Santa Monica Living Shorelines

The Commission unanimously approved Santa Monica’s Living Shorelines Project, which aims to establish and maintain almost 40 acres of coastal dune habitat across Santa Monica State Beach. A true multi-benefit solution, the project will provide myriad benefits to LA’s most popular beach. Commission staff worked diligently with the City of Santa Monica and its agent, The Bay Foundation, to ensure the project would enhance the Santa Monica shoreline without negatively affecting public coastal access.

Proactive, nature-based planning to prepare our beaches for the impacts of climate change represents a best-case scenario. Santa Monica enjoys a wide beach, but no beach will remain unaffected by sea level rise over the next century. Santa Monica will be increasingly subject to erosion from rising seas and storm surge. The beach is also very flat, meaning that the infrastructure behind it will be subject to coastal flooding much more often than is the case today.

Santa Monica should be applauded for their forward-thinking approach, and Commission staffed worked with the City to ensure the project would not negatively affect coastal access.

Purported project benefits include:

• Improved coastal resilience. Dunes act to retain sand that would otherwise blow onto city infrastructure, keeping it on the beach where it belongs. As the dunes establish and mature, they will provide natural protection against erosion from wave run-up and coastal flooding in a time of accelerating sea level rise.
• Habitat enhancement. Native coastal dunes, once prevalent across much of the California coastline, have been mostly lost due to development and/or beach grooming in urban areas like Los Angeles. This rare habitat includes flowering plants that attract butterflies, and nesting area for threatened shorebirds like the Western Snowy Plover. 
• Community engagement. “Rewilding” segments of Santa Monica’s shoreline will enhance the public beach experience, reconnecting LA residents and visitors with natural beach ecology. This project creates an excellent avenue for public agencies and nonprofits to educate and provide stewardship opportunities to the greater Los Angeles community.
• Adaptive management. Unlike destructive shoreline armoring, living shorelines can easily be adapted if they fail to perform as intended or cause unexpected issues. Commission staff reduced the permit term from 10 to 5 years, which will allow them to evaluate the project sooner for potential impacts to public access or other concerns. The shortened permit term also provides opportunity for community input if concerns need elevation beyond the local level.

Regarding impacts to public access, the dune areas will be largely unrestricted and placed away from popular beach access routes to and from parking lots, beach facilities, and highly used areas like volleyball courts. 

Implementing a large-scale living shorelines project at a popular urban beach is an experiment—but it's an experiment worth doing. In the face of rapidly rising seas, doing nothing is no longer an option.

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