Ocean Colony Partners has negotiated an agreement with the California Coastal Commission to remove a 270-foot seawall consisting of granite boulders (also known as "riprap"). The seawall is on the beach below the golf course’s 18th green.

According to Lisa Haage, chief of enforcement at the Coastal Commission, "This will still have to go the Commission. But work can’t begin until fall, so there will be plenty of time to plan the removal." Haage expects to have a written agreement before the Commission at its July meeting.

"I’m pleased to put this episode behind us," Bruce Russell of Ocean Colony Partners told me. "Now we can move on. It’s a much better situation."

Seawalls have many negative impacts, including increasing erosion of the beaches in front of them and of the cliffs on either side. Coastal activists have been fighting to get this one removed ever since it was put up without a Coastal Development Permit in 1998.

"During its lifetime, it was truly one of the worst seawalls in California," said the Sierra Club’s Mark Massara, "because it extended into the surf even at low tides and made lateral beach access a dangerous nightmare."

The company had fought to get the California Coastal Commission for years to keep the seawall.

In 2002, Ocean Colony Partners negotiated a consent agreement with the Coastal Commission and removed half the riprap in 2003 and 2004. OCP then applied to reinforce the remaining riprap. 

OCP’s application to reinforce the seawall was scheduled to be heard by the Coastal Commission in February, but OCP withdrew its application after Commission staff recommended denying it.

Coastal Commission staff opposed keeping the remaining seawall because there was an alternative—moving the 18th green. However, Ocean Colony Partners had been unwilling to move the green of its 18th hole because it is a "signature hole" on its golf course, which has been recognized as one of the top 100 golf holes in the US. 

You can download a PDF of the Coastal Commission staff’s recommendation on Ocean Colony’s most recent application to keep and reinforce the seawall from Coastsider. While it’s no longer under consideration, it’s a good source of background information.

Rush-hour traffic on Highway 1 was tied up today by a Caltrans project in El Granada. Coastsiders tell me it took them more than an hour to get through the contruction zone.

The construction was supposed to be completed by 6am, but continued until 9. According to Bob Haus at Caltrans, the contractor O’Grady Paving was delayed by an equipment failure caused by today’s unseasonable rain.  Haus told me that the contract for the work includes a provision for fines for every 10 minutes completion is delayed past the scheduled time.

The work is part of a resurfacing project that spans from Half Moon Bay to Pacifica, which is scheduled to be completed August 31.

Medea Benjamin, peace activist and a founder of women’s peace group Code Pink, will be at Moon News 7 p.m. Thursday to promote her (and others’) new book, "Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism." There’s a story about this event in the County Times. The free event is co-sponsored by Coastside Peace. Moon News is at 315 Main St. in Half Moon Bay. You can use the Amazon link to find out more about the book, but you should buy it at Moon News.

Friday, the Coastside Film Society presents the US debut of the new feature film from British Independent director, Ruaridh Webster.
Director Ruaridh Webster is flying in from London at his own expense to attend the screening.  He met film club board member Jean Slanger at a screening in London.  Jean was blown away by the film and asked if they could screen it in Half Moon Bay. He agreed and after checking out the Society decided he had to be here for a first-hand experience of his first American audience.

Before the feature, there will two short films.

In THE BARN (2004), when a crooked deal goes bad for 2 Americans they find themselves locked in a dilapidated barn in the middle of the English countryside. This is new film from the United Kingdom that recently won awards from the Raindance Film Festival and Leeds Film Festival.

Take a smattering of David Mamet and douse liberally with Samuel Beckett and you have some idea of what THE BARN is like. It’s the strange story of two Americans who after a crooked deal goes wrong find themselves locked in a dilapidated barn in the middle of the English countryside. As their attempts to escape look increasingly futile, the pair begins to bicker amongst themselves. That’s when things begin to take a surreal turn for the worst.

The two leads in this film, Adam Long and Jake Broder, are well known members of the the Reduced Shakespeare Company.

An auspicious debut feature for director Ruaridh Webster that delights and infuriates in equal measure.  Webster and his Director of Photography, Oliver Schofield, are jetting in from London to attend CFS Film Night and answer questions from the audience.

There will be two shorts before the main feature.

