Summary
The Commission certified Pacifica’s Local Coastal Program (LCP) update, despite serious concerns from environmental advocates and the local community. The plan introduces “Special Shoreline Resiliency Areas” (SSRAs) that greenlight neighborhood-scale seawalls for at least 20 years, even for development that wouldn’t otherwise qualify under Coastal Act standards. While framed as a bridge to future adaptation, the policy lacks any clear requirement or timeline for transitioning away from armoring or providing coastal restoration and coastal access mitigation. Surfrider and others warned this approach prioritizes short-term property protection over long-term beach preservation, public access, and climate resilience, and risks setting a dangerous precedent for other coastal cities.
Why You Should Care
This vote marks a dangerous turning point for sea level rise planning in California. By certifying a plan that allows widespread, long-term armoring without firm commitments to mitigation or retreat, the Commission risks rewriting the Coastal Act through precedent. This plan also locks in beach loss at Rockaway Beach and Sharp Park. Here's why it matters:
- It undermines the Coastal Act. The SSRAs allow armoring in areas that don’t meet Coastal Act criteria. If this model spreads, it could gut the Act’s protections for beaches and public trust resources.
- It sets a statewide precedent. Pacifica is now a test case for other cities to cite when justifying similar policies. If left unchallenged, this “interim” approach will become the new normal, and our beaches will vanish.
- It lacks enforceable mitigation. There’s no meaningful requirement to offset the damage to beaches, access, surf, or habitat. Future removal of armoring is speculative at best.
- It rewards delay. Cities that haven’t done the hard work of identifying where and how to adapt are now being rewarded with 20-year extensions on seawalls—while communities that try to plan for retreat get penalized with stricter scrutiny.
- It accelerates beach loss. Allowing expanded armoring in Rockaway and Beach Boulevard ensures the destruction of what little beach remains in Pacifica. These “resiliency areas” are really sacrifice zones.
This decision doesn't just impact Pacifica—it threatens coastal access, climate justice, and public beaches across the state.
Outcome
Pro-Coast Vote
Anti-Coast Vote
In what many coastal advocates consider one of the most damaging sea level rise planning decisions to date, the California Coastal Commission approved Pacifica’s LCP update with an 8–1 vote.
Several Commissioners echoed rhetorical patterns like, “we have to compromise to move forward” – commonly used to deflect conflict or sidestep legal shortcomings and signal pragmatism without actually defining what’s being compromised – or called the plan a “good balance”, but these statements weren’t grounded in the Coastal Act standards or the real-world outcomes the plan will produce.
Instead of weighing legal and policy compliance or the merits of proposed measures to offset the SSRA beach impacts, most of the Commission's discussion of the risk to the Coastal Act echoed the talking points of developer groups and organizations that prioritize private property over coastal access equity and beach preservation, such as, “there is no one-size-fits-all sea level rise plan”, as an excuse to carve out crucial Coastal Act protections. This shocked those attending the meeting in support of the rights enshrined in the Coastal Act. One attendee referred to it as "a surreal scene."
Commissioner Mike Wilson floated concepts like future GHADs and climate resiliency districts, urging the city to explore those options without meaningfully pushing for those concepts to be embedded into the plan update. While climate resiliency districts may have merit as a concept, we know from experience in Malibu that GHADs are unlikely to be helpful to facilitate nature-based solutions. As a member of the Local Government Working Group working to resolve the state’s sea level rise planning difficulties, Wilson praised the SSRA framework as a start, "an iterative first step," but that’s not how legal frameworks work: You don’t open the floodgates and just hope someone builds a living shoreline instead of a dam.
Commissioner Meagan Harmon claimed that not approving this LCP would be a step backward for local governments, saying:
"With my vote in support, I hope jurisdictions watching will work together pragmatically in service to protect and serve our coast."
But the takeaway for local jurisdictions is that they now have carte blanche to refuse to follow the law. Harmon claimed SSRAs are a path forward, but they’re a path forward only if we’re walking away from beach preservation.
Commissioner Caryl Hart said the SSRAs were limited in scope and would still require CDPs, and hoped for long-term benefits like beach restoration. But she also noted:
"We don’t have an exact set of options yet."
Precisely. You don’t build the seawall now and then figure out how to save the beach later. We’ve heard this time and time again in past “compromises” where Commissioners lament approving seawalls, but do so anyway.
Commissioner Paloma Aguirre struck a slightly cautious note but was also unfazed about the Coastal Act roll back:
"I think this is a good balance... but I want us to be vigilant that this isn’t used advantageously by anybody."
Unfortunately, that vigilance was not embedded in the policy. There are no triggers for enforcement. No requirements to remove seawalls. No requirement that the city designate restoration zones.
Commissioner Matt O’Malley was a lone hold out with enough concerns about the SSRA policies, asserting that better policy alternatives surely existed.
Organizations Opposed
Surfrider Foundation, Green Foothills, Pacifica's Environmental Family, California Coastal Protection Network, Salted Roots, Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, Sierra Club California, EAC West Marin, Pacifica Climate Committee
Decision Type
Local Coastal Program Update
Staff Recommendation
Approval as Submitted