Coastal Commission rejects Newport homeowners treating beach as their backyard

The city sought to amend its Local Coastal Program, a development agreement with the state, to allow — for a fee paid by the homeowners — up to 15 feet of encroachments on the far east end of the Balboa Peninsula known as Peninsula Point. That would have protected at least some of the landscaping, patios, furniture, pavers, fences and other adornments that make up unpermitted seaward “backyards” reaching past the property line of 55 homes between F Street and the harbor entrance channel.

“We want the beach restored every bit as much as the general public and you do,” Don Schmitz, the city’s lobbyist to the Coastal Commission, told the panel at its meeting Wednesday in San Luis Obispo. He flipped among aerial photos of the current encroachments and a rendering showing them hemmed in.Commissioner Linda Escalante called the encroachments “squatting by the rich.

The commission did not give explicit direction on what to do about existing encroachments, although the state has issued notices of violation to homeowners as recently as June. Newport had a track record on the matter, as Schmitz pointed out. In 1991, negotiations between the Coastal Commission and the city allowed homeowners on the far west end of the Balboa Peninsula to keep encroachments in exchange for improved beach access via finished street ends, paved walkways and restrooms.

Just wow!

Good job CaliforniaCoastalCommission

Big government makes society worse... again.

Of course it is. Unless you can tell me with a straight face that these same home owners would be perfectly OK with beachgoers walking through that landscaping and property.

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