In THE VERGE (1998), Two friends wait by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. They hitchhike. No one comes

In A CAR STOPPED (2000), Neal and Jack, young American friends, are traveling. England. Still on the road and dreaming of Kerouac and Bob Dylan, living the American dream on the roads of Britain. Dreams and fantasies fading into the ether, each is presented with the raw characteristics of the other. As time progresses one’s wisdom becomes evident; life, inevitably is circular.

Saturday night, the Coastside Film Society presents a collection of short films by Bill Brown and Thomas Comerford, two of independent cinema’s greatest and best known nomads.  When audiences did not flock to see their early films they decided to be aggressive and bring their films to the audience.  They loaded up a pickup truck’s worth of films, projectors and screens and set off across America looking for college campuses, coffee houses and living rooms to screen their films in. Now that they are better known they have a better choice of venues. in which to show their films.  Word is starting to get around that Half Moon Bay is the place to go to screen independent films in the Bay Area. They gave us a call and we scheduled this special Saturday screening of Film Night in Half Moon Bay.

Brown and Comerford like to say their films are about the space of history and the history of spaces. Together and separately they roam the country trying to create films that that capture the essence of the places they are filming.

The films will be shown at 8:00pm at the Community United Methodist Church Sanctuary, 777 Miramontes (corner of Johnston) in Half Moon Bay.  A $6 donation is requested.

It will be another couple of months before the county Board of Supervisors begins to consider proposed changes to the county’s Local Coastal Plan.

Today, the County Board of Supervisors took another look the principles they plan to use to evaluate changes to the LCP. They made some minor word changes and asked the subcommittee that developed the principles to use them as an organizing structure for the proposed changes.  I’ll post the revised version as soon as I get a copy.

The subcommittee is expected to report back to the Board in July and the Board will take up the LCP revisions in late July or in August.

The Examiner ran an article today on Coastside skepticism about the Board’s approach to the LCP. My favorite quote:

The webmaster of "Coastsider," Barry Parr, called the proposed principles "vague enough to encompass pretty much anything" the supervisors might ultimately decide to do.

"The supervisors appear to be defining property rights here exclusively as the right to develop," Parr said. "A wider vision would include the property rights of the community affected by a neighboring property owner’s development plans."

Meanwhile, the San Mateo County Association of Realtors says its number-one concern is keeping houses cheap. George Mozingo, government affairs director of SAMCAR is quoted in the story as saying,  "SAMCAR’s priority is to expand affordable housing opportunities. Everybody can’t live in a million-plus home and the coastside community needs more housing for its workforce."

In its letter to the Board of Supervisors, their number-one priority appeared to be building more houses, regardless of price. SAMCAR said that it opposes designating the old Caltrans freeway bypass in Montara as open space because "being adjacent to the new tunnel, these properties would be ideal sites [for homes] given their proximity to transit."

The Chronicle featured Coastsider on the front of today’s business section and we’re getting a lot of new visitors today.

If you’re a new visitor, here are some things you might want to do while you’re here:

• Register: You don’t need to register to use Coastsider, but you do need to register to comment on stories.  It also gives us some information about who’s using the site.
• Read the top stories:  The most important stories posted in the last week are always listed in the "Top Stories" at the top of the page.
• Search the archives:  Coastsider has about 600 stories from the last year and all of them are available online.  Use the search field in the left-hand column to find out about stories you’re interested in.
• Post a classified ad:  Classifieds are free on Coastsider. The most recent ads posted are listed in the top right column.
• Sign up for alerts: Send us your email list and we’ll send you an email alert whenever breaking news is posted to Coastsider.
• Comment on a story:  Your comments are always welcome.  Just click on the link "comments" link below the headline of any story and add your comment in the box at the bottom of the comments page.
• Send us a story: Registered users can post stories and opinion pieces to the site. All stories will be reviewed by an editor before they are released.
• Send us an email:  If you have any story ideas, tips, comments, or suggestions, click on the "Email Barry Parr" link near the top of the left-hand column.
• Ask about advertising: We’re beginning to accept advertising. If you’re interested, click on the "Email Barry Parr" link near the top of the left-hand column

Coastsider is designed to be an interactive site. The more you participate, the more you’ll get out of and the better it will be.

This week there was a vandalism, possession of drugs, auto burglary, DUI, and a burglary of a park’s gate house.

