California Coastal Commission Makes Waves in Santa Barbara

California Coastal Commission
Makes Waves in Santa Barbara

Historic Hearing Results in $18M Smackdown on
Sable and Green Lights for Hotel and
Housing Projects from Montecito to UCSB

By Nick Welsh, Margaux Lovely, Ryan P. Cruz,
Tyler Hayden, and Christina McDermott
April 17, 2025

Everything, in our new hyper-charged political reality, is now “unprecedented.” The term — once used to denote an occurrence of anomalous singularity — has been left in the dust by the events taking place with each passing new day. Clearly, we need new words. But for the time being, “unprecedented” will have to do until the real thing comes along.

It was certainly unprecedented, this past Thursday, when the California Coastal Commission, meeting at a Santa Barbara waterfront hotel, hit Sable Offshore oil company with an $18 million fine. Never in the Coastal Commission’s 53-year history has the state agency — charged with protecting the state’s 1,100-mile stretch of coast from environmental depredation — levied so large and punitive a fine on anyone or anything.

Likewise, the commission staff has made clear it’s also totally “unprecedented” for a private developer to ignore not just one, but two cease-and-desist orders issued in the past four months by the Coastal Commission’s executive director. In spite of such orders, Sable’s crews are still going strong, digging up miles of old, corroded pipeline and making the repairs necessary to restart oil production on the coast. Last week — for good measure — the commissioners issued a third cease-and-desist order. By all accounts, the work has not stopped. 

Lastly, it’s totally unprecedented for members of the commission to verbally eviscerate energy planners with Santa Barbara County at a public hearing for refusing to provide them requested planning documents having to do with Sable no fewer than seven times. While the county has denied this charge, no one from the county showed up for last week’s meeting to explain their actions. One commissioner termed this absence a “dereliction of duty.”

All of this is unprecedented.

What actions and outcomes ultimately emerge from this rancor remain far from obvious. That’s in part because the political support enjoyed by the Coastal Commission — long regarded as one of California’s many “third rails” of state politics — has never been so uncertain. By “uncertain,” I mean rarely has any state agency been so reviled by such a wide swath of political players and stakeholder groups.

This new uncomfortable reality — undisputed by most commissioners — is at violent odds with the circumstances of the Coastal Commission’s birth 53 years ago. Back then, state voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of a ballot measure to create the new state body to protect California’s coastline and public access to it — both seen very much in peril at the time by forces of rampant overdevelopment and wholesale privatization. 

The question has become not so much who hates the Coastal Commission — it’s who doesn’t. Donald Trump has hated the commission since it objected to a 70-foot flagpole Trump planted on a beachfront golf course he owned back before he became president.

Elon Musk, Trump’s alter ego, sued the Coastal Commission — and lost — over the commission’s outspoken refusal to grant him the “consistency determination” he needed to increase the number of SpaceX rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base from 35 to 50. Although a federal judge would rule in the commission’s favor, Governor Gavin Newsom, a noted Democrat, announced he was siding with Musk on this one. 

When Pacific Palisades and Altadena were reduced to ashes early this year by especially savage wildfires, a Trump lieutenant named Ric Grenell threatened to withhold all federal emergency assistance funding unless or until aid the Coastal Commission was either dismantled or defunded. 

Even in an age of executive orders, that’s not as simple as it sounds. The Coastal Commission was initially created by a statewide popular vote of the people in 1972; it was to have a four-year lifespan. In 1976, the state legislature jumped — passing a law — to make the commission a permanent fixture of state government. Then Governor Jerry Brown happily signed that bill. Within two years, he would be calling the commissioners environmental “thugs.” 

The commission is made up of 12 appointed officials, with three alternates. Many serve as city councilmembers or county supervisors in various coastal communities throughout California. Meagan Harmon, who serves on the Santa Barbara City Council, is one. Others were appointed by the governor, the Senate Rules Committee, and the Assembly speaker. It’s all intensely political. And, given the real estate values involved, the stakes could not be higher. 

