| Tweet |
Custom Search
|
|
|
||
 City of Solana Beach
Section 3
Shoreline and Coastal Bluff Management Strategies Draft MEIR
Environmental Impact Analyses
This alternative would also require the purchase of the land and/or property seaward of the
planned retreat lines as property becomes increasingly threatened and dangerous to inhabit.
This alternative would have adverse long-term impacts to both population and housing because
property values would decrease over time as setback lines and required property acquisition
would place time restrictions on ownership. Therefore, under this alternative, impacts to
population and housing would be significant.
Impacts to population and housing under this alternative cannot be fully mitigated to less than
significant levels. However, to compensate homeowners for the loss of their property, the City,
state, or other responsible agency could be required to purchase properties seaward of the "no
new development" line at full market value. (For a description of the proposed mitigation
measures, see the discussion of Alternative 4 at the end of section 3.2.2.)
In this context, it is important to understand that CEQA is concerned with physical impacts, not
economic impacts on property values, as noted earlier. Thus, although CEQA could be read to
require some sort of replacement housing, or a cash payment that would allow property owners
to obtain such housing, the amount of financial compensation would be determined by factors
other than the need for CEQA compliance. Replacement housing inland might provide square
footage equivalent to what is lost in a bluff-top home, but might not be worth the same amount
of money as the bluff-top home. Under principles developed in connection with the formal
exercise of eminent domain and in case law dealing with inverse condemnation, full "fair market
value" is the widely accepted measure of what constitutes fair compensation where
governmental action has forced people to have to give up their homes. For reasons discussed
in 2.4.1.1, however, it is not clear whether implementation of the Planned Retreat Alternative
would constitute a "regulatory taking" requiring payment of full just compensation. In short, any
decision by the City or the State, or both, to provide full compensation would be made not
because such action is required by CEQA, but because such an approach strikes
decisionmakers as fair and prudent, particularly in light of the uncertainties associated with any
takings litigation that might ensue should the Planned Retreat Alternative be jointly implemented
by the City and State.
Project No. 323530000
Page 3-62
|
 
|
|
|
||