Click "read more" to see the details

The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors will return to the proposed revisions to the county’s Local Coastal Program on Tuesday, June 7 at 10am.  The public is invited and welcome to comment. It’s not too late to make your voice heard on this important issue.

In preparation for the meeting, the Board has released a revised version of their guiding principles for evaluating the LCP changes [PDF of principles]. The principles are vague enough to encompass pretty much anything Supervisors decide to do.

While it recognizes the unique environment of the Coastside, it contains a clear recognition of "private property rights", without making clear whether it envisions greater protections than those afforded by the US Constitution regarding "takings".

In a letter the Board of Supervisors, Coastsider Chuck Kozak recommends the supervisors look to the California Coastal Act for principles:

I find [the draft principles] to be well-intentioned, but repetitive of existing policy and uncharacteristically indeterminate in addressing issues specific to development and resource preservation in the Coastal Zone. ... I will repeat my recommendations from your April 13 hearing that you consider adopting as guiding principles the findings and declarations expressed in Section 30001 of the California Coastal Act

Kozak’s detailed letter is worth reading.

The meeting will be in the Board of Supervisors chambers, Hall of Justice and Records, 400 County Center in Redwood City. The meeting will be broadcast the following Monday, June 13, at 10am.

Apparently, hysterical lefties are the only thing keeping the Coastside from being more like Foster City. That’s the conclusion you’d reach if all you had to go on was a pair of articles by Thomas Sowell linked from the Californians for Property Rights website today.

CPR is operated by Coastsider Terry Gossett, who was active in the unsuccessful struggle to keep the Midpeninsula Open Space District off the Coastside and is now fighting the changes to the Local Coastal Programs in both the city of Half Moon Bay and the unincorporated Midcoast.

Today, the CPR site links and quotes approvingly from two articles by Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Thomas Sowell. Well, the original version of the post quoted approvingly. The current version merely links.

Both of Sowell’s articles are worth reading for their entertainment value. Who can afford it? claims that open space laws are the reason that Bay Area real estate is so expensive. No, really, I swear that’s what Sowell claims. But I’m going to focus on A relic of the recent past, which declares that Foster City is "something of a triumph":

While Foster City is something of a triumph—a beautifully laid out community of attractive homes and condominiums, with parks and lovely lagoons on which boats sail, and miles of bicycle paths—it is also a reminder of the tragedy that no such community can be created today in many places, including the county in which it is located.

It is not that there is no vacant land left in San Mateo County. On the contrary, more than half the county consists of vacant land on which laws forbid the building of anything. Yet environmentalists there, as elsewhere, conjure up a vision in which the last few patches of greenery are threatened with being paved over.

I’d like to quote the whole thing, which is delightfully entertaining. You should read it for yourself. I recommend it. 

My opinion of Foster City is a matter of record. In a recent column in the Half Moon Bay Review, I said, "If we want a new library, or a new park, or smooth roads we have three alternatives. We can resolve to pay for them ourselves, stop complaining, or move to Foster City, where the roads are well-paved—and so is the coastline."

Foster City is a wonderful community if you don’t like to leave your car.  They have indeed done a lovely job of paving what Sowell calls a "swamp". Its parks are magnificent when viewed through your windshield. Its Chevy’s and its Olive Garden are as fine as any in America.  I’ve cycled along the Bay in Foster City and I can attest the fact that the asphalt bike trail that constitutes their coastside is flat as a Republican income tax. I’m sure its lagoons are lovely, but I don’t own a house on any of them, so I’ve never gotten a very good look.

If Thomas Sowell is asking us to decide whether it’s a "tragedy" that there will be no Foster City on the Coastside, I know where I stand—and I think I know where you stand.

The Midpeninsula Open Space District (MROSD) has agreed to manage Rapley Ranch, a 151-acre property owned by the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST). The ranch is adjacent to MROSD’s 1,827-acre Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve.

This is the first POST property that MROSD has agreed to manage on the Coastside and this announcement follows last week’s that the District is looking to buy two other POST properties on the coast.

For two year license the District will patrol, manage, clean, and secure the property—and plan for future use of the property as part of Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve. MROSD will seek grant funds to purchase the property from POST. 

The property be closed to public access, except for neighbors and docent-led activities with special permits.

Click "read more" to see the press release.