Coastal Restoration

A good example of the landscape of modern urban coastal communities and the developmental pressures involved with managing them.

After you read this story, read this important context from the LA Times about a less wild/more brown sitey type site adjacent to the Port of Los Angeles:

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-property-report-ponte-vista-20140807-story.html#page=1

The challenges here for people wanting to make money, for communities wanting to have a say in their neighborhoods, and for ecosystems are numerous.  Especially here in California.  I would suggest that we using any and every "road block" tool on development projects is ill placed.  There are certainly bad development projects out there.  But the current approach is often much more one of NIMBY rather than a reasoned approach to managing a growing population.

This is an interesting twist upon Local Coastal Plans.

While it may be a minor issue in some parts of the country/world, this is a big deal here in film-centric southern California.  

We certainly have places/examples where we have a heavy, intensive use of a particular area by Hollywood which could be considered disruptive or problematic for other users.  These include Leo Carrillo State Beach in Los Angeles County (just south of the LA-Ventura County line) and Hidden Valley (just north of the LA-Ventura County line).  Both of these have filming efforts that are pretty massive and disruptive, with you being almost guaranteed to see a major filming effort every seven days or so (at time much more frequent than that). But to outright ban the activity rather than seek to allow filming permits via county auspices seems a fool's errand.  And this is perfect fodder for the anti-regulation nut jobs who just love to say any regulation is too much regulation.

This whole incident has been very disappointing.  It ultimately shows how the wealthy and powerful from outside a community don't necessarily care about what makes a place unique nor for a true sense of place.

This same philosophy was behind the original creation of Thousand Oaks' original Oak Protection Ordinance.  And it was also this same region of the city that was the epicenter of the concern.  Several decades ago a massive, ultra-rich, gated Country Club development called Lake Sherwood went in.  It was the 70s and the owner was a certain gentleman who now owns perhaps the largest global media empire.  They killed and cleared an insane amount of trees, particularly oaks to make way for the golf course, mansions, etc..  In the wake of this fiasco, the City of Thousand Oaks created their first Oak Protection Ordinance.  So now when a small home owner wants to clear an oak on his or her property, there are several hurdles that must be cleared before that becomes legal.  This incident shows that we are all not created equal, however.  The folks with money and influence can simple get around such things with a simple visit to clerk at a desk.

Issues like these make environmental protection ordinances seem like just another special interest thing.  Not something that is meant to benefit everyone and help our planet.  We all should be held to both the letter and the spirit of the laws or seek to change them.  I suspect that the outcome of this (when all the dust settles) is to make it hard again for the small operator to manage woody species, but yet allow the big honchos to keep doing whatever they "need" to do.  Bummer.

I heard David speaking about this the other day.  Looks to be a good read.