Rock Revetment Work Now Underway on Broad Beach

• Homeowners Hope Emergency Project Is First Step to Resolution of Concerns

BY BILL KOENEKER

While huge trucks and cranes assisted by workers brought in 33,000 tons of rock to protect the multi-million dollar homes at Broad Beach this week from the encroaching ocean, the Trancas Property Owners Association issued a press release and its officers talked to the media.
The TPOA has obtained emergency permits from various agencies, including the City of Malibu and the California Coastal Commission, to place a rock revetment along approximately 4100 linear feet of Broad Beach on the ocean side of 77 homes. The emergency work should be completed by April 30 of this year.
The entire project is expected to cost $20 million and is described as the largest privately funded beach restoration project in United States history.
The ultimate long-range goal of the homeowners would be a restored dune system and a much wider dry and sandy beach area for public use.
Zan Marquis, acting co-chair of the TPOA’s beach restoration committee, explained how all of the parts came together to try to meld an emergency project into a long-term solution.
The homeowners got a briefing from their geological consultants based on recent studies that sand replenishment would be feasible on Broad Beach without groins. “The rate of sand loss would be about 60,000 cubic yards per year if about 600,000 cubic yards were deposited on the beach. That loss is considered acceptable. We did not know that until November,” Marquis said.
That information was critical to the homeowners and would become the basis for any long-term solution.
“Everybody hates groins, the public, the homeowners and the Coastal Commission,” he said. “What we are proposing is restoration of the dunes and a wide beach, plus agreement about public access along the replenished beach, except for a privacy buffer directly below the dunes.”
The access solution would be what Marquis called a universal public access, so that the confusing areas of lateral public accesses would be reconfigured.
“We told the coastal agency we want to negotiate a universal public access, instead of the checkerboard system we currently have,” he said.
Marquis said the homeowners group talked to CCC staff and executive director Peter Douglas about their proposal and got a preliminary green light.
The TPOA still needs much more detailed information about where the sand would come from, such as by dredging, and document the costs.
This nourishment would be required about every seven years, according to Marquis, who said the homeowners are also willing to form a Geological Hazard Abatement District. “There is widespread homeowner support, which is important since we would have to vote on that,” he added.
Marquis said the long-term solution offers many advantages. “The sand bags were failing and were causing downstream erosion. The sand replenishment would ultimately provide sand for Zuma Beach since its movement is down coast,” he said.
Even though riprap takes the shock of a wave, “no one wants walls of rock, including the homeowners,” said Marquis.
According to Marquis, several months ago, homeowners realized a long-term plan was gelling that was born out of need to take action on an emergency basis, a revetment was feasible, the sand replenishment would work and a solution was at hand. “We could replenish the sand and put it over the rocks,” he said, restoring the sand dunes and creating a wider, dry sand beach.
Marquis said the Coastal Commission would have to approve the permit along with other agencies.
However, questions remain unanswered about whether the temporary revetment will become a permanent one. Marquis said any long-term solution would require a permanent revetment, not the temporary one currently being placed on the beach.
Another question is whether the beach protection measure is located on private or public land.
“To the best of my knowledge, it is all private,” Marquis said.
However, a letter from the California Coastal Commission staff suggests the state agency may think otherwise.
That determination was the basis for the coastal agency becoming involved in issuing the emergency permit.
Marquis said the TPOA agreed to submit to the CCC for an emergency permit because ultimately the matter could end up in front of the coastal panel.
The city initially issued a permit for the emergency work in December, but the Coastal Commission staff indicated that jurisdictional issues were involved.
The CCC staff wrote about the rock revetment saying it had “determined” some, or all of a new rock revetment proposed by TPOA would “clearly be located seaward of the ambulatory mean high tide line,” and within the commission’s jurisdiction.
“Thus, construction of the temporary rock revetment, as proposed, would require an emergency coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission,” wrote Steve Hudson, district manager for the coastal agency.