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 City of Solana Beach
Section 3
Shoreline and Coastal Bluff Management Strategies Draft MEIR
Environmental Impact Analyses
Alternative 3 Sand Replenishment and Retention Program
Several coastal cities in San Diego County recognize sand replenishment and retention
activities as important and necessary measures to preserve their beaches. The General Plan
requires the City to preserve open space and public beaches. The Draft LCP has specific goals
and policies that support sand replenishment activities for erosion control and beach widening.
Solana Beach participated in the SANDAG Regional Beach Sand Replenishment Project and
received 140,000 cubic feet of sand fill in June 2001. Sand retention strategies were not part of
that project. Therefore, this alternative is consistent with the City's goals and policies
concerning beach preservation, though no existing City policy provides any mechanism for
generating the very considerable amounts of money needed to pay for periodic sand
replenishment or the offshore structures needed to keep sand from drifting offshore or
downcoast.
Impacts of placing approximately 140,000 cubic feet on the beach were analyzed in the
SANDAG Regional Beach Sand Project Draft EIR (SANDAG, 2000b). According to that
document, sand replenishment activities would not impact residential land use. Sand retention
strategies would not impact residential land use specifically. Impacts associated with groins,
breakwaters, or artificial reefs generally include offshore recreation and net sand loss to
adjacent beaches, discussed in other relevant sections of this MEIR. Short-term impacts to land
use in general would include temporarily closing sections of the beach to the public, due to
safety concerns associated with construction equipment and activities. Construction of any
sand retention devices would require offshore areas to be closed temporarily as well. These
closures would be limited to specific areas and relatively short time periods. This alternative
would have less than significant impacts to land use.
Mitigation
Impacts would be less than significant to land use under this alternative; therefore, no mitigation
is necessary.
Alternative 4 Planned Coastal Retreat Policy
Bluff top development regulatory policies requiring setback lines on the bluff would create new
land use policies within the City, which are not directly addressed within existing plans and
policies. The Land Use Element in the City's General Plan encourages the development and
maintenance of healthy residential neighborhoods, the stability of transitional neighborhoods,
and the rehabilitation of deteriorated neighborhoods. Therefore, creating setback lines would
have significant impacts to this land use policy in the long term because it would eventually
result in the elimination, rather than the maintenance of residences located seaward of the
setbacks. Property values would likely lessen as erosion of the bluff approached the setback
lines and reduced the economic life of the property. As discussed in Section 2.4, moreover,
implementation of this alternative would be inconsistent with state law, which would require the
California Coastal Commission to continue to approve shoreline and coastal bluff protection
structures where existing structures are threatened by erosion and adequate mitigation for sand
Project No. 323530000
Page 3-39
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