In years past, it was not uncommon for Republican administrations to trim the commission’s sails with a quick flick of the budget pen. Not since Arnold Schwarzenegger served as governor has there been anything that passes for a “Republican” administration in Sacramento, but many Democrats who would occupy the governor’s mansion made clear their exasperation with the commission. Newsom has jousted with the commission almost from the start, but he — and many in the ascendant housing-at-any-cost majority in Sacramento — have been equally threatening. Sacramento’s hardcore housing advocates have introduced numerous bills to limit the commission’s regulatory oversight over housing projects along the coast. Governor Newsom signed an executive order stripping the commission of oversight for new construction work arising from the blazing infernos that struck Los Angeles. Likewise, student housing projects have been suggested for exemption.

So, what happens if Sable doesn’t pay the fine? Or keeps on working despite three cease-and-desist orders? The key question — still loudly unanswered — is what Attorney General Rob Bonta will do. Will Bonta throw his considerable heft behind the commission? He hasn’t yet. And it’s been several months. Does the governor want to pick his battles with the Trump-Musk White House for causes that enjoy more broad public support?

For those on the edge of their seats, the silence has been deafening. 

In the meantime, the Coastal Commission met for three days in Santa Barbara last week. While Sable Offshore was clearly the marquee event, there were other key votes of local significance, including the controversial Rosewood Miramar expansion plans and proposed Garden Street Hotel, as well as what would be UCSB’s largest on-campus student housing project. Read on for Margaux Lovely, Tyler Hayden, Ryan P. Cruz, and Christina McDermott’s reporting on the deliberations. — Nick Welsh

Sable Slammed with $18M Fine over Pipeline Work

by Margaux Lovely  | Photos by Ingrid Bostrom

The two people sitting next to me both nodded off after the first hour of public comment. They stirred only when it came time to break for lunch a couple of hours later. If they were waiting to make a comment of their own, it was all for naught, as the chair of the California Coastal Commission cut off the public comment period after lunch. It was getting repetitive, he said. He was probably right.

More than 120 Santa Barbarans signed up to address the Coastal Commission after hearing a lengthy enforcement report about Texas-based oil company Sable Offshore, whose alleged unpermitted development in the coastal zone has gone on for months, said commissioners, despite multiple notices of violation, two cease-and-desist orders, and countless attempts to remedy the situation amicably.

After five hours, the Coastal Commission voted to impose an $18 million fine — the largest against a company in commission history — a third cease-and-desist order, and an environmental restoration order on Sable. How the commission reached that conclusion, however, was a somewhat messy mix of Santa Barbara County slander, pictures of holes, and a lot of talk about the applicability of permits issued decades ago.

Sable Offshore has been working day and night (and on weekends, according to the commission) to revamp three oil platforms off the Gaviota Coast and a pipeline whose unchecked corrosion under the previous owner caused the massive Refugio Oil Spill in 2015. But this meeting was not about 2015, said Steve Rusch, Sable’s vice president of environmental and regulatory affairs, during the meeting. This is not about a pipeline restart, and it isn’t about the future of fossil fuels.

“This meeting is about Sable’s routine repair and maintenance work,” Rusch asserted. “The county confirmed that no new permits were required” for the pipeline work that Sable has completed. Further, the commission’s allegations of consistent noncompliance with previous enforcement actions and unchecked environmental damage, Rusch added, simply aren’t true.

In its 89-page staff report and 8,000 pages’ worth of exhibits, the Coastal Commission laid out in excruciating detail why Sable’s work is not authorized under the decades-old permits; exactly what plants, animals, and habitats were harmed throughout Sable’s work; and why the Coastal Commission has jurisdiction over the matter.

Cassidy Teufel, deputy director of the Coastal Commission, called Sable’s work “significant deviations” from what was approved under coastal development permits issued for the pipeline’s original construction in the 1980s. “This is the single largest pipeline rebuild project ever on the California coast,” he said. Sable conducted work on 136 development sites along 14 miles of coastline.

“The activities undertaken arguably amount to a full rebuild of certain sections of pipe,” said Stephanie Cook, the commission’s enforcement counsel. “Not just minor measures.”

