EDITORIAL:Coastal panel steps in where city falls short

Many are cheering, and some jeering, a recent California Coastal Commission decision that opens up thousands of potential development projects to possible state review through the appeals process.

The issue at hand is watercourses, or streams. The Coastal Commission decided that they will take appeals of city-issued permits for all projects that are within 100 feet of a stream or “drainage course.”

It appears the commission is seeking to end-run the city’s local coastal plan jurisdiction by changing the rules in mid-stream, as it were.

Laguna Beach has been issuing its own coastal permits for 20 years. But the Coastal Commission now appears determined to intercept as many projects as possible.

The dispute here arises from a disparity between how the city and the Coastal Commission define “stream.” The city loosely defines “streams” in a variety of ways, although the Commission claims the city’s documents never use the word “stream” at all, but uses the words “watercourse” and “drainage course” interchangeably.

The city’s definition of “stream” could apply to almost any drainage ditch, but it’s how the definition is applied that has the commission’s goat.

The commission is also invoking language in the local coastal plan that states that a map delineating appealable areas “may not include all lands where post-LCP certification permit and appeal jurisdiction is retained by the Commission.”

In other words, the commission can decide at will to recapture appeals jurisdiction wherever and whenever it wishes.

This, despite the fact that the Coastal Act calls for the commission “to rely heavily on local government and local land-use planning procedures.”

The project at issue is the plan by St. Catherine of Siena Catholic School to double the size of its campus. Part of the property is an Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area, which is deserving of special treatment.

In addition, the school sits at the edge of Hobo Canyon, which the South Laguna Biological Resources Inventory of 1992 describes as seemingly “designed (by nature) as a rare plant preserve.”

Yet the school was not required by the city to prepare an environmental impact report for the project, despite its location in a sensitive wildlife area.

The discovery of an endangered bird, the gnatcatcher, on the property is indicative of the environmental issues at stake.

It should not have come as a shock to the city that the Coastal Commission wants to extend its oversight in Laguna Beach.