My neighbors are GREEDY:


Public beach remains a private playground

http://www.latimes.com/ne...ome-center




The vacant beach at right is county-owned but remains largely inaccessible to the public
Wealthy neighbors have fought for decades to thwart access to the county-owned El Sol Beach in Malibu.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 2, 2007
El Sol County Beach doesn't show up on maps of Malibu. Its bluff-top access way remains locked away behind a rusted chain-link and barbed-wire fence plastered with no-trespassing signs. The sandy beach below is effectively walled off by private property and rocky points of land at either end.

As a result, a public strip of beach serves mostly as a private enclave for adjacent property owners, including Michael Eisner, former chief executive of Walt Disney Co., and Gregory J. Bonann, co-creator of the "Baywatch" television series.


Photo Gallery
Secretive El SolThis weekend marks the passing of another summer in which Los Angeles County officials failed to open a prime beach purchased 30 years ago with taxpayer dollars on the promise that it would be used "for public recreation in perpetuity."

State officials have nudged the county over the years to ignore objections of the neighbors, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a needed public stairway to the beach below. The latest state grant of $700,000, intended in part to open El Sol Beach, was instead allocated by the county solely to improving access to Dan Blocker Beach down the coast.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said neighborhood opposition didn't figure into the county's decision not to open the beach. "It's an issue of money," he said. The state money, he said, was better spent on a parking lot and improved access to Dan Blocker Beach than on building an expensive stairway down El Sol's steep bluff face.

Yaroslavsky said he is a strong proponent of public access to beaches and has repeatedly stood up to El Sol's neighbors who would like to purchase the property "to foreclose the possibility that it become publicly accessible." In addition to rejecting several other offers for the land, he said, "we've told Eisner's people -- I've told him personally -- that we are not going to sell it."

But will El Sol ever be opened? "Ultimately," Yaroslavsky said. "The only question is when are we going to do it."

The saga of El Sol began in 1974, when the county applied for state park bond money to purchase the land for a public beach park, according to county records.

"When improved it will provide an excellent location for swimming, sunbathing, surf fishing, surfing, scuba and skin diving and other water-related activities," the application said.

Two years later, the county condemned 2.5 acres of private property, paying the owner $350,000 from state park bonds that were "conditioned on the county's agreement to use the property for public recreation in perpetuity," a memo states.

In 1980, the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors agreed to open and operate El Sol along with other public access ways in western Malibu. The state Coastal Conservancy awarded a $266,415 construction grant, including $101,473 for El Sol's stairway.

Neighbors immediately mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign to halt the opening, arguing that among other things, the public would despoil the fragile environment. The county Board of Supervisors postponed opening El Sol, with then-Supervisor Deane Dana citing concerns about operating costs.

Even as the county failed to act, the state, which owned three other "pocket beaches," moved forward and designated them as El Pescador, El Matador and La Piedra -- collectively called Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach.

But it took four years to open these beaches, as locals lobbied to halt the project, saying the beaches were unsafe for the public and that visitors would damage delicate marine and biological habitats. When the state began work on the site, vandals slashed tires, broke windshields and poured sand in gas tanks of construction vehicles and pushed a trailer and water truck over a cliff.

Initially the neighbors supported the beaches' public purchase, said Don Neuwirth, who then managed the California Coastal Commission's coastal access program, "because they didn't want big ugly McMansions to go up, and then they rallied to make sure they weren't developed as parks."

The county, he says, has been more swayed than the state by neighborhood objections. "The county . . . was very sympathetic to the Malibuvians and would not open that beach. It still hasn't."

In 1990, neighbors persuaded state and county officials to sell them the access road -- now gated -- that connects their properties and El Sol to Pacific Coast Highway. The county retained access rights to El Sol Beach "for parking, enhanced coastal access and public recreation."

County records show that state officials offered an ever-increasing amount of money to build the staircase and pay for the opening and initial operation of El Sol. Each time, county officials said the state wasn't offering enough money.

Meanwhile, neighbors continued to raise concerns about opening the property.

"We've made every possible overture including buying other land and trading it, a long-term lease and buying it outright. Nothing has worked," said "Baywatch" co-creator Bonann in a 2004 interview.

Why does every piece of available land have to be exploited in the name of fun for humans?

I'm with the "greedy neighbours". Leave it the way it is, beautiful and untouched by man's dirty hands.

here's your picture from the story



political will is an amazing entity
no one wants to bite the hand that feeds them

JustErin said:

I agree