The city of Solana Beach will send the California Coastal Commission its revised schedule of fees for coastal property owners who want to build seawalls to protect homes perched atop eroding bluffs.
Seawalls armor the cliffs along more than half of Solana Beach’s 1.7-mile coastline, protecting the homes above but depleting the beaches by reducing the sand that erodes from the cliff face.
The city charges a “sand mitigation fee” for homeowners who petition to build seawalls to protect their homes. A “public recreation fee” is also being calculated to compensate for the economic impact of the narrowing beaches.
Until the exact method of calculating the fees is approved by the California Coastal Commission, the city is charging $1,000 per linear foot for the public recreation fee. That adds $120,000 to the cost of a 120-foot-long seawall.
Homeowners can only obtain a permit to build a seawall if their homes are found to be “in imminent danger of harm” by erosion of the bluffs, which in some cases are 80 feet high.
The city council has approved its updated fee study and will send it to the Coastal Commission this month. The agency has 90 days to approve the plan.
Bill Chopyk, the agency's director of community development, said it may take longer than three months since Solana Beach is one of the first cities in the state to develop a fee schedule for armoring the bluffs and the plan is likely to set a precedent for other cities facing similar coastal erosion.
