Sand City Resort Yields Strong Public Benefits

The Commission voted unanimously to approve a 100-unit condominium hotel on a beachfront dune site in Sand City, adopting staff's recommendation without changes.

While ActCoastal does not support putting a resort on sand dunes, we also recognize constraints that make some development inevitable. The land is privately owned, and Sand City's 1982 Land Use Plan designates the site for visitor-serving use and states there is no sensitive habitat west of Highway 1. Within those constraints, staff assembled about as protective a package as the circumstances allow.

The public benefits are some of the most substantial we’ve seen. The permit requires pulling Tioga Avenue two hundred feet back from the ocean, one of the largest managed retreat projects the Commission has overseen. It requires roughly half a mile of concrete, rubble, and broken pavement to come off the beach. It builds the last missing stretch of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. And it places about twenty-two acres under permanent public protection. Meanwhile, an adjacent 25-site “tent cabin” campground will satisfy the Commission’s low-coast overnight accommodations requirement. 

The hazards package is equally strong. Shoreline armoring is prohibited for the life of the development, and any rights to build it in the future are waived outright. If the ocean reaches the resort, the resort comes out and the public trails and beach access move inland. The cleanup and the public access happen even if the resort is never built.

Surfrider asked that the Commission to require financial assurance so the money for future removal actually exists. Despite agreeing to the conditions, things could get complicated in 20, 30, or 40 years when the requirement kicks in and the Commission is dealing with 100 separate condo owners. No such requirement has been imposed before. The Commission did not impose it here, but confirmed they were looking into such requirements as a consideration for future developments.

‍

Commission involvement led to a dramatically better project, one with tangible coastal protections and public benefits. In 2013 the City approved a much larger hotel across eleven and a half acres of this site, covering more than 60 percent of the undeveloped dune. What the Commission approved covers only two and a half acres,  restores the rest, and deeds it permanently back to the public.

Meanwhile this stretch of beach has sat unremediated for decades. A hardened concrete slurry berm, rock rubble, and a collapsing road have lined this shoreline since the sand mining era. There was no mechanism and no money to clean it up on its own. 

Thanks to the Commission involvement, the approved development strikes a benefiical balance. Retreat, restoration, a completed Coastal Trail, permanent dune protection, and a hard no on armoring were all secured through conditions. Without the Commission at this table, the public would likely have gotten far less.

‍

‍

‍