Coastal Access in Isla Vista

Last week’s deck collapse on the 6700 block of Del Playa Drive — “Xanadu Lanes” for those with lasting Isla Vista memories — draws renewed attention to 2nd District Supervisor Laura Capps campaign to require six-foot fencing on Isla Vista’s bluffs.

Capps and the Board of Supervisors’ confusing knee-jerk ordinance increases the “mandatory height” of bluff fencing and at the same time waives “fees for good cause for permits for safety fences or railings along the Isla Vista Bluffs.” Are they begging property owners to build higher fences? What does “mandatory” mean?

Practically every building on oceanside Del Playa already has six-foot fencing that prevents access to the oceanside deck areas. Does Capps want fences right on the edge? Or, in the case of Xanadu, off the edge? At the moment the “edge” is moving inland — quickly at times. According to the Independent, “Capps office stated the four building would need to get permits for taller fencing.” Where is that fencing supposed to go? Bolted to decks hanging off a cliff?

County staff say high fences are “exempt from further environmental review requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).” Apparently building a structure on a subsiding bluff does not require an Environmental Impact Report (EIR)? That makes no sense at all.

A public records act request reveals that staff did not bother consulting their own 2019 “Geotechnical Evaluation of Bluff Retreat and Recommendations for Updating the Isla Vista Bluff Policy.” That study notes that bluff retreat can vary from six inches to eight feet with a spike of 10-16 feet in January 2017. Add 2024 to the list of spikes.

The county maintains two large parks on Del Playa — both affording significant ocean views. Part of the county’s existing fence at “dog shit park” already fell off the cliff and is strewn along the beach north of Campus Point.

The county’s bluff policy might place Capps’s fence 30 feet back from the bluff — taking a big chunk out of our parks and no longer aligning with adjoining buildings. View this for an aerial video that shows existing fencing. Is this decision something we want county staff to determine without an EIR? That seems unsafe.

Peter Iliff, author of the screenplay for James Cameron’s immortal film Point Break, lived at Xanadu Lanes in the 1970s. At least two of those buildings are already cut almost in half due to the retreating bluffs. It is likely Iliff’s spectacular unobstructed view of Devereux Point provided inspiration. Building barriers that remove coastal access without adequate environmental review, public input, and clear understating of the impact is wrong.

It is time for California’s attorney general to put a hitch in Capps’s giddy up, enforce CEQA, and require environmental review before replacing the fences on our bluffs. Iliff’s generation saw the creation of the California Coastal Commission — an agency that protects coastal access. Any structure built in the coastal zone requires a permit from that organization. If you don’t know go slow, Laura Capps. Meanwhile how about fixing the broken stairs at our coastal access points? You won’t need a permit for that.

Peter Neushul is a longtime Isla Vista resident.