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 City of Solana Beach
Section 1
Shoreline and Coastal Bluff Management Strategies Draft MEIR
Introduction
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 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 addition, the City
satisfied 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 a 30-day review process.
Following the 30-day review process, the City adopted the Negative Declaration and enacted
the Shoreline and Coastal Bluff Protection Ordinance. The ordinance has been in effect since
May 16, 1994. Since then, many members of the public have been concerned about the
number of seawalls and other protective structures that have been permitted in the City in the
last few years and their possible effect on the coastal erosion problems and the reduction of
public access that Solana Beach and other San Diego region beaches are experiencing. As a
result, even though CEQA has been satisfied, the City would like to revisit the issue as to how, if
at all, it might want to modify the existing ordinance, or seek other policy alternatives, for
managing the coastline. A public scoping meeting was held on April 10, 2001 regarding the
preparation of an environmental document and public comments were considered in the
preparation of this MEIR. A Notice of Preparation was prepared by the City on May 21, 2001
and sent out for public comment with a 30-day review period (see Appendix B).
1.3 Goals and Objectives
As stated above, the purpose of this MEIR is to provide the City Council of Solana Beach and
the public with an assessment of the potential environmental impacts associated with alternative
policies or programs for managing the City's coastline and for which subsequent coastal
management projects or adoption of proposed policies or programs can be based. The goals
and objectives of this MEIR are to consider the range of coastal management policies or
Project No. 323530000
Page 1-6
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