City Council puts residents at risk
By Jim Wagner, Mark Stechbart
Pacifica Tribune Aug. 30, 2017
When
city council loses focus on the most critical issue facing
Pacifica—ocean rise—homeowners and businesses will lose. Or maybe the
warning should be homeowners will pay a huge price.
Ocean
rise planning for Pacifica coastal areas is underway. Sounds ok, but
this plan will decide who wins or loses—which properties are protected
and which properties are left to ocean erosion.
Pacifica is faced with a policy menu ranging from uncontrolled erosion
known as managed retreat to state-of-the-art engineered artificial
off-shore reefs, berms, revetments, boulders and seawalls like the Dutch
have used for 1,000 years.
What
may shock anyone with a home or business investment along or west of
Hwy 1 is this city council has not taken a position against managed
retreat. Yes you heard us right—managed retreat, letting
the ocean chew its way east, is on the table for debate through this
coastal planning process.
Moreover,
the consultant hired by the city for $185,000 to plot the future of
west of Hwy 1 has a decided fascination with managed retreat. As an
example, the hired consultant wrote a letter to
San Francisco stating the Sharp Park golf course should be closed and
flooded to wetlands. This plan would involve removing the protective
sea wall, and letting the tides in.
Here’s
the homeowner danger-- a flooded golf course with no western seawall
blows a large hole in Pacifica right up to Hwy 1. It also brings the
ocean to the doorstep of the south Palmetto neighborhood
and west Fairway neighborhood.
Your city council hired this outfit on a 3-2 vote.
Managed
retreat exposure elsewhere in town certainly involves the Rockaway
business district, anywhere in west Sharp Park; the Linda Mar beach ;
the middle school and all neighborhood houses. A
huge percentage of Pacifica businesses are west of Hwy 1; most of our
hotels; thousands of homes; a big chunk of our affordable rentals at
the north end and millions of dollars of sewer, water, power and
communication infrastructure. Let’s not forget the
threat to Hwy 1, our only north-south arterial. How will anyone commute
out of town if Hwy 1 is cut? How will anyone sell a home anywhere in
town if potential buyers are afraid Hwy 1 will be cut?
Congresswoman Jackie Speier recently objected to a managed retreat scheme at Sharp Park, as follows:
“I
write to express my opposition to proposals to abandon or prohibit the
maintenance of the sea wall at Sharp Park golf
course in Pacifica. Proposals like this continue a series of
thinly-veiled and ideologically-motivated attacks, all unsuccessful in
the courts, against the golf course, the wetlands protecting endangered
and threatened species, and the nearby residential neighborhood.”
Here
is our suggested work plan for Pacifica homeowners who want to keep
their home value and businesses who desire to
stay in business—we must make this city council agree to reject managed
retreat as a "solution". Anything less threatens this community.
Require the consultant to find and design solutions that protect this
community. Additionally, let’s continue to support
our members of Congress, State Senate, Assembly and Supervisor as they
secure funding to protect our coast.
In
the last election, a billion dollar bond was approved to protect the
interior of the SF Bay from ocean rise. SF Int’l
airport, Google, Facebook, and Hwy 101 will be protected. So will
Millbrae, Palo Alto, Foster City and Burlingame. None of those entities
agreed to managed retreat, nor should they. So Pacifica can say no as
well.
The
rest of our task is clear. This consultant will make introductory
presentations to the City Council and the Planning Commission in
September, 2017. A technical working group and a Community
Advisory Group will be organized, each of which will hold 3 meetings,
starting in Dec., 2017. Stakeholder/community engagement meetings will
also be in Dec., 2017.
As we raise this alarm, we will speak at
these meetings even during the busy holiday period. You will get
communications to your homes outlining progress, or asking for emails to
hesitant council
members who won’t commit to rejecting managed retreat.
Your home value and the economic
vitality of this town are in question. We can use existing technology
to protect our coast and way of life, or you get to figure out how to
move your house and
get a boat for your commute.
(
Wagner and Stechbart are long term Pacifica residents active in the
Pacifica Business and Community PAC supporting forward looking solutions
to Pacifica issues)
Submitted by Mark Stechbart