Sable contends that their work does not require a new coastal development permit, as they are only repairing, not rebuilding, the pipeline. The commission, on the other hand, claims that there is no possible way the coastal development permits from the 1980s anticipated, analyzed, and approved the significant scope of Sable’s work.

“We’ve looked very carefully at those permits,” said Chief of Enforcement Lisa Haage. “We’ve spent a phenomenal amount of time crawling through the records and the old documents trying to find some justification for their position and failed to do so.”

“Despite having worked with Coastal Commission staff for many months, the commission and Sable disagree regarding whether Coastal Act authorization exists for the work and whether the commission has the authority to order our maintenance and repair work to stop,” Rusch said in a statement after last Thursday’s meeting. “That’s a fundamental disagreement that the parties have not been able to resolve.”

But Errin Briggs, Santa Barbara County’s energy czar, wrote a letter to Sable on February 12 stating that all of its work in the coastal zone is authorized under existing permits. Sable has consistently relied on this letter as evidence to justify its continued pipeline work along the coast.

However, the county settled a lawsuit with Sable last summer that essentially preempted it from having jurisdiction over its activities on the underground pipeline. So, how can Sable rely on the county’s determination now?

The Coastal Commission had the same questions.

Sable representatives did not respond to the Independent’s request for an answer by press time.

“For the anomaly repair work, the county did not conclude at this time it is without jurisdiction,” said county spokesperson Kelsey Buttitta. This appears to diverge from the county’s original stance regarding the August 2024 settlement. “The county concluded that the particular work … was already covered under existing permits and prior environmental review.”

“It is very disappointing and alarming that Santa Barbara County’s actions and inactions have given the violator the cover to do it,” Commissioner Linda Escalante said. “It’s a bit of a dereliction of duty that no one from the county was here to answer questions about its decision-making and lack thereof.”

Other commissioners called the county’s absence “shocking” and “particularly distressing.”

“Clearly, we haven’t gotten a foothold with Sable, and we haven’t gotten a foothold with Santa Barbara County,” Commissioner and Santa Barbara City Councilmember Meagan Harmon said. “I remain utterly confused.”

“County staff was not invited or asked to attend the meeting by a commissioner or Coastal Commission staff,” said Kelsey Buttitta. While County Supervisors Laura Capps, Roy Lee, and Joan Hartmann were in attendance earlier on, it appeared that none were in the conference room during staff deliberations or when the final decision was made. 

“Santa Barbara County failed to act,” Commissioner Harmon stated, “and I have to go on record with my frustration about that.” When a local jurisdiction does not take enforcement action, the Coastal Commission may legally step in under the Coastal Act, she added.

Sable sued the Coastal Commission in Santa Barbara Superior Court after it issued its second cease-and-desist order in February for jurisdictional overreach, and has continued to work along the coast. The company received its first cease-and-desist from the commission in November 2024, which it complied with.

As of publication, Sable is still performing construction work on its pipelines along the Gaviota Coast.

The environmental impacts of Sable’s work cover thousands of pages of the commission’s staff report exhibits. Videos of the southwestern pond turtle and the southern California steelhead, both of which are threatened or endangered species, were shown during the meeting, followed by photos and videos of excavators, trucks, and other heavy machinery working directly above their sensitive habitats. The pipeline runs through critical habitats for vulnerable red-legged frogs and federally endangered Gaviota tarplant along the coast, where Sable excavated and conducted repairs. Southern California steelhead — many of which were relocated here from waterways impacted by the Palisades Fire — also live in a critical habitat stream where work was done. 

While the work affected habitats, it also came at an inopportune time for many species. Work was completed during the nesting season for the federally endangered southern willow flycatcher and the white-tailed kite, breeding season for the red-legged frog, and migratory spawning season for the southern California steelhead.

None of these species were identified as endangered or at risk when the environmental impact report (EIR) was completed for the pipeline’s construction in the 1980s.

