SANTA CRUZ — The California Coastal Commission issued more than $4.7 million in fines Thursday against a group of beachfront homeowners in Aptos in what is the highest penalty the agency has levied in Santa Cruz County history.
“I do think the penalties are a little light given the intensity of the restriction, of the violations,” said Commissioner Donne Brownsey shortly before the vote after the commissioner had spent more than two hours on the agenda item. “It’s sad, I think, that this particular area – which is (a) very beautiful beachfront – kind of looks like a crime scene now.”
All five enforcement actions from the commission, a combination of cease-and-desist orders and penalties, were agreed to unanimously among its 12 voting members.
The fees were handed to the Rio Del Mar Beach Island Homeowners Association and its 27 members owning a row of properties along Beach Drive as well as Gaurav Singh and Sonal Puri, who own a home at 202 Beach Drive, where the pathway in question begins.
The decision was based on the commission staff’s assertion that Singh and Puri, along with the homeowners association, worked together to block public access to a quarter-mile-long stretch of walkway adjacent to the beach using bright orange makeshift plastic barriers and signs. Other fines stemmed from the homeowners’ failure to maintain native plants along a revetment abutting the walkway and properties.
Late last year Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Timothy Volkmann ruled in favor of the homeowners association in a lawsuit against Santa Cruz County that secured the group’s right to the beachside walkway.
Though the commission maintains that its enforcement actions are entirely separate from this litigation, Annie Vadaugna, a boardmember with the association, said in a statement to the Sentinel late Thursday that “The Coastal Commission refuses to accept Judge Volkmann’s decision against the County and has most recently attacked the homeowners by claiming that a 1980 seawall Coastal Permit issued to the Rio Del Mar HOA required public access across the small patios.”
Vadaugna continued, adding “There is no such condition on the permit and the Commission cannot invent one 43 years later in order to take private land for public use and attempt to extract unconscionable fines and penalties for using the small amount of private space.”
This story will be updated.