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 City of Solana Beach
Shoreline and Coastal Bluff Management Strategies Draft MEIR
Summary
SUMMARY
Overview
For many years, the City of Solana Beach has recognized the problematic issue of a how to
manage a continually eroding shoreline. The City includes 1.7 miles of narrow beach, backed
with 75-foot-high seacliffs that are nearly completely built out with houses and condominiums.
Seacliff erosion is a natural process occurring throughout San Diego County generally and in
Solana Beach specifically, which in the last several decades has been greatly accelerated by
the lack of sand replenishment due to the damming of, and mining in, coastal rivers that
formerly carried to the ocean much greater amounts of sediment than are currently being
delivered. The current approximate rate of erosion is estimated at an average of 0.4 feet per
year, equating to a range of approximately 27 to 40 feet per 100 years. However, depending on
multiple factors, such as wave action, winter storms, and upper bluff irrigation runoff, which
contribute to cliff erosion in a given year, rates will vary. Seacliff erosion becomes an inevitable
threat to public recreational use of the beach unprotected housing atop the upper bluffs. These
are two of the primary reasons why shoreline protection management is and has been a critical
issue in Solana Beach.
In response to the growing concern for protecting property within the City and the need to
protect the natural coastal resources, the City enacted the existing Shoreline and Coastal Bluff
Protection Ordinance in May of 1994. The goal of the ordinance was to help create a regulatory
framework for balancing the protection of vested private property rights and important public
interests in shoreline resources that can be harmed by the construction of coastal bluff
protection measures (see Appendix A). The Ordinance was adopted against a backdrop of
state law in which the California Coastal Act (Pub. Resources Code, 30000 et seq.) already
permitted property owners to build "[r]evetments, breakwaters, groins, harbor channels,
seawalls, cliff retaining walls, and other such construction that alters natural shoreline
processes" as a means of protecting "existing structures" from erosion, provided that such
structures were "designed to eliminate or mitigate adverse impacts on local shoreline sand
supply." (Pub. Resources Code, 30235.) Compared with state law, the Ordinance was
intended to be proactive, in the sense that it favors the construction of small structures such as
notch fills and sea cave fills when substantial erosion first begins to occur. State law, in
contrast, had been applied by the California Coastal Commission in a manner that required the
construction of large sea walls after erosion had become so bad that smaller, less intrusive
structures could not be effective in protecting bluff-top structures and the beach-going public.
The City reviewed several drafts of the ordinance prior to adoption. During development of the
draft ordinance, the City held several public workshops and received public comments, which
helped to formulate and develop what is now the existing ordinance in place. In addition, the
City satisfied the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by preparing an Initial Study and
adopting a Negative Declaration. Preparers of the Initial Study determined that the ordinance
would not result in any significant impacts and as a result the City prepared a Negative
Declaration. The Notice of Availability of the Negative Declaration was advertised on March 1,
1993 and underwent the 30-day review process. Following the 30-day review process, the City
Project No. 323530000
Page S-1
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