One of Sable’s attorneys, DJ Moore, claims that all environmental impacts were, in fact, analyzed and authorized in the original EIR. The report found the impacts to be “permanent” along the pipeline’s right-of-way, and as such, Sable’s work is not harming the environment any more than it already has been, Moore said.

To solidify this point, Rusch showed the commission a promotional video for Sable with an aerial view of one of the repair sites. A portion of land next to Highway 101 was shown to be environmentally restored and replanted after Sable completed its repair work on the below-ground pipeline. The grass was green, and while you could make out the bounds of the excavation site, the mitigation appeared cohesive and well-done.

Deputy Director Teufel, not commenting on the video, noted that “based on information that Sable itself has provided, the work exceeds the pipeline right-of-way in no less than 29 separate sites.”

At the end of it all, Sable faced a recommended fine of $14,987,250. After staff deliberations, Chair Justin Cummings surprisingly proposed increasing the fine to the maximum allowable amount of $18,022,500, with the opportunity for Sable to discount it to the previous amount if it applies for coastal development permits.

“If you want to go out and try to supersede the people of the State of California, we’re going to stand up for ourselves,” Chair Cummings said.

Ultimately, the commissioners voted 9-2 to approve the more than $18 million penalty, and unanimously approved a third cease-and-desist order and restoration order. That woke up the people next to me. 

Garden Street Hotel Survives Appeal

By Ryan P. Cruz

The controversial 250-room Garden Street Hotel — a proposed development just a couple of hundred feet away from the beachfront in Santa Barbara — survived its latest appeal, with the California Coastal Commission unanimously agreeing on April 10 that it finds “no substantial issues” with the project as it is currently designed.

The hotel has been nearly 40 years in the making, dating back to a 1983 deal between late property owner Bill Wright and the City of Santa Barbara, in which Wright agreed to donate a portion of the land to allow for the development of what eventually became the Funk Zone neighborhood in exchange for the right to build a hotel in the future.

In 2019, Wright’s family brought back the plans with the help of Newport Harbor–based Dauntless Development to help guide the project through the city review process. Since then, the project has been the center of heated public hearings, eventually earning 4-2 approval from the city’s Planning Commission in February 2024.

“The city has planned for this 250-room hotel on this site for over 40 years,” said Shaun Gilbert of Dauntless Development.

Nonprofit organization Keep the Funk has been leading the opposition against the hotel throughout the review process, specifically raising issues regarding the plans for a 238-space underground parking lot at the site and questioning whether the city adequately considered impacts to the adjacent Funk Zone neighborhood.

Keep the Funk and Santa Barbara resident Steven Johnson appealed the Planning Commission decision to the City Council, which upheld the ruling once again. In response, Keep the Funk filed a secondary appeal to the Coastal Commission in addition to a civil lawsuit challenging the city’s approval of the project.

Attorney Marc Chytilo, who has been representing Keep the Funk through the appeals process, argued that the proposed site contains soil and groundwater contaminants that could lead to problems once developers began to excavate for the underground parking garage. These risks are exacerbated by the potential for flood hazards and sea-level rise, he said, bringing the possibility of further impacts that have not been vetted properly.

“Understand that this project does not include any remediation whatsoever at this point,” Chytilo said during the appeal hearing, “only preliminary assessment of chemical contamination on the shallow areas of the site. Based on that, they have concluded that they are not going to dig deep enough to get into any potential for other areas of contamination.”

Coastal Commission staff reported that the applicant conducted a study into these impacts, which found that, according to their consultant, the approved plans called for elevating the first floor of the hotel “above any tidal flooding expected within the project lifetime,” and that any storm events can be addressed through use of temporary flood barriers. Furthermore, commission staff said that flooding is an “area-wide issue” that should be addressed by updating the city’s Local Coastal Plan — not on a project-by-project basis. Using these specifics, staff recommended that the commission deny the appeals.

Santa Barbara Assistant City Attorney Tava Ostrenger and Project Planner Kathleen Kennedy both spoke at the hearing, also recommending that the commission deny the appeals based on the fact that the city found there was no issue with the specific arguments raised over contaminants, flood hazards, or sea-level rise.

