Dec. 11 hearing and then will issue a final opinion. In its tentative opinion, the judges cited earlier versions of the Coastal Act as it was being debated in the state Legislature, and showed how broad language allowing sea walls was tightened to read “existing structures.”

“If the Legislature intended to guarantee any structure shoreline protection — regardless of when it was constructed — it could have retained the broad language,” the appeals court wrote.

Private property rights groups are unhappy.

“There may not be a simple solution. But reinterpreting the Coastal Act to sacrifice the rights of coastal landowners isn’t the way to solve these problems,” said Jeremy Talcott, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento property rights group. “Simply allowing thousands of homes to fall into the sea is a very drastic decision.”

The case will decide the fate of a quiet neighborhood on the San Mateo County coast.

In 2016, a severe storm caused 20 feet of bluffs to collapse into the ocean in front of Casa Mira, a complex of 10 townhouses on Mirada Road that’s 2 miles north of Half Moon Bay. Worried their homes were in imminent danger, the owners obtained an emergency permit from the Coastal Commission to place boulders, called riprap, along the crumbling shoreline to block the waves from causing more damage.

But when they applied to build a permanent 257-foot concrete sea wall, the commission said no.

“Sea walls eat away at the beach,” said the commission’s chairwoman, Dayna Bochco, during the 2019 meeting. “So someday as this keeps moving in and in, you are going to lose that beach if you have that sea wall. I think it’s anti-access.”

The commissioners voted to allow only 50 feet of sea wall to be constructed in front of an adjacent four-unit apartment building that was built in 1972. They said the Casa Mira, whose townhouses were built in 1984, couldn’t have a sea wall.

The Casa Mira Homeowners Association owners sued and won in San Mateo County Superior Court last year. The Coastal Commission appealed.

In its tentative opinion, the appeals court overturned much of the lower court ruling, siding with the Coastal Commission and its Jan. 1, 1977, cutoff date.

The appeals court said the Casa Mira homeowners still can get the sea wall they want, however. But only because it would protect a portion of the California Coastal Trail that runs between their homes and the public beach below, making it a “coastal dependent” use to improve public access that is allowed protection under the Coastal Act.

Joshua Emerson Smith, a Coastal Commission spokesman, said the agency will withhold comment until the appeals court issues its final ruling. Thomas Roth, a San Mateo attorney who represents the Casa Mira Homeowners Association, did not respond to requests for comment.

With so much at stake, experts say the issue could end up at the state Supreme Court next year. For that to happen, one of the parties would have to appeal, and the court would have to agree to take the case.

Numerous groups filed briefs in the case, including the Surfrider Foundation, the Bay Area Council and the California Building Industry Association.

“This is not just a California problem,” Lester said. “There are houses falling into the ocean in North Carolina, in Hawaii and other places. We’re not going to stop the ocean from rising. The question is what do we choose to protect over the long run? What’s in the public interest? Some of these developments have arguably reached the ends of their natural lives if you want to protect the beaches.”

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