Commissioner Meagan Harmon, who is also a member of the Santa Barbara City Council, noted how the project had become a spark point of the city’s debate over hotels and the preservation of the Funk Zone.

“Here in Santa Barbara, and I think this is happening everywhere across coastal California, we’re really facing some existential questions about what our little beach town is and what it’s going to be, and who it’s for and who we want it to be for,” Commissioner Harmon said. “And there was a lot of conflict about this hotel on that basis.”

Harmon said that she was personally conflicted about the project, but that the commission was tasked on looking at the specific issues raised in the appeals and finding whether or not they were “substantial” enough to warrant a denial.

“It really is a narrow consideration that we have here before us,” she said. The commission unanimously agreed and denied the appeal.

While the decision closes another door for opponents of the hotel, Keep the Funk and attorney Chytilo are not yet giving up the fight entirely. The lawsuit against the city’s approval, which was stayed for the time being, can now proceed through the county courts.

“Yesterday was really a fork in the road as far as the challenges,” Chytilo said.  “Frankly, it was kind of expected.” 

Chytilo said that the Coastal Commission is limited in the scope of what they can assess, and that much of the conflict arises from how the City of Santa Barbara interprets its Local Coastal Plan, which he said “does not address the Funk Zone as much as it should.”

The lawsuit will proceed over the next few months, though there is no official injunction preventing the developers from moving forward during that time. “We are committed to preserving the Funk Zone, and this project is very significant there, so we will continue fighting,” Chytilo said. 

UCSB Student Housing Project Moves Ahead

By Christina McDermott

The largest dorm in the country it is not, but with more than 2,200 beds spread across seven towers, UC Santa Barbara’s San Benito will be the university’s largest on-campus student housing project in recent decades. Located between Mesa Road and Stadium Road, just south of the Goleta Slough, San Benito will include seven buildings ranging from six to eight stories tall and add 2,224 student beds. On April 10, the California Coastal Commission approved amendments to the university’s 2010 Long Range Development Plan, with modifications, allowing the project to go forward. 

The co-chair for the San Benito Building Committee, Gene Lucas, spoke at the hearing.

“[We’re] looking forward to closing the gap between what we wanted to build and what we have built so far,” he said, referencing the goal of adding 5,000 beds as outlined in the university’s 2010 Long-Range Development Plan.

UCSB’s campus, as well as Isla Vista, fall within the coastal zone. The Coastal Commission must certify any permitting processes outlined in long range development plans made by universities in this zone. They also need to approve plan amendments — like the one UCSB needs to make to its plan to complete the San Benito project.

The building will exceed the 65-foot height limit — reaching up to 81 feet. The amendment to the development plan allows for this extra height for the project.

Additionally, a small portion of the project will encroach into the university’s 50-foot buffer between development and environmentally sensitive habitat — in this case, wetland and oak woodland habitat. The total encroachment would result in less than one percent of the buffer being reduced. The modification to the development plan allows for this small encroachment. 

Other portions of the amendment include modifying parking requirements such that the complex could use a nearby lot or the university could prove the need is less than protocol assumes, revising land-use designations, and creating an offsite stormwater retention basin.

Further, as part of its approval, the Coastal Commission staff outlined 17 special conditions that the university must meet in order to build the complex. That includes specifications meant to protect the wetland and surrounding native species, such as using tinted and bird-safe windows, putting protective fencing around environmentally sensitive habitat and wetland, and having a biologist monitor the site during construction. The commission also stipulates the university fulfill other requirements, including submitting a transit plan and keeping an archaeologist onsite during grading and work that disturbs the ground.

If not broken up, San Benito will be the university’s most populated student housing complex to date. It could help alleviate the pressure for students seeking housing in Isla Vista. Currently, UCSB guarantees one year of on-campus housing for students, meaning many students must find private accommodations, many of which have landlords that live outside the area.

San Benito is part of a larger effort to build university housing. In 2021, the university faced lawsuits from the City of Goleta and City of Santa Barbara for not building adequate housing in line with its increased enrollment. As part of the settlement from these lawsuits, the university has agreed to add 3,500 beds for students. 

San Benito is not a replacement of the controversial Munger Hall project, but it does come off the heels of Munger Hall’s cancelation. UCSB unveiled Munger Hall in 2021, which, with 4,500 beds in its original plan, would have been the largest dorm in the country. The dorm’s design, however, would have required most students to live in windowless rooms. Munger Hall saw ongoing pushback from students, architects, and the wider community.

UCSB officially canceled the Munger Hall project in October 2023, but it had made a request for qualification for a 3,500-bed student housing project about three months earlier. The university has broken that project into two phases.  Phase I is San Benito, which is expected to break ground this year. The second phase will seek to redevelop existing housing on the university’s east campus, adding approximately 1,400 beds to the residence halls there by 2029.

Miramar Expansion Gets Commission’s Blessing

By Tyler Hayden

The California Coastal Commission gave its blessing this week to developer Rick Caruso and his plan to construct 55,000 square feet of additions at the Rosewood Miramar Beach resort, which will include 26 units of affordable employee housing, eight market-rate apartments, and a dozen new retail shops. The project will represent the first new affordable housing built in Montecito in more than three decades.

The commission voted unanimously to deny two final appeals that argued the project would restrict coastal access by eating up limited parking in the small residential neighborhood. “That issue has been sufficiently dispensed with,” said Santa Barbara’s resident commissioner, Meaghan Harmon, who also serves on the Santa Barbara City Council. 

Like other members of the state board, Harmon was pleased the plan includes so much affordable housing, especially in a wealthy community where it’s lacking. “To me, that is very, very important, and it is important to us as a commission.”

Board Chair Justin Cummings said the 26 low-income units, representing 76 percent of the project’s total housing, is “almost unheard of.” “One of the things this commission has really been supportive of is affordable housing, trying to get hotels to build housing for their workers,” he said. “I couldn’t see us today rejecting an affordable housing project like this.” Commissioner Mike Wilson put it most succinctly: “Parking is subservient to housing,” he said.

The additions will comprise three two-story buildings: two on the Miramar’s western parking lot with apartments on the second floor and retail space, including a café, below; and one on the eastern lot that will contain the employee units. The existing parking layout will be reconfigured to accommodate 480 total spaces.

The appeals also raised concerns that the staff housing will be built in a FEMA-designated flood zone and be “segregated” from the resort’s main grounds. Commission staff, however, said the site has been appropriately designed to be two feet above base flood elevation, and that local flood control officials had signed off on the plans.

For his part, Caruso said he was happy the plan is coming to fruition after two years of holding community meetings and navigating the approval process. Hundreds of people submitted letters of support, his team said, and more than 150 Montecito residents signed a community-wide endorsement letter. “We are deeply proud to now move forward with this innovative plan that will allow the Miramar to do even more to serve our dedicated employees, our guests, and all of Montecito,” Caruso said.

Santa Barbara County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, who voted with the rest of his colleagues to approve the project in December, said, “Since its opening, the Miramar has been a gem of the Central Coast and a powerful economic driver that benefits the entire region.” The resort is the highest payer of bed taxes in the county. “This proposal will only strengthen the Miramar’s role as a responsible employer and a valuable neighbor in Montecito,” Lavagnino said.

But not all neighbors are content with the outcome. Cliff Gherson, who led the Neighbors of Miramar Beach resistance group that bird-dogged the project every step of the way, remains unconvinced Caruso is acting out of good will. “I continue to feel that using the ‘employee housing card’ was, at the end of the day, really a smoke screen so that Caruso could get more retail shops and another restaurant at the hotel,” he said.

“The county Board of Supervisors and County Planning Commission did not want to face any developer lawsuits,” Gherson continued, “seemed eager to see the affordable employee-private-housing plan, and were thrilled to anticipate additional tax revenue from the project, the neighbors be damned. … We will miss the mountain views along Eucalyptus Lane, and we will curse the increased traffic that will result.”